What happened on Pale and New Pale during the First Sathar War?

Reading through the other threads here, Imperial Lord obviously believes that they nuked the place and moved on.  I'm going to argue differently.<br /><br />The sathar seem to have two modus operandi, either enslave lesser races or obliterate more advanced one.  The attack on Pale and New Pale was the first opening shot in the battle with the Frontier.  They have ideas of the strength of the Frontier but really don't know any details so for this attack, they don't really know if they are dealing with an obliterate or enslave scenario.  <br /><br />Thus the first attack is going to be to subjugate and enslave the capture planet.  This is advantageous for a couple of reasons.  First if it turns out the battle with the Frontier is to enslave, they didn't waste a perfectly good population base of slaves.  Second, and much more importantly, by capturing the planet instead of just nuking it, they gain a population base to study and a chance to raid the technology of the races they are fighting.  It's too much of an intelligence source to pass up and just obliterate on the first pass.  Plus that meshes more with Jedi's idea that they have a stagnant tech base and this provides a way to grab new tech.  So the attack on Pale and New Pale won't be to obliterate but rather to capture.<br /><br />That isn't to say it won't be ruthless.  They will attack in overwelming force and take complete control of the system.  The the outside world, the system might as well have been obliterated as it will drop off the grid.  A few survivors will make it out but not much.  And and they will be bearing tales of the viscous attacks at the start of the fighting where it looked like the plan was obliteration as they overwhelmed the defenses.<br /><br />Of course, when the Sathar see they are losing and pull out of Pale, there is nothing to stop them from executing the obliteration option then.  They are being forced to leave, no reason to let the enemy have useful resources back.  So on the pull out they would probably blow everything up, just not at the beginning of the operation.<br /><br />Anyway, I think that is more reasonable operation mode for the attack.<br />