Aethor wrote:First, most of EoC military campaign so far has been reactive, not proactive. CoGA attacked Siddarmark, so EoC needed to help Siddarmark.
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Also, while the CoGA had a huge advantage in numbers originally, a lot of it has been destroyed by now; and if the contingent from Harchong can be neutralized in a similar fashion, not only it will be generally easier for EoC, but they will be able to take more people out of the Siddarmark and send them elsewhere (Zion). Also, if that part of the Temple army is neutralized, other countries will be less likely to send more armies... nobody wants to throw his lot in with the losing side.
Very good points - basically the question of invading Zion isn't
if, but
when? The answer is "not this year, maybe next, or the year after that..." The King Haarahld battle cruisers need to be finished, used to mop up the Gulf of Dohlar, and possibly next year when the war in Siddarmark may be largely over and some troops can be siphoned away or new troops from across the EoC have been trained, then Cayleb and Sharley can keep their promise to send the fleet to Port Harbor and start unloading the troops.
Clearly they can't wait too long, and in a year or two they may well be in a military position to make a move on Zion and capture the Temple. Whether Safehold will be ready to accept the corruption the Temple represents and looks at an invasion that results in the "heretics" physically seizing the Temple with relief rather than as a rallying cry for TLs everywhere will depend on how much the EoC (via OWL's broadsheets and Aivah's dirt on the vicarate) have been able to educate the populace by then, as well as how badly the CoGA's military forces have been defeated.
Once the EoC captures the Temple, Merlin & Co. need to maintain a physical presence there to figure out what's in the basement, and hopefully how to control it and stop the return of the archangels, if that's necessary. So any truce or treaty between the EoC and the CoGA needs to ensure that the CoC has continued access to the Temple.
As for strategies to capture the temple, see this thread:
http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6920 and this one
http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6871&hilit=capture+templeThis topic has been discussed for years, so if you do a keyword search using "attack" and "Zion" for example, you'll get a lot more examples. I've written similar replies on several threads over the years, so it's a topic that comes up regularly.
Of course the EoC needs to capture the Temple rather than attacking Zion, which some threads consider impossible. (It's doable, the ICA just needs to be sneaky...)