Operation Bulldog

Introduction

In 3058, fresh from its devastating war with longtime rival, Clan Wolf, Clan Jade Falcon invaded the Lyran Alliance in a show of strength intended to dissuade any opponents who might have hoped to take advantage of the weakened Falcon Clan. After penetrating two hundred light years into Lyran space, the invaders dug in on the world of Coventry, just short of the Tukayyid Truce line, and challenged the Inner Sphere to send its best troops against them.

In response, the Great House of the Inner Sphere formed a joint task force - the first time military commanders from every Great House had joined to fight side by side against a common foe since the fall of the Star League. Under the command of ComStar's Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht and Prince Victor Steiner-Davion of the Federated Commonwealth, the task force offered the Falcons hegira - the opportunity to withdraw with honor - which the invaders accepted. In the wake of the bloodless victory, Steiner-Davion proposed that the Inner Sphere powers assemble a united force and take the war to the Clans.


The leaders of the Inner Sphere greeted this proposal enthusiastically and, on 3 October 3058, the leaders of every Inner Sphere power assembled on the world of Tharkad to formally discuss the matter. During that meeting, Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht proposed that the leaders form a united front to face the Clans by creating a unified political body and a coalition military force.


The assembled leaders agreed and took the historic step of drafting a new Star League Constitution. Sun-Tzu Liao, Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation, was appointed to the ceremonial post of First Lord. His selection symbolically raised him to equal status with the leaders of the larger and more powerful Great Houses, and served as a strong show of Inner Sphere solidarity.


Almost immediately, the House leaders and their strategists began to devise an ambitious plan to claim the offensive in the war against the Clans. Thus was born Operation Bulldog, one of the largest military operation undertaken in the history of mankind - and perhaps the greatest victory ever achieved by the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere.



Taking the War to the Enemy
The Great Houses chose to launch their campaign against the Clans with an assault on Clan Smoke Jaguar, because the war between Clans Jade Falcon and Wolf had made the Jaguars the strongest Crusader Clan force in Inner Sphere space. By striking at the Jaguars, the House leaders hoped to show all the Clans that the armies of the Inner Sphere could stand united against them and match or exceed them in martial prowess.


The Inner Sphere leaders also targeted the Jaguars because that Clan had concentrated its conquests and forces in Draconis Combine space, meaning that the coalition force could use the Combine's strict control of news media to more easily prevent news of its plans from leaking to the Clans' intelligence network. Furthermore, Combine Coordinator Theodore Kurita correctly believed that the coalition could persuade Clan Nova Cat - who held Inner Sphere planets in the same corridor occupied by Smoke Jaguar and considered Clan Smoke Jaguar its mortal enemy - to deny aid to the Jaguars and thereby help the Inner Sphere cause.


The coalition's military planners planned to begin the offensive against the Jaguars by inserting small guerrilla units on Jaguar-held worlds to distract the Jaguars from the coalition's preparations and persuade the Clan to reassign front-line units to deal with the insurgents. The newly formed SLDF would launch all five waves of the main offensive - code named Operation Bulldog - in the space of eight months in order to keep the Smoke Jaguars off-balance. Conservative estimates put the conclusion of the first wave at five months, just before the fourth wave launch, and the conclusion of the second wave a year after the start of the invasion. A large reserve force, under the command of Morgan Hasek-Davion, would move into the Combine as the invasion began, prepared to blunt any Jaguar attempt at a counteroffensive.



Unlikely Allies
Initially, the other Inner Sphere leaders met with hostility Coordinator Theodore Kurita's proposal that the coalition exploit the Nova Cats' disdain for the Jaguars by enlisting the Nova Cats as allies in the offensive. Theodore managed to persuade them, however, by pointing out that Clan Nova Cat need not be made a part of the coalition force; the alliance he envisioned would require no more than a certain minimal cooperation between the Nova Cats and the Inner Sphere. He correctly guessed that the Nova Cats could be persuaded to aid the coalition by simply offering token resistance against coalition forces on worlds in the Nova Cat occupation zones, rather than weakening the Inner Sphere army with all-out fights.


