The Containment Wars and the Creation of the Sanctuaries (Part II)
War between Man and ANAD came again in the year 2099, not
long after the Truce of Alexandria had been signed. In some respects, perhaps, it was even more
inevitable than the earlier conflict. Today, this larger conflict is known as
the Second Containment War.
United Nations
Quantum Corps “Official History of The Containment Wars: The Second Containment
War (2099 to 2100); CH 10 Operation Eden
Sweep.”
(from “The
Archives of the United Nations Quantum Corps”)
General Strategy
Analysis of intelligence sources from Q2 indicated that the
Truce of Alexandria, brokered at the end of the 1st Containment War
(March 2098) was destined to last for only a limited time. The Truce created the Sanctuaries. A key element of this Truce was that Config
Zero and the swarms would confine themselves to defined areas and within those
areas, they would have sovereignty and be able to make whatever environmental
modifications they wanted. These were
the Sanctuaries and Q2 sources indicated that such arrangements were a key part
of the Prime Key, the command and control system which drove Config Zero and
all swarm operations on Earth.
Later intercepts and intelligence indicated that the Keeper
system, ultimately determined to be located on the Jovian moon Europa, began
operating around the time of the Truce of Alexandria. Analysis of quantum signals showed
conclusively that, by late 2099 and early 2100, signals from the Keeper had
altered the stable and quiescent state of Config Zero, re-animated the swarms
and swarm movements out of the agreed-upon Sanctuaries began at this time.
Operation Jovian
Hammer was conceived to locate and either destroy or render harmless this
Keeper system. Results of the operation
were inconclusive (see Operation Jovian
Hammer: Mission Details and History, Volume 10, Section 22 of the Official
History of the Containment Wars).
By January 2100, the United Nations Security Affairs
Commissioner (UNSAC) and UNIFORCE determined that more drastic measures were
necessary to stop and roll back increasing violations of the Sanctuary
agreements. Direct engagement with
elements of Quantum Corps, Sanctuary Patrol and regular military formations had
been mostly ineffective. Swarm formations
under the direct command of Config Zero pushed outward from established
Sanctuaries in all directions, leading to battles at Cairo, up and down the
Italian peninsula and throughout the Balkans.
Additional engagements occurred in the Kenya-Somalia sector and on
northwest islands of the Indonesian archipelago (see Caroline Islands Campaign, Dec 2099 through March 2100).
Thus was born the concept for Operation Eden Sweep.
The principle behind Operation Eden Sweep was as old as organized warfare itself and was perhaps
most famously used by the Greek army in their conflicts with Troy, as recounted
in Virgil’s epic poem the Aeneid,
notably culminating in a strategic deception campaign which history records as
the story of the Trojan Horse.
As direct confrontation of UNIFORCE nanobotic swarm elements
against Config Zero forces had been mostly ineffective, a new strategy was
developed for Eden Sweep.
This strategy made use of a growing social-political
philosophy known as Assimilationism (see Assimilationism
and Related Politico-Cultural Developments 2080 to 2100, UNESCO Briefings and Letters,
Volume IV). Adherents of
Assimilationism believed that humans and machines were destined to merge
together and become symbiotic lifeforms; nanobotic devices and swarm
formations, especially in their later evolutions, were seen as the means for achieving
this symbiosis.
Operation Eden Sweep
put out a public call for volunteers to undergo assimilation, in which their
physical bodies would be deconstructed and re-patterned into swarm formations
compatible with ANAD-style systems, specifically with Config Zero swarms. A truce had previously been proposed to
Config Zero in which assimilation volunteers would be made available for
incorporation into the greater swarm.
This was seen to be a concession to one of the key elements of the Prime
Key and Config Zero agreed to halt swarm movements in order for this process to
be organized and initiated.
However, as the Greeks did with their Trojan Horse, UNIFORCE
had arranged to insert a specific assault configuration into the decomposed
pattern of each volunteer. Once the
volunteers had assumed a re-patterned swarm-compatible configuration, the
assault configuration would be triggered.
The operational plan was for the ‘infected’ but decomposed
volunteers to attack Config Zero swarms from inside the swarm, overcoming
normal swarm defenses and tactics from within the swarms’ defensive perimeter.
One controversy developed late in planning of Eden Sweep, when engineers critical of
the assimilation process and philosophy argued in classified briefings that the
technology to retrieve assimilated humans and re-configure their patterns into
functional human beings was very much in its earliest stages…there was limited
assurance that the volunteers could ever be successfully retrieved. However, the demands of the war effort and
the desperate tactical situation on the ground in the European and African
theaters were such that the Secretary-General waived all consent requirements
and allowed the operation to proceed as planned.
The Fronts
There were three primary theaters of operation during the
Second Containment War: Europe/Mediterranean Basin, East Africa and the SW
Pacific.
