**Kepler Konundrum**

The *shot heard 'round the world* of the war against the Unity was not heard at all - for it had occurred in space. The Kepler ground stations in Germany were being bombed by Unity air forces, while operators scrambled to place the satellites into their high-alert, self-defence modes to prevent an attack on the array itself. This proved too late - however - as the Unity had managed to leverage their own Kepler array to conduct a decapitation strike on German orbital assets, destroying 43% of their constellation.

Upon being attacked, the German array automatically retaliated against the Unity orbital infrastructure, but the loss of half of their armed satellites proved to be insufficient, destroying only 24% of the Unity constellation.

While the Unity thought they were out of the woods, an attack caught them completely by surprise: the JSDS orbital defence system turned its sights on the remainder of the Unity's space-based ABM network and took the constellation down to just 13% of its original strength. Over 63% of the Unity's array, remaining after the Germans had taken their chunk, were neutralized by a combination of ground-based and orbital assets owned by the Japanese, in what would make itself out to be the defining moment of the third world war.

**Operation Red-Alert**

The Chinese invasion of Vladivostok - **Operation Red-Alert** - is sure to go down in history as not only an example of *how not to conduct an amphibious attack*, but as one of the most abysmal failures in military history.

Confusion from the top down was a cornerstone of the operation, with the Black Hat Society - a Chinese government-sponsored cyberwarfare department - receiving confusing and unclear orders to "DDOS all internet east of the Amur River". Despite repeated assertions to their superiors that the Unity is completely disconnected from the internet, the attention of Chinese high command was taken by other things, and the Black Hat Society was given an impossible task.

The Black Hat Society made very little progress in communications denial, first attempting to interfere with the Unity's radio frequency communication, then attempting to influence the performance of other electronic devices in the region, both of which were unsuccessful and did almost nothing to impede the function of the hivemind.

The Japanese, however, took a far more measured approach, and opted to assist the Chinese with cyberattacks of their own. Cyberwarfare constructs Raijin-K5 and Ryūjin-K6 began an assault on Unity networks, crippling essential command and control infrastructure while the Chinese hackers attempted to execute tactics from the 2010s. The fleeting nature of the Japanese constructs, coupled with a general lack of ability for the Unity's collective mind to identify specific points of failure within its own network, allowed the Japanese to knock a considerable amount of organization and effectiveness out of the Unity's ability to respond to the impending Chinese land attack.

Confident that the Black Hat Society would be able to carry out the impossible orders bestowed upon them, the People's Liberation Army began an attempt to drive the Unity out of the city through a combination of artillery strikes and napalm-armed cruise missiles. The artillery strikes were effectively countered by the Unity military, with orders to evacuate all non-military hivemind towards the north, a movement apparently undetected by the nonexistent Chinese monitoring capability. Napalm, a notable anti-personnel weapon, was employed against the concrete air traffic control towers at the air bases surrounding Vladivostok, to little effect. The ensuing fires lightly damaged the structure of the tower at Uglovoye Airfield, but were quickly extinguished by airport fire services.

Despite the utter failure that was the attempted area denial by Chinese artillery, the People's Liberation Army began confidently storming the Russian border. Electronic warfare activities conducted from the YE-8W aircraft had a moderate amount of success in jamming the Unity' S-400 targeting systems, but the errors were quickly resolved, and the air defence infrastructure in and around the city made short work of the Chinese ASF and Multirole fighters.

The Japanese invasion of the Unity network didn't last long, however, with the hivemind re-establishing control over its own defence infrastructure before the arrival of the land army. Left without a strong air component, the Chinese ground assault began to fall apart. As they advanced towards the city, aircraft of the 22nd Fighter Regiment began conducting airstrikes on bridges and other critical infrastructure between them Vladivostok, significantly slowing the movement of infantry and outright preventing movement of mechanized equipment, in some cases.

With the PLA having been forced into choke points by the airstrikes and their advance slowed to only a few kilometres per day, the 70th Mechanized Brigade attacked from the south, distracting the Chinese and blocking them in while airstrikes from the north prevented their retreat. The panicked force, now unable to advance, began a desperate attempt to flee to the west, back to China. Airstrikes on these positions, and the 70th sweeping around to enclose the forces from the east, led to the complete decimation of the invasion force.

Expecting the invasion from the west to be a success, the PLN began the amphibious component of its invasion of Vladivostok before the arrival of the land troops. Two Type 73A landing ships, embarked with 4,000 marines and a number of other mechanized vehicles, began making an approach towards the city in the dead of night. Confident in the success of their cyberattack as well as that of the Japanese, the Chinese invasion force did not expect sharp resistance from the 72nd Coastal Missile Brigade. The Unity, having become aware of the approaching PLN landing craft, fired off two P-800 anti-ship missiles, striking and sinking one of the landing craft. The Chinese electronic warfare craft, however, managed to throw off the 72nd and prevent them from seeing an incoming airstrike before it was too late.