The Nova Cats responded to the Coordinator's initial overtures with an immediate level of cooperation that suggested knowledge of Theodore Kurita's plans. Nova Cat commanders voluntarily revealed the numbers and quality of their "defending" troops by issuing preemptive batchalls to DCMS forces, and in several cases bargained down their forces to the point where no actual fighting took place. This indirect aid enabled the coalition to concentrate its forces against the Jaguars and reduced the burden of administering liberated worlds after the offensive.


Reportedly, Theodore Kurita's attempts to persuade the Nova Cats were greatly aided by the visions of a Nova Cat Khan in which a dragon severely mauled a nova cat, and in which a nova cat and a dragon together killed a smoke jaguar.



The Dragon Roars
In one of the largest military campaigns ever launched, the Inner Sphere coalition force rolled over Smoke Jaguar positions in just under four months. The campaign took place in two phases: an advance guerrilla campaign code-named Operation Bird Dog, and an all-out assault code-named Operation Bulldog.



Operation Bird Dog
On 13 May 3059, the Precentor Martial and Prince Victor Steiner-Davion agreed that all was in place for the assault. The word went out that day to launch Operation Bird Dog, the prelude to the main assault. Small, company-strength commands - mostly ad hoc provisional units formed from the large regimental commands of the Lyran Alliance, Federated Commonwealth and Draconis Combine - jumped to pirate points at nine worlds behind the Smoke Jaguar front. Armed with Clan and Combine-designed OmniMechs, these units waged guerrilla campaigns against the Smoke Jaguar forces on the targeted worlds until the main invasion force reached them.


The operation was a resounding success. The advance troops disrupted Clan operations on the targeted worlds and misled the Smoke Jaguars into thinking that the coalition offensive was limited in scope and strength. The guerrilla units also tested the Jaguars' defenses and provided accurate intelligence for the main force, and crippled the Jaguars' ability to meet a large-scale assault by raiding Jaguar stockpiles and causing Clan commanders to scatter their forces across a wide area of space. Perhaps most important, the advance units prevented Smoke Jaguar garrison troops from reinforcing their comrades on planets targeted in the first wave of the invasion.


According to all observations, the Smoke Jaguars were neither expecting nor prepared for the full-scale assault that hit them just a few weeks after the guerrilla campaign had begun.



Operation Bulldog
Spearheaded by the tenacious regimental commands of the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery. the coalition force advanced rapidly into the Smoke Jaguar occupation zone, capturing world after world with amazing speed. Confounding early estimates that put Wave One at five months' duration, the first wave of Operation Bulldog lasted just more than five days. Consequently, the coalition forces launched Waves Two, Three and Four months ahead of schedule and managed to achieve its objectives in a matter of weeks. Indeed, the offensive proved so effective that Inner Sphere commanders deemed the planned Wave Five unnecessary. The coalition wrapped up the entire campaign in just under four months - far less time than computer simulations had suggested the task would require.



Wave One: The Katana Falls
On 20 May 3059, Prince Victor Steiner-Davion and Precentor Martial Focht dispatched messages to fifteen worlds along the Smoke Jaguar occupation zone border. Every message was different, but each contained the key words that would send more than forty regiments against their primary invasion targets. Seventeen of the regiments, which had been holding at their home-system jump points, carefully timed their jumps and arrived at the pirate points around the five targeted Smoke Jaguar worlds within the space of five hours. The assault came as such a surprise to the Jaguars that on four worlds, the new Star League Defense Forces landed uncontested.


On the planet Hyner, the Third Jaguar Cavaliers paraded out for battle, straight into the arms of the waiting SLDF. By the time the Smoke Jaguars began staging defensive actions, they had already lost the battle. Though the Draconis Combines Second Sword of Light took moderate losses, the battle for Hyner was wrapped up in less than three days.


The SLDF won another impressive victory on the world of Port Arthur. Initially, SLDF commanders believed the planet was defended only by a small garrison unit of Smoke Jaguar bondsmen piloting captured Inner Sphere 'mechs. The SLDF's plan was to quickly eliminate these defending forces and prepare Port Arthur as a staging area for three DCMS regiments slated to participate in the second wave of the invasion. Acting on their most recent intelligence, the SLDF sent the First Battalion of the First Davion Guards into Port Arthur as part of Operation Bird Dog, the prelude to the main assault on Smoke Jaguar-held worlds. Expecting only light resistance, the Guards were almost overwhelmed when the defending Clan bondsmen fought well above the attackers' initial expectations. Knowing that no reinforcements would arrive for almost two weeks, the Guards set up a methodical plan that would leave them in control of Port Arthur.


