Editing Operation SHOWTIME

{{InfoBoxConflict
| conflict =  Operation SHOWTIME
| partof = The [[Jihad]]
| image = 							
| caption = Operation SHOWTIME
| date = 16 June 3068
| enddate = 11 December 3071
| place = 
| planet = 
| territory = 
| faction1 = [[Word of Blake]]
| faction2 = [[Solaris VII]]
| commander1 =
| commander2 = 
| forces1= 
| forces2= 
| result = WoB forces briefly occupy the [[Solaris Games|Game World]] of Solaris VII before being ejected by the various stables.
| environment = 
| conditions = Normal
}}

'''Operation SHOWTIME''' was the [[Word of Blake]] invasion and occupation of the [[Game World]] [[Solaris VII]], from June 16th [[3068]] to December 11th [[3071]].<ref name=JStBDp25>"Jihad Secrets: The Blake Documents", pp. 25-27 "Jihad: The Early Years - Operation: "Showtime""</ref>

==Overview==
===Invasion===
The entire [[25th Division (Word of Blake)|Word of Blake 25th Division]], bolstered by elements of the [[18th Division (Word of Blake)|18th Division]], dropped on key locations across the planet's main continent of Greyland. With firefights breaking out after Solaris City Control confirmed the bone-white 'Mechs of the attackers were not the returning [[Com Guards|Com Guard]] [[56th Division (ComStar)|56th Division]], the Blakist forces' four battle groups hit the [[Steiner Coliseum]], [[The Scrapyard]],  [[Iron Flats Pityard]] and the [[International Zone]]. <ref name=JStBDp25/>

The most brutal fighting on the 16th also set a disturbing trend, when five of the twenty elite pilots competing in the [[Allard Cup Charity Tournament|charity Allard Cup]] at the Coliseum immediately defected to the Blakists, bottling up the other competitors until the invaders could penetrate the arena and capture the seven remaining pilots. This event was just the first sign the Blakists had undertaken extensive preplanning prior to their invasion when a significant number of warriors immediately aligned themselves and pledged their support for the Word, frequently and violently turning on their stablemates, most notable the [[Skye Tigers Stables|Skye Tigers]] and [[Bromley Stables]].<ref name=JStBDp25/>

Within twenty-four hours the Blakists had captured the International Zone, [[Montenegro]], [[Burgton]] and part of [[Black Hills]], having all but destroyed [[Earthwerks-FWL]], the [[Anchor Bay Brewery]], the [[Warner MechWarrior Academy]] and the nearly completed [[SLDF]]-dedicated [[Class Six]] Arena. By June 19th, the Word of Blake had almost total control over the International Zone, all Solaris media corporations, the world's [[HPG]] and both of the system's main [[jump point]]s. Using their strongpoints in the IZ, Montenegro and Black Hills, the Blakists successfully captured the rest of Solaris City by the end of the month.<ref name=JStBDp25/>

===Blakist Occupation===
Reopening the arenas under their control, the Word of Blake occupiers then hosted their own twisted version of the Games. Little more than staged executions of the warriors who refused to serve them, the [[Top 20 Unlimited Class List|bulk of the Top Twenty]] were killed in hopelessly outnumbered battles within the first size weeks of the occupation before crowds of thousands. The Blakists also began to record and transmit their triumphant victories over the HPG net.<ref name=JStBDp25/>

Even as the Blakist staged their own perverted version of the games, scores of warriors rose up to oppose them, forming a large number of resistance cells. The most notable was the [[Erik Gray]]-led [[Solaris Home Defense League]]. Thanks to Gray's extensive use of the [[Silver Dragons Stables]] marketing team and a large network of traders and smugglers, the SHDL were able to sneak out vast amounts of footage and commentary to effectively counter the Blakist Games propaganda. The SHDL's success had a dark side however, the group's efforts all but overshadowed those of other smaller and less well equipped resistance cells, feeding the endless distrust between Solaris's stables and sectors.<ref name=JStBDp25/>

Despite this, the resistance staged only smaller scale raids until mid-[[3070]] as the Word tightened their grip on Solaris, destroying all but one of [[VEST]] production facilities, [[Blue Shot Weapons]]' main plant near [[Roland Fields]], as well as eliminating a major resistance cell made up of elements of [[the Pentastars]], [[Hombres Stables]] and [[Renegades Cooperative]]s. The resistance's impact was still enough to overshadow the Blakist Games, leading the planet's reporters, news agencies and bookkeepers to develop a new scoring system for the Top Twenty based of media reports of raids, Word kills and other arcane data. The Word of Blake response was increased aggression against the planet's media and reporters.<ref name=JStBDp25/>

