So it is done

The soldiers of Atlas were fortunate, as far as that concept could be applied to the current situation, at least. They're fortunate that many of them were already on alert, prepared for battle or on combat duty at their posts, already awaiting the action from the revolutionaries of Mantle.

They're lucky because if not for that, if the soldiers had been quietly continuing to stand watch at their military bases, which no one had even bothered to visit for years, either for inspection or for some propaganda reason. The only people who bothered to visit the base were those who were supposed to be visiting them, no doubt spitting from boredom at the ceiling. If their weapons had been sealed in the armory, while most of the soldiers were amusing themselves by telling each other well-repeated jokes. Or if they were busy flipping cards among themselves, carried in defiance of all prohibitions by their superior officers. If it were not for the constant paranoia and readiness for the start of the battle...

If not for that, if Atlas's soldiers had behaved as usual, Remnant's most powerful war machine would have fallen apart without a fight. They would have lost, surrendering to the onslaught of attackers in a matter of moments. It probably wouldn't have even taken an hour.

But, for that one day, Atlas' soldiers were ready – as ready as one could be for what had happened. In the end, it didn't help them win, but it did make the capture of Atlas nothing but easy.

When suddenly, Atlas' headquarters, once the Atlas Academy of Hunters in calmer times, received dozens of completely senseless reports that the streets of the city had hastily begun to fill with an unknown army. They were ready for some kind of uprising, the tension between Atlas and Mantle was all but palpable, but they were still not prepared for the scale of it. When it was known that the army was neither Atlas' nor Mantle's, there was bewilderment in the ranks of the soldiers, and panic in the ranks of their commanders.

It was the nature of a commander to prepare an army, to prepare a plan for the most diverse outcomes of action. A commander was not to rely on emotion or his own desires, not to hover in the clouds, and to plan even against the real, albeit the most unlikely, outcomes. At least if he wished to be called a 'good' commander. The commander had to plan his battle strategy on the basis of a variety of conditions.

If the clash in the street would end in favor of one side, or the other, or would it be a draw, not concluded with a meaningful result or result in mutual annihilation of the two warring sides. The commander does not rely on a rickety ladder of ideal outcomes. Thoughts like 'now we will win here, as we cannot fail to win, after which here, for the same reason, and this will lead us to an absolute victory over the enemy' cannot enter into their heads. The commander must consider the maximum number of outcomes of any encounter with the enemy, from more likely to less likely.

An unexpected attack by a Grimm super-horde, forcing the opponents to conclude a brief truce for the duration of the battle, such as after the events of Glenn and Vacuo, was another possibility. A distant possibility, but one that commanders had to consider when crafting their tactics and strategy in this world overrun by the tides of Darkness.

However, everything has a limit.

A commander can prepare a coherent plan for victory, even ones in case of a draw or even defeat, ones that would lead to mutual annihilation or a temporary truce. But how do you prepare a decent plan in the event that the sky falls down?

The prominent corps of Atlas officers had the capacity to prepare a multitude of different plans, taking into account every detail, down to the quality of their potential enemies' uniforms and the maximum turn speed of captured Atlas tanks. But they had no plan for a surprise Glenn Army invasion of Atlas territory, from multiple fronts, and without any previous indication of them even mobilizing the army. An ambush, by thousands of men supported by heavy equipment, done perfectly in stealth.