The hard-fought, days-long battle was nearing its conclusion when the Guards suddenly came under fierce fire from Clan 'Mechs sporting Jaguar colors. Far from being poorly defended, Port Arthur was currently occupied by the Jaguar's 168th Garrison Cluster, which had been stationed on the planet's southern continent and which had arrived at the battle site to force the Inner Sphere invaders off-world. But, even as the 168th began to engage the Davion Guards, Inner Sphere reinforcements arrived - three DCMS regiments that vastly outnumbered the Jaguar force. The arriving regiments shattered the Clan Cluster, finishing it as an effective fighting force before nightfall. Survivors unable to flee the planet were hunted down over the next two days. Those who did escape became unwitting participants in the naval battle that followed.


On the worlds of Kiamba and Asgard, the Smoke Jaguar commanders reacted too late to effectively deploy their aerospace forces. Faced with overwhelming odds - each front-line Cluster facing four SLDF regiments - the Jaguar units were swept aside by the SLDF coalition forces, which suffered minimal losses.


The planet Tarazed's defenders were more alert than their luckless fellows, but made the fatal mistake of granting their attackers safcon in response to Kai Allard-Liao's batchall, recalling their aerospace forces and allowing the SLDF DropShips to land unmolested. The Seventh Jaguar Dragoons chose the Krychek Mountains as the place of battle. Unfortunately, the Dragoons did not comprehend the size of the forces arrayed against them, and so their chosen site proved disastrous. As the Seventh moved through a network of canyons, the SLDF regiments cut them off and decimated them. The battle, and with it the first wave of Operation Bulldog, ended after just five days.


The SLDF, bringing an overwhelming force against an unprepared enemy, found the resulting fight as swift and deadly as a well-placed blow from a katana. In less than one week, the SLDF forces had achieved objectives that their tacticians had predicted would take five months to attain. The Jaguars had their victories, to be sure, but these were too minor to reverse the momentum of the Inner Sphere's assault. And the astounding SLDF victory in the first wave allowed Victor Steiner-Davion to begin allocating supplies for the third wave early, moving up the entire assault timetable by months.


The SLDF also targeted nine Nova Cat worlds during the first wave, each to be taken by a DCMS regiment backed up by one or two supporting regiments. None of these supporting units needed to land, however, as the Nova Cats held to their preemptive batchalls. True to their agreement with the Inner Sphere coalition, they effectively surrendered the worlds to the DCMS units in order to aid the SLDF effort against the Cats' longtime rival and enemy.


On the worlds of Kanowit and Avon, actual battles were fought to preserve honor on both sides. These two worlds, sitting on the leading edge of Clan conquests in Inner Sphere space, demanded a show of serious contention. But on worlds farther from the front lines, the Nova Cats demanded less in the way of combat. Indeed, on Sawyer, the farthest away world targeted in the first wave, the Third Night Stalkers' wing commander won the planet by defeating the Nova Cat garrison commander in a aerospace fighter simulator.


By the end of the first wave the Jaguars had lost every border world they possessed save for Avon, which was close enough to Luthien, with its massive defenses, that the SLDF considered it an unlikely staging area for a Smoke Jaguar counterattack. The Nova Cat worlds filled in the rest of the gaps, creating an unbroken line of SLDF-controlled worlds through which the Smoke Jaguars would have to pass to reach Combine worlds for a counterattack. The difficulty of defeating such overwhelming opposition while fighting an invasion force delayed the Smoke Jaguars counter attack until just before the third invasion wave.



Wave Two: Driving Forward
Despite the phenomenal success of the first invasion wave, the second wave commenced only a few days ahead of schedule on 26 June 3059. Troop movements and supply routes for the various waves had been set months before the assault began, and Prince Victor Steiner-Davion felt that changing them at the last moment might severely disrupt the entire assault. However, he added three more targeted worlds to the second wave, bringing the total to eleven Jaguar-held worlds. By targeting more than twice the number of worlds taken in the first wave, Prince Victor hoped to bring further shock and demoralize the new SLDF's Clan opponents.

