Battle of the Sol System

The Battle of the Sol System is the final and decisive battle of both the Second Bloody Valentine War and the Second Cylon War.

Cylon Invasion
The battle began when Cavil, having rearmed his forces and rebuilt after the destruction of the Resurrection Hub, launched an all-out assault on Earth, bringing 500 Baseships to attack Earth, the Colonial civilian Fleet in orbit of Jupiter and the PLANT orbital colonies.

Colonial response and counterattack
The Colonials, familiar with the Cylons' attack on the colonies, moved to counter the attack by jumping several Spitfire-Class AA cruisers into Earth orbit, preventing a quick and easy victory for the Cylons. However, they could not destroy the Baseships themselves, forcing three CCE Galactica-Class Battlestars to jump in and fire on them, straining their resources further.

Defense of the PLANTs
The ZAFT PLANT Defense Fleet were outnumbered greatly by Cylon Raiders and Baseships, the latter of which were launching nuclear weapons, but they would not fight alone, as the Galactica jumped in to help defend the PLANTs and launched her Vipers and Raptors to take on over 1000 Raiders and intercept the nukes. The Cylons outnumbered Galactica four-to-one, but with the added beam weapons and CIWS turrets, Galactica engaged and destroyed multiple Baseships within 15 minutes, then took multiple nuclear missile strikes to prevent the Cylons from destroying the PLANTs.

System-wide invasion
The Cylons had recovered multiple AMF-101 DINNs (which came from Operation Spitbreak over two years before) and repurposed them for space combat to combat the Colonial Fleet's new CDF-01A Darts. The problem with that was that the DINN had long since become out of date and was easily cleared out by Colonial MS teams. The largest problem, however, was the Colony, which had jumped into Earth orbit and had begun launching Raiders en masse to get through the Colonial defenses. This forced all 10 Zeus-Class Battlestar Dreadnoughts to jump into Earth orbit and attempt to destroy it.

MESSIAH Taken
At the same time, the Cylons launched an attack on MESSIAH, attempting to hijack the ZAFT command post and turn Neo-GENESIS on Earth. They were delayed by ZAFT forces, but they could not hold out against the massive Cylon invasion of the station. Eventually, it fell into Cylon hands.

Galactica's Final Charge
During this, Galactica led the Cylons away from the PLANTs, using every trick in the book, including point blank nuclear blasts, keep them from attacking the PLANTs and causing the deaths of millions. She took heavy damage, even knocking out maneuvering thrusters and the FTL drive. The huck of the Fortuna also rammed into Galactica, causing heavy damage. The intervention of the Junk Guild ship Hell Vulture and eight other Colonial ships saved the ship, although the frigate Taos Alpha was destroyed in taking out a Baseship, which opened up a path for Galactica to escape. Adama, however, turned Galactica toward MESSIAH, intending to ram Galactica into Neo-GENESIS and destroy the station with the last of Galactica's nuclear weapons as Galactica's structural damage was too great. The engines were red-lined and Galactica charged at the station while escorted by 8 other ships (Valkryie, Archangel, Hell Vulture, Minerva, Hrunting and three others) to the station. Adama evacuated the ship when Galactica closed in on MESSIAH and the flight pods, having taken heavy damage, flew off and destroyed two Baseships following the evacuation. Galactica destroyed the mirror block and exploded inside Neo-GENESIS, destroying MESSIAH. The Loyalist Cylons, having lost too many ships and Raiders and having taken heavy damage to the Colony, retreated after MESSIAH's destruction.

Athermath
The Loyalist Cylons left the Sol System, having lost so many ships that attacking them again would be fruitless. With the death of Durandal, the Second Bloody Valentine War was effectively over, although fighting would continue to eliminate LOGOS and Durandal Loyalist forces, mostly undertaken by the Colonial Fleet.