The Lorraine Uprising Project - closing remarks.

The idea to stage a diversion was born when late stages of planning The Champagne Heist revealed that to have chance of capturing the Council technology from Chaumont and Cambrai battlegroups that were in the process of being scrapped succesfully we could not face the Union Forces head on, or let them lay idle and have time to reinforce the EFL corporate defenders en masse.

Hence in May the idea was revealed.

(05-25-2021, 11:29 PM)Lionel Boucher Wrote:
An unprecedented distraction
We will need a distraction. One of massive proportions. Orkney was a child's play next to this. Every piece of our propaganda machine will need to be at work, a lot of money will have to be spent, the Liberated Gallia thruth spreading outlet will be told to go into overdrive. We will hire multiple 3rd parties.

It is a crazy, bold and complicated plan, but if succesful it will buy us more than enough time. Even if somehow The Union sniff out or plan, they will have no choice but to move their forces away from Champagne, or risk a massive political blow to their entire regime. I am not ready to reveal said plan until I confirm the High Command that it is even feasible. But stay tuned.

Choosing Lorraine
The diversion was decided to be Lorraine after long deliberation. The system was a bastion of Royalist support, even during the Confederacy. The Union and former Royals and their armies would stop at nothing to not lose a system like this, either to independence or even Maquisard control. Lucky for The Front, there was an opening - Gallic News Service: Food Issues on Metz. Famine is the breeding ground for discontempt of the lowest classes, one we could abuse for our own ends.

The Lorraine system also was heavily damaged since the War, and there was the easiest access by Sirians - either mercenaries we could hire, haulers that could give us and Sirius support, and even the Outcasts causing issues - the instability of the system was a breeding ground for propaganda impact.

Issues - cannot go it alone
To credibly stage a fake uprising that would draw the bulk of the Navy forces from Champagne we knew propaganda on the Neural Net and in the press alone was not going to cut it. We needed feet on the ground in Lorraine. We had a big issue however, the entire logistical strenght of The Front was nowhere near Lorraine - them and our physical propaganda Runners were scouting and securing the Champagne system, so were the majority of our forces, readying and carefully planning the Champagne Heist all year.

Along with the LGNS being encouraged to grossly overplay the issues on Metz and intent of the Maquis and direct propaganda being pumped out en masse, we needed people, people we didn't have.

This is where the Sirians came in. A by-effect of this action would be long term softening of the Anti-Sirian Union doctrine, but really all we cared about is chaos in the system and getting propaganda into the hands of people of Lorraine without the need to be physically present and divert resources from Champagne, all to add credibility to our plan. Sirian haulers were called and paid for at great expense. We have even negotiated a temporary Embargo break with the BAF. Our plans aside, the Sirians have surprised us by the readiness with which they were willing to help the common people of Gallia and work with us, there just might be hope for the furure afterall, and our pro-Sirian focus that builds on the Council tradition is finally bearing fruits. That was not our priority however at that moment. We wanted to create discontempt on Metz and flood the planet with propaganda using our contacts with presence on the planet and means of distribution.

This worked incredibly well, the Union counter-propaganda added even more credibility to the Uprising. This wasn't all, we have used an affiliated man with Sirian contacts to incite Sirian mercenaries to cause chaos in Lorraine. We have called the Blood Dragons for help, the group who has been bonding with Maquisards in Tau-53 for years and even routed the KNF and KSP together few months ago, and even asked the Golden Chrysanthemums to add to the chaos.

The "Uprising" begins
In a way many Maquisards were the victims of our own propaganda success - for a minute many seem to have started believing we could actually win in the former Royalist bastion. Our plan to simply draw the Union forces in and disable the gate behind them without the fight was forgotten about as many Maquisards have rallied, the Outcasts were a wild card that could strongly create even more chaos and Sirian Haulers were doing a better than expected job.

When the fighting broke out it was clear that there will be no victory for us in Lorraine. We realized that even without vast majority of our forces being focused on Champagne there would be no victory in Lorraine. The Union so grossly over-reacted to our propaganda they have sent a dominating armada that must have been syphoned from entire Gallia.


The Uneven fighting soon broke out, and the battle raged on for days.

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[Weekend Event] The Lorraine Uprising

The heroism reached incredible heights, we convinced the Union that we actually commited to Lorraine so hard that at times a single fighter of ours managed to draw an entire armada of warships to furiously pursue it, our defenceless liners were chased far into Nebulae by multiple warships.

The Departure
Our goal achieved, the entire Union Armada present in Lorraine, we proceeded with our plan. Destination: Champagne

Code:

[07.11.2021 19:42:12] [FLG]Balian.Remi.: We make our move! Prepare Maquissards!
[07.11.2021 19:42:29] Jump drive charge 100%
[07.11.2021 19:42:39] [FLG]Balian.Remi.: Citizens of Lorraine, The Maquissards have paved your way, rise up, fight!
[07.11.2021 19:42:40] OK Coordinates verified: Champagne 55194.224.9775
[07.11.2021 19:42:42] /jump
[07.11.2021 19:42:45] [FLG]VG-Bulldozer: Good luck Lorraine

Epilogue
We have achieved greatness here. This plan seemed so crazy, so insane and hard to pull off few believed it would work out. In the end, we have lost more Maquisards than we would have if our propaganda was not so succesful, our own people started believing our own hype and actually thought we could go to head with the Union forces after telegraphing our intent for months.


Lorraine has shown that even with bolstered Pamiers Battlegroup any conflict in the open should be avoided at all costs for years to come when the Union has time to prepare, the extremist arm should be in the frontlines doing what they do best with their plots, while the soon to be bolstered Military arm only going after isolated objectives where they won't be forced to face the entire Union Armada in the open.


The Lorraine uprising has been a massive victory on the battlefield of propaganda and ability of getting 3rd parties and Sirius involved in aid of liberating Gallia. It lead to more than enough space created for Champagne to be an effortless success. The clear defeat in the open battlefields of Lorraine however revealed that we have a massive hill to climb before we have any semblance of a chance of defeating the Union. Especially after the treatcherous abomination that the Confederacy was showed us that our enemies must be wholesomely defeated and partial victory that would force compromising with them is out of the question.