The planets of Turtle Bay and Almunge stood undefended, and so fell to the SLDF without any loss of lives or materiel. In a gesture he hoped would in some small way atone for their loss, Victor Steiner-Davion assigned the Legions of Vega to retake Turtle Bay, the unit that had lost the world to the Jaguars nearly ten years earlier. the Eleventh, Sixteenth and elements of the Second Legion all took part in the planet's liberation.


The Nova Cat halves of Avon and Caripare had been taken during the first wave, and now SLDF forces and Nova Cat Clusters used the Nova Cat-controlled areas as staging bases from which to hit Jaguar forces on those worlds. Faced with apparent collaboration between the Nova Cats and the Inner Sphere, the Smoke Jaguar commanders did not fight to the death, but instead pulled back to worlds deeper in the Smoke Jaguar occupation zone.


Similarly, on Byesville and Hanover, Smoke Jaguar commanders managed to salvage at least part of their commands and fell back to nearby worlds not currently under attack. The Byesville garrison Cluster was able to bring itself nearly back to full strength. The Hanover forces were less lucky. Mauled by an impressive array of SLDF regiments, they barely escaped with two Trinaries and meager Elemental and aerospace support.


No Smoke Jaguar warriors escaped the worlds of Yamarovka, Virentofta, Nykvarn or Labrea The fighting on the first two worlds - especially Yamarovka - were fierce and costly. On that world, Smoke Jaguars fought to the last warrior in defense of vital facilities. The fighting on Labrea was no less fierce, but only involved six warriors, as Phelan Kell's exiled Clan Wolf forces used traditional Clan combat tactics to capture an entire front-line Cluster.


Though the world of Luzerne boasted few resources and virtually no military industry, the world became the site of one of the stiffest challenges the SLDF faced during the entire assault. A disastrous approach resulted in a WarShip battle, only half the assault force made it to the planet's surface. Expecting to meet a single garrison Cluster, the SLDF force found itself facing a newly formed front-line Cluster as well. The Jaguars scattered the SLDF units across the face of the planet, and only two battalions managed to form any kind of cohesive force to face the Jaguars. Within hours it seemed Luzerne would become the final graveyard for two good regiments.


As the battles raged for all the Jaguar worlds, Clan Nova Cat continued to offer token fights than enable the DCMS to retake Nova Cat worlds and claim Nova Cat warriors as bondsmen. Actual 'mech combat between the DCMS and Nova Cat forces took place only on the world of Mualang. On the other five targeted Nova Cat worlds, DCMS forces prevailed with personal combat or token challenges. On the world of Bjarred, the confrontation was settled with a single coin toss. Tai-Sa Katherine Oltion allowed Star Colonel Olivia Drummond to make the call, and was apparently struck speechless when the Star Colonel called out,"Edge." Before leaving the Nova Cats as the new DCMS garrison on Bjarred, Oltion had the opportunity to ask Star Colonel Drummond about her choice. Drummond's reply was concise and eloquent. "Imagine the victory," she said, "if I had won."


By 7 July 3059, the Draconis Combine had reclaimed all of the targeted worlds lost to Clan Nova Cat, and organized hostilities had ceased on all targeted Smoke Jaguar worlds save for Luzerne. On Luzerne, the beleaguered SLDF forces had barricaded themselves into defensible positions, from which they engaged in minor skirmishes with their Jaguar opponents. This pattern would remain intact until the start of the invasion's third wave.



Smoke Jaguar Counterattack
Victor Steiner-Davion and Anastasius Focht had expected and planned for a Smoke Jaguar counteroffensive - but in retaliation for the first wave, not in anticipation of the third.


On July 27, as the initial reports of the Jaguar attacks first passed through the HPG network to the planet Wolcott, Prince Victor grew concerned that this unexpected offensive indicated a stronger Smoke Jaguar presence than the resistance encountered during the first two waves had suggested. ComStar's intelligence network and Khan Phelan Kell's analysis of the situation quickly laid those concerns to rest. The SLDF commanders then began examining the counterattack, trying to determine how it could affect the imminent third invasion wave and what it would take to meet the new threat.


They concluded that the Smoke Jaguar offensive was a weak attempt to match the success of the first SLDF assault. The Clan had not committed nearly enough forces to achieve any lasting victory, and even if the Jaguar forces successfully captured the targeted SLDF supply bases, the third invasion wave could proceed as planned because the third wave forces had already been fully supplied. At worst, a successful Jaguar counterattack could push back the fourth wave a few months. But unless the Smoke Jaguars brought in heavy reinforcements, the garrison forces on all five targeted Combine worlds could handily defeat the attacking Jaguars or be easily reinforced from nearby planets. In the end, these SLDF predictions proved accurate.


