The problem with this scenario is that there is absolutely zero motivation for a ground invasion. Just do orbital bombardments until the Earthlings surrender. You need a reason why they just *have* to have boots on the ground, because that reason determines their entire invasion strategy.
I already pointed out though that quite possibly the warships of the Ilnarii navy and the rebels may not be designed for actual orbital bombardment, afterall when has it ever come up before? Putting down insurrections and previous rebellions from Orks doesn't require that much firepower, orbital missile carrying drones can do that just fine right?
Having armed warships makes sense, as space piracy is pretty serious for an empire that size.
Besides how to make sure the technology is destroyed? Inspectors need escort, the enemy needs to be cowed and to do so means occupation.
Iraq springs to mind, Air power and pummeling iraq from above isn't enough to secure the end to the potential threat of WMDs.
I would make their abilities a combination of psionics and cybernetic enhancements. Telepathic communication, superhuman speed and agility (but not strength.... I hate elves who are both strong and fast), excellent marksmanship. Elite telepaths are capable of reading minds, making people completely ignore them, or even creating hallucinations, but those abilities are very very rare.
Telepathic is probably unneeded, simply having the next logical step in inter soldier communications would be sufficient as a force multiplier.
Now the carbontube nanofiber kevlar could be used to make strength AND speed enhanced suits as seen on the show "Scifi Science: Physics of the Impossible". Though I'm tempted to differentiate between Elite units and normal grunts, who make do with normal carbonfibre kevlar.
Though introducing psionics (mind reading, telepathy, etc) I could do, kinda like the Mass Effect abilities but toned down but very rare.
As for armor/protection, they could rely on their speed and agility. Even their grunt soldiers are able to perform acrobatic stunts making them extremely difficult to target. Further, their armor is capable of stopping small-caliber rounds (though it still stuns/slows them for a moment), and their medical technology is advanced enough that field treatments can quickly staunch any non-vital flesh wound.
A good look at any recent half decent first person shooter would reveal the weakness in agility based evasion for a firefight, firefights are about firing from cover at either exposed targets or firing to suppress targets behind said cover. Bunny hopping in a FPS is surprising only for so long before people get used to it and effortlessly shoot you down.
And besides I want the Ilnarii to be approachable and fight similarly enough to Humans to make it an easy frame of reference for the reader. Aliens who fight with squad based firing from cover supporting friendlies is approachable but made threatening from improved technology and training and some relatively "minor" abilities that when combined with their technology presents a scary synergy.
As for weakness.... Apart from their arrogance and underestimating humans, their lack of propensity for war makes them poor strategists and tacticians. Their culture never produced a Sun Tzu, so they often fall for human ambushes and deceptions. They do learn quickly, but not quickly enough as the tide of war turns against them.
I generally agree with this though its a little extreme, they had wars in their past on their homeworld, and wars of pacification when they encountered pre-industrial orks, I don't think generally being at peace automatically means there's no equivilent of a Sun-Tzu, or that many "lesser" Tzu's couldn't come into being and simply over time present the same knowledge and wisdom.
Entirely possible for what Sun-Tzu did for warfare in a decade the Ilnarii could figure out on their own over 5000 years of "thinking" about it and wargaming.
Though I will say that presents an interesting idea for a weakness, "Starcraft"-esque armchair generals, people who are used to "wargames" and trained within that system (rock paper scissors mentality, too much macro or micro, "bio balls"/human waves, disregard for lives, overkill use of firepower etc).
But the overall point is that the rebel Ilnarii will fight along side humans, and humans need to fight Ilnarii while at the sametime be relateable to the reader.
As such I can't go too crazy/Warhammer 40k/Eldar with acrobatics and jumping around and have to keep as "Okay what could humans do in 60 years?"
Not that this completely rules out the acrobatics, I can see a commando mission with a 3 man team using such stunts in closed confines fairly effectively, and hey an excuse for Gun kata!!
You mean those places to set as landing zones? I'm not suer about southern china, maybe it'll be better for them to try the gobi desert
Maybe, but they prefer darkness and cold cool cave complexes, I don't think they'ld willingly attack a desert unless they had to.
Yeah I suppose it really depends on the starships... Because for what I was imagining, I thought maybe a couple dozen star destroyer sized ships coming to invade earth, optimized for ship to ship combat and orbital bombardment (actually those two capabilities can be combined, kind of like how modern AShMs can double as LACMs).
I'ld prefer that orbital bombardment as something that is only developed and deployed later in the war, and that the weapons used for space combat (nuclear tipped missiles, lasers, kinnetic rounds) I don't think would be too effective fired straight at the atmosphere which I'm 90% certain would negate most of the weapons effectiveness like hitting a brick wall.
Not that the above couldn't be adapted to it eventually, just not right away. I want a believable excuse for not having the means to simply bomb the US to the stone age and have to land boots.
Just nitipcking here -- if the alien elf race doesn't decide to attack Earth, will that be detrimental to their civil war effort? I mean I recognize the FTL technology/rebel reasoning, but that doesn't seem enough for me to allocate significant amounts of resources into an invasion unless you know you're going to blitz them into submission within a short period of time.
Because an invasion of Earth would be opening up another front in addition to their more important civil war, and that doesn't seem very wise.
Attacking Stalingrad was detrimental to Hitler's war effort but he did it anyways, the seem reasoning is valid here, the Tribunal/Troika prosecuting the war from the Ilnarii government perspective are like that. 1/3 a Hitler each.
So optical sensors? I suppose the alien starships don't have cloaking or tactics to avoid detection?
Ain't no stealth in space. ---> project rho.
What about orbital fire support? For the aliens?
Suborbital they'll get, ramjet Intercontinental bombers very high up and very accurate even with "dumb" munitions, as well as "normal" CAS support and mobile "normal" artillery, tube based and rocket based.
Hmm is there a reason to occupy the cities -- I mean you've stated the motivations for the Ilnar or whatever, for this invasion but no definite goal yet. If it's to subjugate the human race for slavery then maybe theyl'l have to leave the cities alone, but if it's to simply wipe humanity from existance then a clean orbital bombardment should be enough.
Occupying cities in the past haven't been problematic before with the previous peoples they've subjugated, so they walk in and mostly successfully take cities but then have problems with gurrillas and freedom fighters who know the terrain better. Eventually they figure out Cities = Bad and then adopt counter measures or alternative tactics.
Cities in fact would be Humanities best bet to even the odds, by being so urban it makes their superior firepower almost useless and have to fight much closer on Human terms.
