“Are you absolutely certain of this?” Arkhan, the God-King of Arcadia asked with a face that showed a hint of the rage he was feeling.

“Yes, my Lord. Aside from the Core Worlds of the UGN, every planet that we have not taken has suffered the same fate.” Evelyn Norn, head of the Arcadian Intelligence Bureau, answered without a hint of emotion, as if she were talking about the weather.

“Fucking monsters!” Roared Drakz Blackmane, the Supreme General of the Arcadian Combined Military Forces, “Do they have not the slightest sense of honor, shame or care for their own populace?! This is madness; to slaughter your own people to deny even the slightest inch of ground, are they insane?!”

“Rather than being insane,” Asharia, the Dragon-Queen of Arcadia, interjected, “I believe that they are expecting that we despoil and destroy every world we encounter, just like the AHU did. They must have figured that if were already slaughtering their people, they would cut out the middleman and deny us entire planets at the same time.”

“A true ‘Scorched Earth’ policy on a previously unheard-of scale.” Arkhan remarked before going silent.

“Damn it!” Drakz shouted, “What is the point of even trying to offer an end to the war if they are just going to do things like this; and to their own people no less! We have no way of knowing if they aren’t just going to refuse, not that I wouldn’t like to just go to town on them for this shameful display….”

“Actually,” Asharia spoke up again, “it would be a potentially damning scenario for them if they were to continue this policy with each world we came to. While I don’t expect them to do such a thing to their Core Worlds, it seems to me that their leadership, despite being absolute tools if Ms. Norn’s intel is to be believed, at the very least intend to keep us from ever reaching the Core Worlds.”

“So, what you are saying, correct me if I am wrong, is that they believe that such a tactic will deny us territory and resources to continue the war effort and dissuade us from pushing further?” Arkhan asked with a growing sense of incredulity.

“If Ms. Norn’s intel is to be believed, then yes. And as we know, Ms. Norn has the best intel gathering team that the galaxy has to offer.”

“So, in other words, they are thinking that a tactic that is mainly used to foil ground-based armies will work despite the fact that we can simply jump to the next system, bypassing the ruined planets altogether?”

“Precisely.”

Arkhan and the rest of the Cabinet sat in silence for a few moments before Arkhan spoke again.

“Are they a bunch of idiots?”

“It would appear so.”

Arkhan sighed and tried to calm the mix of anger at the self-destructive slaughter of over six hundred billion innocent people and the disappointment that he felt towards the seeming rampant idiocy that filled every nook, cranny, crack and crevice of the UGN.

“We really have no other moral recourse but to continue. If only to be the blade of vengeance that strikes down the corrupt and decadent fools who control the UGN like heartless puppet masters.” For the first time, Pope Zimmiad I spoke.

“For once I agree with the zealot.” Drakz said. “We must continue the campaign. This is no longer a matter of simply crushing the UGN and the OCS, but about righting a terrible wrong. This shameful and dishonorable act must be met with renewed vigor and the wrath that those who fell to such an act would be proud to have done in their name.”

“Indeed.” Arkhan said. “However, as long as they have the means and will to destroy their own populace in an attempt to spite us, we must be cautious. Evelyn, do you have any idea if they would do such a thing to their Core Worlds?”

“Based on our findings, it is only a non-zero chance that they would go to such lengths on one of their own Core Worlds. The odds of them doing so is small, but not non-existent.”

“Then it is settled.” Arkhan said as he stood up from his seat. “Drakz, you know what to do. End this however you see fit, but within the boundaries of honor and morality. Only go beyond those if you feel the need to do so is too great not to. Can I trust that the UGN’s Core Worlds will be taken with as few civilian casualties as possible?”

“Of course!” Drakz said, his hand forming a fist and being placed over his heart. “By your will, they will be brought low, with as few unneeded casualties as possible.”

“Then let us teach the UGN and OCS who is ethically, numerically and militarily superior.”

…

It was a calculated risk to destroy so many of their own worlds to force the villainous and merciless Arcadian Galactic Commonwealth to cease its advances. In wars long since ended, ‘scorched earth’ policies had been used to great effect. It was widely believed that by denying the enemy territory, labor and resources that they would be unable to advance. Their supply lines would increase drastically, while the UGN’s lines would decrease. With so many worlds now reduced to irradiated hellscapes, there was no way that he AGC would be able to advance into the Core Worlds.

At least that is what the imbeciles that led the UGN had thought.

They had forgotten one crucial thing, however. They were not fighting a purely ground-based war. The great victories that they had learned about that came about due to such a self-destructive tactic were localized to one planet, not multiple ones or even multiple systems. It was akin to a modern nation using a bronze-age phalanx in a modern war because it worked well during its time period.

So, like the fools they were, they were taken by surprise when the Arcadian fleets began to appear in the Core Systems. Thankfully for them, they had all their best equipment, weapons, armor, munitions, ships, soldiers and fortresses on standby in the incredibly unlikely event that the AGC decided to ‘stretch its supply lines to the breaking point’. They full expected the battles that they would start fighting in such a situation to not only be winnable, but easily so.

The risk they had taken had been meticulously calculated, but damn it if they were not bad at math.