Solaris VII suffered a tremendous recession as the Blakist mandated blockade killed off the planet's lucrative tourist trade, graphically enforced by the WoBS ''[[Dawning Horizon]]'''s destruction of a [[Meier-Star Agency]] ''[[Star Lord]]''-class [[JumpShip]] and six luxury [[DropShip]]s, with what military matériel still manufactured was sent off-world to Word-mandated destinations. Hurting from the economic woes, factional tensions escalated in Solaris City. Things finally reached breaking point in May 3070 when a riot staged by citizens of [[Cathay]] supported by warriors from the remains of the [[Zelazni Stables|Zelazni]] and [[Tandrek Stables]] surged into [[Silesia]] in search of foodstuffs and other necessities.<ref name=JStBDp25/>

As the Silesians attempted to fend off the looters, the riot turned deadly when 'Mechs from [[Starlight Stables]] entered the fray, with more than five-thousand people killed before the Blakist 25th Division finally arrived to put down the riot. Putting both the [[FedCom Civil War]]-era riots to shame, within five days all of Solaris City was ablaze as tensions overflowed, prompting the Word to pull back to the International Zone and let the riot burn itself out rather than make any attempt to stop the fighting. <ref name=JStBDp25/>

===Solaris Home Defense League Counterattack===
As the riots began to reach their peak in June 3070, the Solaris Home Defense League finally had the trigger to convince the other resistance cells to join together, expanding the SHDL to five times its previous size. Using the riots as a distraction, Erik Gray sent representative to the outlying corporations to establish bases of operations in the wilderness as the expanded SHDL staged resource raids and rescue operations as it slowly coalesced into a respectable fighting force.<ref name=JStBDp25/>

By May [[3071]] the  Solaris Home Defense League was finally ready to reclaim Solaris City. Using criminal contacts to alert most of the population without drawing Word of Blake attention, the SHDL encircled and attacked the city from all sides, capturing Montengro within three hours. The Word retaliated by calling in their DropShips as close-air support, damaging more than 80% of the district. With the Blakists focused on Montenegro, the SHDL activated its reserves to capture the warehouse district of the International Zone, liberating hundreds of BattleMechs and other military hardware "impounded" by the Blakists.<ref name=JStBDp25/>

By June the SHDL had succeeded in pushing the Word's forces out of Solaris City and into the [[Reaches]], albeit with the Blakists destroying the planet's HPG as they retreated. Unfortunately as the fighting eased, old rivalries resurfaced as the bookmakers ranking calculations for the Top Twenty using the fighting against the Word of Blake began to result in increasing factional tensions between cells with coordination beginning to breakdown. The situation came to a head when [[Ulter Pentrovsky]] (then ranked 18th in the Top Twenty) and seven other members of the [[Wraiths Stables]] ambushed and killed a lance of top-rated warriors from [[Overlord Stables]] in Cathay. The ambush would trigger a series of short and brutal battles between Lyran and Capellan leaning stables, ultimately culminating in the destruction of the Wraiths.<ref name=JStBDp25/>

Despite Erik Gray's appeals to SHDL members to focus on the Blakists, the Word's forces used the distraction of the infighting to launch a devastating assault to seize the International Zone again, reclaiming the warehouse district and securing [[artillery]] which they proceeded to use to shell Solaris City proper. While the SHDL splintered along Great House lines, the five groups worked separately towards the same goal, pushing the Word out of the International Zone by October 3071. Forced into [[Xolara]] and [[Burgton]], the Blakist 25th Division withdrew to the city of Nowhere, seizing Blue Shot Weapons' plant there.

With both sides now suffering extensive losses, the fighting began to slow due to both attrition and loss of suitable repair facilities, but thanks to Erik Gray's previously established supply bases, the SHDL forces held the upper hand. Finally too battered to continue and with no reinforcements imminent, the Word of Blake abandoned Solaris in early December 3071.<ref name=JStBDp25/>

==Aftermath==

==References==
<references />

==Bibliography==
*''[[Jihad Secrets: The Blake Documents]]''

[[Category: Jihad Era Military Operations|Showtime, Operation]]