| abstract
| - The Battle of Duros, codenamed Operation: CERTAIN VALOR by the Imperial Special Operations Command and colloquially known as the Invasion of Borosk, was an engagement between the Galactic Empire and the Galactic Alliance Core Fleet on the Galactic Alliance-held world of Duros in the Core Worlds, in 130 ABY. It was one of the last battles of the waning Sith-Imperial War. The battle was precipitated as part of the Galactic Empire's final and grave incursion of the Core Worlds, in an attempt to crush the waning Galactic Alliance and conclude the relatively brief Sith-Imperial War. Under part of this sweeping galactic campaign, large numbers of Imperial Navy warships assaulted the world of Duros, a major Galactic Alliance world in the Core Worlds. Substantial numbers of Imperial infantry, such as stormtroopers and Imperial Special Forces, were also assigned to assault the world. However, Gar Stazi, Commander-in-Chief of the Galactic Alliance Core Fleet, had a modest naval fleet in orbit to oppose the Imperial invasion. Although the overwhelming press of arms of the Imperial forces had essentially guaranteed a certain and brief victory, Stazi's expert maneuvering of his naval elements allowed him to incur heavy casualties amongst the Imperial Navy's vessels, who had been rakishly aggressive and overcommitted to a brief victory. With the Imperial orbital campaign stalled and frustrated, Imperial Special Forces, supported by elite airborne infantry of the conventional 501st Legion, were ordered to insert through the dense orbital defenses and decant onto the surface, where they would undertake preparatory missions to disrupt the Alliance's surface defenses and to prepare the way for the main body of the planetary assault, where large numbers of conventional forces would insert onto the planet. Under this stratagem, Saber Force and Army Special Forces, complemented by 501st paratroopers, would insert onto the planetary surface by means of armored shuttles and interceptor escorts. Meanwhile, Naval Special Warfare and Marine Advance Force Operations forces would insert by means of high-speed orbit-to-surface insertion vehicles, in a complimentary approach. Once inserted past the dense orbital and aerial defenses, Saber Force, Army Special Forces, and Naval Special Warfare teams would then attack Alliance anti-orbital emplacements on the ground, relieving pressure off of the beleaguered Navy forces in orbit, and then disrupt Alliance surface contingents, therefore neutralizing their combat effectiveness against the main body of Imperial infantry to land later, once the orbital theater had been secured. Marine Advance Force Operations teams would conduct reconnaissance to secure landing zones for Navy vessels to land and debark their infantry legions. The hasty Imperial Special Forces assault on the surface, prompted by the stalled naval battle, however, would resolve into a disaster. Duros's potent anti-orbital and anti-fighter defenses destroyed numerous shuttles and insertion vehicles carrying Special Forces teams, especially those containing Battle Control Teams. The few Special Forces units that survived to the surface were disorganized and were unable to communicate with their orbital commanders as a result of the loss of many Battle Control Teams, therefore rendering the entire Special Forces campaign disastrous and moot. Stazi continued to wage an elegant orbital campaign, eventually leaving sectors of Duros's orbit exposed, and allowing Imperial Navy vessels to land and disembark conventional infantry and armor detachments to attack Alliance ground defenses. However, it was a sophisticated ploy, splitting up and weakening the Imperial Navy's highly-attritted forces in orbit — and the sectors invaded by Imperial ground forces turned out to be heavily-defended Alliance fortresses that Stazi had intended for the Imperials to attack. Alliance ground casualties were few, while coordinated traps and artillery fire led to substantial losses amongst Imperial forces on the ground. With heavy surface losses, and even worse naval losses in orbit, the Imperial assault was considered stalled — through expert fighting and strategic ingenuity, the defending Alliance forces, led by Stazi, led to a near 1:4 casualty ratio amongst Alliance to Imperial vessels, with the overwhelming number of Imperial vessels completely wasted by Stazi's keen tactics. With it being clear that the Empire could not take Duros without committing even further forces, the Sith ordered that if the Empire could not take Duros, that no one should — Saber Force teams were ordered to use extraordinarily high-powered explosives to ignite Duros's massive stores of subterranean volatile baradium — a planetwide ignition that would vaporize most of Duros's surface and would render it utterly uninhabitable. The planet — recently Vongformed from its previous polluted waste — was again utterly annihilated as powerful and incandescent shockwaves of incalculable magnitude ripped through its crust, instantly slaughtering billions of civilians on its surface and leading to the assured destruction of Duros's biosphere. The battle polarized many neutral worlds, who were horrified that the Sith were capable of ordering such atrocities. More importantly, the battle would profoundly effect Gar Stazi — who upon watching his homeworld vaporized by the Empire, would commit resolutely, for the billions of civilians massacred on Duros — to never surrender to the Empire.
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