[b]Nation Name:[/b] United Jovian Colonies (UJC/JV)

[b]Population:[/b] 8,917,198,
[b]Predecessor/Origin:[/b] After the ice moon of Jupiter, Europa, was colonized in 2037, it quickly became one of the fastest growing settlements in human domain for one simple fact: its access to water. With an entire ocean and a nuclear reactor available, not only was the colony capable of producing food through hydroponics, but it could cheaply synthesize rocket fuel in the form of liquid oxygen and hydrogen. Where others had to literally freeze the fuel, 'Europans' could use the freezing ice. Within five years, its population had grown to five thousand. The rest of the Jovian moons followed suit as the nations of Earth tried to claim a piece of the pie, but Europa continued to dominate the region under the control of the European Union. In 2071, however, the eight million humans in the Jovian system (most of them from a generation born and raised on the moons) peacefully voted to 'evict' the foreign governments and form their own. Europa, one of the few exporters of Helium 3 in the area, became the capital of the new United Jovian Colonies. The Jovians raised the prices on Helium 3 massively, holding the rest of the solar system hostage under threat of a fuel shortage. The United Nations 'gifted' them with several destroyers to defend their planets, and the fuel crisis was miraculously resolved.

By 2118, the twenty million people of the Jovian moons, the population bolstered by people seeking to escape the oppressive government of Mars, had became a superpower in Sol. Their military fleet, while not exactly massive, had enough supercarriers and dreadnoughts to keep their fuel-hungry neighbours at bay. That all changed during the war: Jupiter's position in the solar system lengthened the response time of the UN's Rapid Reaction Force, and the Jovians lost most of their fleet in the opening attack. More than half of the population was killed when Europa City, Callisto Prime and Io City were destroyed with three fifty megaton nuclear warheads.

For two years, the Jovian fleets, a shamble of their former glory, continued to protect the smaller cities on Jupiter's moons and took significant losses while doing so. The CNS Galileo Galilei, first of the [i]Galilei[/i] class of Supercarriers and flagship of the fleet, was destroyed protecting Ganymede from an alien assault group. With it it took most of the fleet's high command, including Fleet Admiral Peter Connor, Chief of Staff of the Navy, and President Richard Gaulle. The fleet fell into disarray as the bulk of its command structure was annihilated.

Admiral Elizabeth Maxson assumed command of the fleet with a simple broadcast transmitted over all local channels: [i]Admiral Maxson, Commanding Officer, Supercarrier CNS Europa, assuming command of fleet. All surviving civilian and military units report on encrypted channels. Have hope.[/i] A few hours later, then-Attorney General William Shatner was sworn in as President in a government bunker deep beneath Ganymede. By the end of the day, the Jovian Colonies had a new command hierarchy amassed in two locations: the CNS Europa and Area 8, the bunker on Ganymede.Then Rear Admiral Maxson was promoted to full Admiral by the President in a brief video conference ceremony.

The change in tactics was almost instant: instead of assuming the stationary defense doctrine Fleet Command had stuck to throughout the war, Admiral Maxson split the fleet into two groups. The first was to buy the people of the Jovian system time: the surviving 21st CSG along with elements from the 11th, 13th and 24th CSGs attacked an inbound alien strike group several hours away from Jupiter, and while they took significant casualties, they bought the second group several days to complete their task. The other half of the fleet focused its efforts on evacuation and rescue: crews ran 24/7 shifts as the destroyers scoured the local area for any stranded civilian ships or vessels in hiding while the carriers ferried refugees aboard every ship with their shuttles and transports. Anything that could fly was scrambled, including ships a dozen years past their 'expiry date'. By the end of the week, the bulk of the surviving Jovian population had been evacuated. The first batch of survivors fled to Earth under the protection of the last active dreadnought and its escorts.