The Smoke Jaguar's Delta Galaxy Command led the newly formed Third Assault Cluster in a desperate bid to capture the important world of Pesht. The Jaguars' chances of victory were slim from the start, however, and Jaguar aerospace assets abandoned the Clan's ground forces soon after their combat drop. Encountering civilian resistance, the Jaguars began scorched-earth tactics, savaging the world as they fought a running battle with the SLDF forces that lasted several days.


From intercepted 'Mech comm traffic, SLDF analysts later determined that the assault Cluster had expected to meet the Seventh Sword of Light, Ryuken-san, and the First Kell Hounds, but not the Second Wolf Legion that smashed in from their flank to annihilate the Galaxy Command Trinary. Left to their own devices, the warriors of the Third Assault Cluster threw themselves at the Kell Hounds, thinking the mercenaries would break. Instead, the Hounds became the anvil on which the Seventh Sword and Ryuken shattered the Clan force. Within a few days, the SLDF forces had hunted down the last remaining Jaguar Stars.


On McAlister, the Smoke Jaguars managed to damage several SLDF supply bases. In fact, the Jaguar garrison Cluster caused so much damage in so short a time that Victor Steiner-Davion reminded the SLDF forces not to become complacent no matter how well the invasion was going. Eventually, however, the Jaguar troops succumbed to an overwhelming SLDF presence.


The battles for the worlds of Matamoras and Meinacos proceeded similarly. On both planets, front-line Jaguar Clusters struck with enormous force, but the Inner Sphere defenders managed to hold on until reinforcements from nearby worlds arrived. On Matamoras, civilians valiantly helped the two garrison regiments thwart the Nineteenth Striker Cluster's offensive. Frustrated at every turn by effective civilian countermeasures, the Nineteenth was forced to group its units together for protection. Later, the Ryuken-yon regiment staged a night-time combat drop into the Jaguar-controlled area and managed to break the Jaguars' back in a coordinated offensive movement with Matamoras's two garrison regiments.


The SLDF got luckier on the world of Lonaconing. With no reinforcements readily available, Victor Steiner-Davion expected the defending SLDF units to take heavy losses. But the Clan commander opted to use feints and diversionary maneuvers rather than a direct assault against the planet's defenders. This tactical miscalculation enabled Lonaconing's SLDF garrison troops to severely damage several Jaguar targets while avoiding large-scale engagements with the enemy.


Finally, on 13 August 3059, the Jaguar commanders abandoned their counterattack and recalled their forces. Nearly 99 percent of the Lonaconing attack force managed to withdraw from battle, but only half the Meinacos and a handful of Jaguar units on Matamoras managed to escape. Though the Jaguars preserved most of their aerospace assets, recovered many damaged OmniMechs and hit a few SLDF supply bases, the counteroffensive was ultimately too little, too late.



Wave Three: Bringing Down the Jaguar
Victor Steiner-Davion and Anastasius Focht had hoped to gain the element of surprise with eight assaults planned during the Smoke Jaguar counterattack in the summer of 3059. However, because some Smoke Jaguar commanders put little faith in the feasibility of the Jaguar counterassault, they reserved their strength for fighting further battles with the SLDF and so were well prepared for the first time since the beginning of the invasion. Much of the credit for this readiness must go to Alpha Galaxy Commander Brendon Corbett, who was named in-theater commander after the SLDF drove Beta Galaxy Command off Avon; many other Jaguar commander who might have been considered for the position had been killed or irredeemably disgraced in the previous invasion waves.


The first evidence of the Jaguar's new battle readiness appeared when then Ryuken-roku encountered heavy resistance at Luzerne. As reinforcements arrived, however, the battle quickly shifted in favor of the SLDF. Still, the Smoke Jaguars fought with determination and refused to relinquish the world. The battle for Luzerne officially ended on August 8, only a few days before the Clan aborted its counteroffensive.