The operational center of Config Zero’s swarm activity was
determined by Quantum Corps Intelligence (Q2) to be near the original
archaeological dig site at Engebbe, Kenya, later inside the mountain complex at
Mt. Kipwezi. Consequently, swarm
operations and engagements in east Africa and around the perimeter of the
original east Africa sanctuary boundaries were the most intense of the
War. Almost all swarm movements
throughout the European and African theaters originated from this
location.
After the Battle of the Nile Valley and Cairo, in August
2099, swarm operations began expanding throughout the eastern and central
Mediterranean basin, into Greece and the Balkan Peninsula, then into Italy and
southeastern France and Switzerland.
The Euro-African front saw the most intense engagements of
the entire War.
An additional theater of operations developed in the western
Pacific, around the perimeter of the Pacific Sanctuary. Early engagements in the Caroline Islands and
the Solomon Island chain centered on containing swarm expansion at Fiji and
Vanuatu, leading to the 1st and 2nd Battles of Espiritu
Santo in November and December of 2099.
These engagements blocked the westward advance of the swarms and
prevented swarm penetration into the Indonesian archipelago and Australia. A stalemate developed along this line and
many of the remaining Pacific engagements were holding actions and skirmishes
between Quantum Corps/Sanctuary Patrol forces and the swarms along this line of
advance.
No further advances by Config Zero were made into east or
southeast Asia as of the time this History was compiled.
Key Engagements
The northernmost point of advance of the swarms in Europe
occurred at and around the time of the Battle of Thuns-les-Bains, a small
French city in southeast France, in the French Alps.
Battle-tested elements of Sanctuary Patrol Central
Mediterranean Division engaged swarms inside the town and in the countryside
around the town. By this time in the
War, Config Zero swarms had mastered the arts of deception and camouflage, and
were able to assume configurations resembling buildings and Normals in the
area. SP forces found engaging the
swarms with any kind of tactical advantage extremely difficult. Some units prosecuted a scorched-earth type
of assault, essentially destroying everything that could be used by the swarms
as concealment. This tactic was controversial
and eventually led to Sanctuary Patrol rules of engagement which reduced
instances of friendly fire and whole-scale destruction of infrastructure.
However, the tactics were successful in blunting the
northward advance of the swarms and were employed in modified form throughout
the remainder of the War.
A second key engagement in the Euro-African theater was the
Battle of Cairo, July 12-14, 2099. This
battle was a series of engagements up and down the lower Nile Valley in and
around Cairo, culminating in the Battle of the Moqattam Hills (Citadel). Elements of Quantum Corps 1st
Nanospace Battalion, along with units of Sanctuary Patrol, 2nd
Mediterranean Battalion, out of Cyprus and First Egyptian Corps out of Cairo,
engaged swarm formations along the banks of the Nile River south of Cairo. The battles raged for several days and
ultimately converged on the Citadel complex in the Moqattam Hills east of
Cairo, where intense street-by-street combat combined with flanking maneuvers
from UNIFORCE and quick configuration changes by Quantum Corps engineers
enabled defense forces to hold off a determined thrust by the swarms and push
them back from central Cairo.
These engagements are thought by military historians to have
been important reasons for the a tactical re-direction by Config Zero swarm
forces away from Sinai and the Levant sectors, toward the central Mediterranean
and the Balkan and Italian peninsulas.
C-99 and the Turning
Point
Unquestionably, the development and employment of the C-99
assault configuration coincident with use of Assimilationist volunteers, during
a brief period of truce with Config Zero, to set up a sabotage operation inside
the swarms’ command and control system, was the turning point of the 2nd
Containment War.
The C-99 configuration was a special design from Quantum
Corps at Table Top Mountain, Idaho, USA.
The nanobotic design was formulated to resemble the swarmbots of Config
Zero has closely as possible, and to mimic their tactics and operations as
well. The central tactic of Operation Eden Sweep was to gain time from Config
Zero by using Assimilationist volunteers to embed multiple copies of C-99
inside the enemy swarms and use the position of these C-99 ‘carriers’ to
assault enemy swarms from within.
At the same time as the C-99 assault began, Quantum Corps
and Sanctuary Patrol, with associated UNIFORCE units, were to begin a
coordinated assault, ignoring any truce agreements that had been made, to push
Config Zero swarms back toward their original sanctuaries.
It was considered a high-risk operation, with plenty of
variables that could not be accounted for or planned for. The operation was approved by CINCQUANT, LT
GEN Jurgen Kraft and by UNSAC himself, a bold tactical move reminiscent of
General Douglas MacArthur’s daring amphibious landing at In’chon in September
1951, which turned the tide of the Korean War in its earliest weeks.
The operation was set to be initiated at H-Hour, 0000 hours,
2 June, 2100.
The nanobotic configuration C-99 not only closely resembled
Config Zero swarmbots in general shape and function, with similar effector
arrays and propulsors, the configuration also was designed with platform fold
lines and planes, and multi-qubit quantum processors to enable the bots to
change configuration with unprecedented
speed and accuracy. This
attribute would prove crucial in the earliest minutes and hours of the initial
assault.
