Occupation of Shanxi

Previous:	Fall of Shanxi
Concurrent:	Battle of Charon
Next:	Liberation of Shanxi
Occupation of Shanxi Part of the Shanxi campaign (First Contact War)
Turian forces at the start of the occupation, rounding up prisoners and solidifying their hold on the planet.
Date:	12 November - 21 December 2157 CE (1 month and 10 days)
Location:	Outskirts and interior of New Xi'an / Shanxi / 23 Ursae Majoris / Local Cluster
Outcome:	Occupation is brought to an end Liberation of Shanxi
Belligerents Shanxi colony and Alliance POWs Turian Hierarchy Commanders Jack Harper Eva Coré Ben Hislop Aegubus Terculus Septimus Oraka Barcus Fedorian Saren Arterius Bruus Vyrnnus Strength 6,000 prisoners from the 1st Alliance Army 167 prisoners from the Shanxi Colonial Guard 12,000 captured civilians Navy of Palaven Twelfth Fleet 330 ships Marine Corps of Palaven 403rd Legio Group 900 marines 16 Tyrant-class heavy tanks 4 Bireme-class IFVs 5 Hasta-class GAAs Armiger Legion 3rd Armiger Maniple 5 Armiger special operators Casualties 13 prisoners escape, but are later recaptured 15 prisoners murdered by Vyrnnus through various barbaric methods, 4 others mercy killed 8 troopers captured, 5 killed, 3 tortured and later returned Commander Vyrnnus is arrested and relieved of command for war crimes

The Occupation of Shanxi was the military occupation of the Alliance frontier colony of Shanxi by the Turian Armed Forces following their victory over the Alliance Second Fleet at the First Battle of Shanxi and the surrender of the Alliance ground forces under the command of General Arthur Williams. Towards the end of the battle, Williams realized he could not possibly prevail against the turians without the Second Fleet covering them from orbit or without air superiority, and promptly chose to surrender to the turians rather than pointlessly sacrifice any more of his men in an unwinnable struggle. The turians accepted the surrender of Williams and his men, seperating them into six different prefab POW camps on the outskirts of New Xi'an, Aegubus Terculus arranging them by order of tactical significance. Septimus Oraka ordered that all of the officers be sent to a special camp for "intel extraction", ordering them to use whatever methods possible to get what they needed. Meanwhile, turian forces rounded up civilians and confined them to their homes, imposing martial law. The turians commandeered what military installations that were still intact after the battle, and dismantled/ignored what ones they couldn't use due to the language differences.

While the turians did interrogate senior level officers, including Williams, some became frustrated over the language barriers and resorted to torture in the form of mind control and memory extraction devices to get their information that way. Outside of this, treatment of their military prisoners varied from camp to camp, and the commanders in charge of them. Some largely ignored their prisoners, posting guards to watch over them and little else. Other, more sadistic commanders, set up fighting rings and put wagers on their own men in beating up prisoners in one-sided fights, knowing that turians were superior in hand-to-hand combat due to their natural advantages as having evolved from carnivorous predators, making a sport out of it. One turian commander who was particularly hated by the Alliance military after the war was Bruus Vyrnnus. Under the pretenses of "experimenting" and "tactical observation", Vyrnnus was known for stringing up prisoners and experimenting with a series of weapons upon their person, justifying to Terculus as needing to know what best worked against the humans. Weapons fire, injection of chemical substances into the bloodstream, splashing them with acidic liquid, breaking bones, etc. After Vyrnnus discovered the "peak pain threshold" that a human could withstand, he injected prisoners afterwards with drugs to keep them awake. This brutality eventually led to a camp breakout led by Jack Harper and his friends Eva Coré and Ben Hislop, with the prisoners escaping into the countryside with a plan to wage a resistance campaign. Vyrnnus dispatched death squads to find the prisoners and execute them, already ordering a mass grave to bury them in so he could cover up the incident, not wanting to report it to his superiors for fear of looking incompetent or having his treatment of the prisoners discovered. One of these death squads was later ambushed by some of the prisoners led by Coré, with the survivors being taken to be interrogated: despite Hislop wanting to torture the prisoners to avenge what Vyrnnus did to their comrades, Harper, being the pragmatist, argued against it, valuing intel extraction over senseless brutality.

In the end however, one of the commanders of the nearby POW camp was able to lay a trap and recapture the prisoners, but instead of turning them over to Vyrnnus, he instead took them back to his camp and reported the incident to Terculus. Terculus dispatched three Armiger legionnaires to relieve Vyrnnus of command and take him into custody, with the Armiger lieutenant Saren Arterius being put in command of the camp. While Saren regarded the prisoners with contempt, he was disgusted by Vyrnnus' barbaric and sadistic practices, and immediately put an end to it and had the remaining prisoners dispense with the bodies of their slain comrades in the human style, mercifully killing what tortured prisoners were still alive. These actions would lead to Harper having a somewhat curious respect for the turians after the war, even after he would go on to form the pro-human organization Cerberus and took on the alias Illusive Man long after the war. Due to the prison break, Terculus had Harper, Coré and Harper labelled as disruptive influences, and they were transported to Septimus' flagship in orbit for further questioning, and to stop them from attempting another escape. The rest of the occupation largely passed by in peace, with Arterius repairing the damage done to the camp and its populace by Vyrnnus. Vyrnnus himself was taken aboard the cruiser Cardinal Justice and then taken by shuttle back to Palaven and put on trial. Due to the war with the Alliance being kept secret from the rest of the Council, Vyrnnus was spared from public execution (done in public as per the turian's honor code) and dishonorably discharged, stripped of his rank and commendations and banished from turian space. Vyrnnus would sell his services as a mercenary, and after the war, would be sought after for his biotic abilities in training the students of the BAaT program, and would subsequently be killed on accident by one of the male students for threatening him with a knife.

The occupation would come to an end after the Liberation of Shanxi, when the Alliance successfully evicted the turians from the planet and the system. An attempt to recapture it was called off when the Council finally discovered and intervened in the conflict, bringing an end to the war.