The Jaguars' Alpha Galaxy Command and the Ninth Jaguar Cavaliers made a similar showing on the planet Marshdale. The Galaxy Command Trinary, operating as an elite tactical strike force, severely damaged the Fusiliers of the Oriente and managed to decimate a full company of the Ryuken-ni. But the Ninth Cavaliers could not stand up to the main force of the assault and on August 12 the Clan unit began to collapse under relentless pressure of the Ryuken-ni and the Ninth Com Guard Division.


The Smoke Jaguar forces on Bangor and Schuyler also put up strong defenses, but never stood a chance against the SLDF regiments arrayed against them. With Prince Victor Steiner-Davion leading his "Dream Team" against Schuyler, Bangor was forced to contend with the Second Dieron, First Wolf Legion and the Capellan House Daidachi.


The remnants of Beta Galaxy Command Trinary and the First Jaguar Guards ended up trapped on Outer Volta, having sent their ships to support the 267th Battle Clusters assault on Meinacos. Beset by the Izanagi Warriors and the Eighth Sword of Light, supported by the Com Guard Thirty-Ninth Division, the Clan forces were crushed in five days.


The Smoke Jaguars offered only token resistance on the worlds of Rockland, Coudoux, Garstedt and Schwartz. On-planet SLDF commanders all expected a massive counterattack that never came.


No one foresaw how the third wave - and the main thrust of the SLDF assault against the Clan occupation zone - would end. The Smoke Jaguars fought defensive battles for the most part, using liberal rules of engagement and staging several delaying actions. They seemed to be waiting for something, but exactly what remains unclear. In hindsight, some analysts believe Galaxy Commander Corbett wished to test the strength of the new SLDF and Jaguar defensive strategies during the third assault wave.


In any case, Smoke Jaguar leaders effectively abandoned the Inner Sphere on August 13, ordering their forces to evacuate the occupation zone and return to Clan space aboard any available ship. No one knows at this time whether the recall was ordered by Khan Lincoln Osis or Galaxy Commander Corbett.


This decision enabled more than half of the Clan's forces stationed on third-wave target worlds, was well as counterassault forces, to escape intact, along with at complete commands from at least two garrisoned worlds left undisturbed by battle.



Wave Four: Clean-up
With the Smoke Jaguars in flight, Victor Steiner-Davion and Anastasius Focht realized that the main assault was over and the Inner Sphere had won a resounding victory. Always wary of being overconfident, however, Prince Victory kept the SLDF forces battle-ready while planning a final sweep to remove all traces of the Smoke Jaguars military forces from the Inner Sphere. As Victor led several units into the Periphery to follow the fleeing Smoke Jaguars, Phelan Kell command the final few battles that took place in the Draconis Combine.


On the worlds of Savinsville and Staplefield, garrison Clusters of Kappa Galaxy fought long enough to satisfy their honor. With no hope of escape, the garrison Cluster commanders finally negotiated Trials of Possession with their SLDF counterparts. The bidding was similar to the Nova Cat preemptive batchalls fought earlier in the invasion; the Smoke Jaguars knew they would lose and so planned to save face before succumbing. On Savinsville, the Jaguar forces were officially captured by the Fourth Wolf Guards Assault Cluster, while on Staplefield the First Amphigean Light Assault Group claimed the defeated forces.


The garrison Cluster left behind to defend Kabah held out much longer before agreeing to Trials of Possession. Staging several delaying actions, the garrison troops hoped to hold out until ships returned from Matamoras to pull them off-world. Only when the Twenty-second Dieron finally convinced the Cluster commander that no rescue was forthcoming did the Cluster initiate Trials of Possession. The challenges were split almost evenly between the Dieron Regulars and the supporting Nova Cat Cluster.


On Jeronimo and Albiero, however, the Smoke Jaguars fought to the death. The SLDF forces on each planet claimed some salvage and a few prisoners, but little else. Only the Capellan Confederation's House Daidachi warriors managed to claim any worthwhile assets, capturing a Jaguar storage depot full of supplies and technicians. Though all the on-planet SLDF forces split the supplies between them per regulations, the technician prisoners elected to become bondsmen to Daidachi.


When the invasion's fourth wave officially wrapped up on 18 September 3059, every Smoke Jaguar world in the former occupation world was pacified by an SLDF garrison. All Nova Cat-occupied worlds were under SLDF administration, but out of respect for their unlikely ally, the SLDF posted military forces on very few of those planets. The exceptions were worlds along the Ghost Bear occupation zone border, where hostilities were considered likely.