At H-Hour, command of the operation was handled by a special
command and control element embedded with CINCQUANT in the Haven One undersea command post beneath the Atlantic. Using quantum couplers with enhanced
entanglers and specially designed encryption filters, Haven One was able to synchronize all C-99 carriers to within less
than 6 microseconds. GO codes were
transmitted at H-Hour and C-99 carriers, by now all disassembled elements of
the original Assimilationist volunteers, executed the configuration change in
unison.
Drone, nanobotic and satellite reconnaissance indicated that
the initial configuration change of C-99 into its designed assault state and
the start of grappling and bond-breaking assault operations caught Config Zero
by complete surprise. Swarm defenses
were sluggish and poorly coordinated, especially when exterior HERF barrages
were brought to bear along almost every front in southern Europe and the
Mediterranean. Along the south Pacific
and the Amazon sanctuary boundaries, similar results were observed.
In less than two hours, measurable reductions in enemy swarm
activity along the front could be observed.
Config Zero, for the first time in nearly 8 months, was in general and
chaotic retreat from its forward, most exposed positions.
The End of the War
Operation Eden Sweep,
in its primary assault phase, synchronized C-99 engagements with HERF and
magpulse weapons barrages and ANAD assaults from UNIFORCE elements located all
along the Euro-African, Pacific and Amazonian fronts. This phase lasted about 3 days. In this 70-hour time period, Config Zero
swarms were destroyed in detail or rendered inert throughout the sectors of
south France, Italy, the Balkan peninsula and much of the Levant, Egypt and
north Africa.
The C-99 configuration, loaded aboard basic ANAD nanobots
with enhanced replication ability, was particularly effective against Config
Zero swarms. Time and again, across
multiple fronts in all theaters, UNIFORCE bot swarms were able to engage the
enemy from within his own swarms at the same time as external barrages were
initiated along the swarm perimeter.
This combination frequently overwhelmed Config Zero’s ability to
replicate fast enough with enough swarm mass to keep UNIFORCE elements from
advancing.
By 5 June, 2100, at 1745 hours UCT, UNIFORCE Command in the
eastern Mediterranean sector detected multiple quantum-entangled signals on
many channels from Config Zero.
Confirmation of the transmission came several hours later from Farside
Station, at Korelev Crater on the Moon.
Q2 determined that these signals were transmitting from a location
inside the east Africa sanctuary and were directed outward, off-Earth, in the
general direction of M75 in the constellation Sagittarius. Detected signals were of an entangled state,
encrypted so strongly, that Q2 has not yet been able to decipher their content. However, Intelligence analysts believe that
the signals constitute an urgent request for assistance from the mother swarm
thought to be transiting that sector of the galaxy.
In other words, Config Zero was calling home, and calling
for help.
Additional transmissions were detected on at least four
other occasions over the next twenty-four-hour period. Coincident with these transmissions, Config
Zero swarms began a general retreat on all fronts, across the globe, pulling
back to more concentrated positions roughly equivalent to the original sanctuaries
specified in the Alexandria accords.
UNIFORCE, after some initial assessment of the enemy’s intent, continued
to engage Config Zero in southern Europe and northern Africa, but operations
became increasingly more sporadic and C-99 assaults were eventually suspended
on orders from UNSAC, at 1030 hours, 6 June 2100.
In the days following this suspension, only isolated
engagements between outlying elements of Config Zero swarms and UNIFORCE
elements have occurred, primarily to consolidate positions in North Africa and
along and south of the Solomon Islands in the SW Pacific.
By 9 June, 2100, a de facto truce had fallen over the
battlefields of Europe and the Pacific.
No additional movements of Config Zero swarms have been observed in any
sector. Indeed, swarm activity has
returned to a nearly quiescent state, devoted mainly to maintenance replication
only. No attempt has been made to
penetrate these sanctuaries with reconnaissance or special forces units, although
plans to do so were offered at several after-action briefings held at Haven One. Drone and bot recon patrols continue along
all sanctuary perimeters, but Config Zero has offered no reaction or response.
The quiescent mode continues.
At 0000 hours, on 12 June, 2100, tactical operational
control of Operation Eden Sweep was
shifted from Haven One, back to
UNIFORCE Headquarters at the Quartier-General in Paris, which had sustained
moderate damage in several swarm offensives in and around Paris. Flag command was transferred and both UNSAC
and CINCQUANT resumed full operations at Paris the following day….
The Second Containment War resulted in a decisive victory
for the Normals against Config Zero and its allied swarms. But no one really thought the swarms would
lie dormant for long. UNIFORCE
understood that until the day that the Prime Key could be deciphered and
blocked or defeated, future conflict was inevitable. Surveillance and reconnaissance continues to
this day.
Look for the next post in the first half of October 2015, where
we will begin a detailed look at some of the major bases and facilities used by
Quantum Corps, starting with the history, layout and mission of the most famous
base of all: Table Top Mountain,
located in Idaho, USA.
See you in October.