With the coastal defense batteries having been eliminated and the Russian ships in the Vladivostok harbor tied up fighting off the overwhelming number of PLAA fighters, the invasion force was able to briefly make landfall before being swarmed by Unity and killed.

The operation was not without some success for the coalition, however, as the Japanese Naval Self Defence-Force arrived with its advanced and heavy-hitting Hiei-class of destroyers, sinking the entirety of the Russian Pacific Fleet at the cost of only moderate hull damage to the JS *Kurama*.

**Mangafest Destiny**

The failure of the Chinese land assault provided a significant distraction for the Unity, allowing the Japanese to begin its assault on the island of Sakhalin. Taking a more measured approach than the Chinese, coordinated missile strikes scrambled Unity military installations on the island and led to a severe drop in morale and cohesion among Unity forces. Finding the island underdefended by naval ships due to the situations in Vladivostok and Europe, the Japanese relatively easily established air dominance over the island, followed by a covert heliborne assault into the forests on the island's south. A bluff in the north, designed to appear as an amphibious invasion drew Unity forces out of the woods and away from the real landing taking place to the south.

The GSDF began a sustained assault on the remaining defensive positions on the island, but secured a rather quick victory due to the Unity's preoccupation to the south. Japanese naval presence operating offshore, supporting the land attack, were able to clear the Sea of Japan of submarines and ensure the continued safe passage of coalition forces in the region.

The Chinese marine invasion of the sparsely populated southern tip of Kamchatka - specifically the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - was considerably larger than the invasion force attacking Vladivostok. Supported by a Type 004 CSG and taking advantage of the Pacific Fleet's crippling at Vladivostok, the PLN arrived at P-K and made quick work of the 520th Coastal Missile Brigade, wiping it out with a series of hard-hitting cruise missile strikes, before moving in towards the city with landing craft.

The Unity naturally assumed that the majority of Chinese effort would be focused on Vladivostok, rather than P-K, and so underestimated the latter upon seeing the completely unprepared invasion force at the former. The Unity did not expect a rather sizeable chunk of the PLN to arrive - alongside 8,000 mechanized Chinese marines - and execute a brutal and very effective series of air and cruise missile strikes on their military installations around the city of P-K. Unity ground troops found their small arms fire ineffective against the advancing Chinese fleet, and were completely overwhelmed by the now-emboldened PLN storming the beach and taking the city.

While the Chinese were occupied in Kamchatka, the Japanese began the second of three phases - an attack on the Kurils. While the Chinese decided to sail into P-K guns blazing, the Japanese slowly and methodically worked their way up the islands. Outdated intelligence provided to the JSDF indicated the presence of coastal defence batteries, but the Japanese forces found no such batteries, instead a light peppering of air defences and nothing more. As such, they found it fairly easy to work their way up the islands and prepare for the invasion of Kamchatka...

...however, the Chinese fleet had already made quick work of that region. The Japanese came across light resistance in a number of areas on the way to P-K, but instead of a well-defended city, they found it occupied by a rather-proud People's Liberation Army.

**Other Chinese Strikes**

In what can only be assumed to be a display of power, the Chinese launched an assault of the city of Khabarovsk, using Napalm-armed ICBMs. The lack of missile defence batteries in the city left it undefended to the Chinese strikes, killing a large majority of the population before the PLA moved in and began advancing north while conducting a combined psychological- and electronic-warfare operation along the length of the Amur River. These troops met heavy resistance upon reaching Khurba and Dzemgi air base, but gained the upper hand due to the electronic warfare operations being conducted.

With the lack of Unity military resistance in the way, the PLA continues to walk up the coast to Kamchatka, though they have not yet arrived.

**Losses**

**Unity:**

* Entire Pacific Fleet (Everything at Vladivostok and Fokino naval bases as well as everything in the Sea of Japan)
* 1530th Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment
* Everything at Khurba and Dzemgi air bases
* Everything on Sakhelia, Kurils, and Kamchatka
* 87% of Kepler Array

**China:**

* 50% of all troops sent in Phase 3 Part A
* 80% of aircraft sent in Phase 3 Part A
* 35% of all land vehicles sent in Phase 3 Part A
* All land forces, troops, and both landing craft sent in Phase 3 Part B
* 65% of all aircraft sent in Phase 3 Part B
* Pride

**Japan:**

* Damage to JS *Kurama*
* 1,655 infantry
* 1 MV-22B Osprey

**Germany:**

* 43% of Kepler Array

**Changes**

* Unity remains in control of Vladivostok, but Japanese surface fleet makes maintaining control difficult.
* Japanese and Chinese secure the Kurils, Sakhalin, and Kamchatka.