The battle of Earth was just starting when the refugees arrived, and the commanding officer of the dreadnought strike group cleverly hid the refugee fleet behind the dark side of the moon for the duration of the engagement as the Jovian warships joined the rest of the United Nations fleet. Several days later, after the battle ended, most of the fleet joined the dreadnought in Earth orbit after having left a single destroyer taskforce behind to search for more survivors or assets that could be salvaged.
 
[b]Government:[/b] Federal Presidential Constitutional Republic. The UJC's system of government was based on that of the United States and the European Union. It is headed by the President, who is also the commander in chief of the military, even though the decisions are always left to the Department of Defense and Fleet Command. Legislation is provided by the Congress, while the Supreme Court handles judicial affairs. 

Each of the 67 Jovian moons and the eight Semi-Autonomous Territories are represented by four Senators each in the Colonial Senate. A President has to win both the popular and electoral vote to be sworn in. One little-known fact is that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have the right to veto any non-supermajority Senate vote if they feel it compromises national security; in the short history of the Colonies, that right had been exercised exactly twice. Since the destruction of the Galileo Galilei, however, Admiral Maxson has vetoed over ninety separate votes by the Colonial Senate, some of them involving seemingly unrelated matters such as food distribution.

[b]Ethnic Groups:[/b] 81% Jovian, 17% Martian, 2% Other.

[b]Civilian Fleet:[/b] The Jovian fleet is disproportionally focused on fuel tankers and cargo transports; almost 800 large ships make up the bulk of the fleet formation, while several smaller shuttle sized craft carry single families or serve in a cargo transport function. Almost 60% of the larger ships are civilian luxury liners, passenger transports or cargo ships modified to carry people; the fleet continuously deals with overpopulation problems. The rest of the ships are a mix of mining ships, repair ships, fuel tankers and refinery platforms.

[b]Military Fleet:[/b] 
[i]CNS Europa:[/i] Galilei-class Supercarrier. Fleet flagship. 18th Carrier Strike Group. Minor damage to starboard hangar deck.
[i]CNS Io:[/i] Galilei-class Supercarrier. N/A. Still under construction during the war, was hastily patched up and made combat ready. Mostly.
[i]CNS Ganymede:[/i] Galilei-class Supercarrier. 21st Carrier Strike Group. Severe damage to main battery.

[i]CNS Adrastea:[/i] Pioneer-class Dreadnought, 18th Carrier Strike Group. Mostly in good condition, damaged port nuclear missile bay doors.
[i]CNS Callisto:[/i] Callisto-class Dreadnought, Inactive. Salvaged from the Europa low orbit scrapyard it had been deposited in for disassembly. Missing several weapons systems, but the main battery is intact.

[i]CNS Valiant:[/i] Defiant-class Battleship, 18th Carrier Strike Group. Critical damage to starboard engine pod, reduced maneuvering capability.
[i]CNS Valkyrie:[/i] Defiant-class Battleship, 18th Carrier Strike Group. Damaged during the Battle of Ganymede, taking some damage to her main battery.
[i]CNS Achilles:[/i] Defiant-class Battleship, 18th Carrier Strike Group. One of the few undamaged ships in the fleet.
[i]CNS Carl Sagan:[/i] Defiant-class Battleship, 21st Carrier Strike Group. Was undergoing upgrades to her jump drive when the attack on Ganymede happened.

[i]CNS Olympus:[/i] Olympus-class Fleet Carrier. 21st Carrier Strike Group. Severe damage to port fighter launch tubes.
[i]CNS Everest:[/i] Olympus-class Fleet Carrier. 21st Carrier Strike Group. Main battery and nuclear missile control offline.
[i]CNS Indomitable:[/i] Indomitable-class Fleet Carrier. 21st Carrier Strike Group. Unfinished at the time of the attack, missing several systems.
[i]CNS Steven Hawking:[/i] Olympus-class Fleet Carrier. 18th Carrier Strike Group. Mostly undamaged.

+7 Destroyers.

[b]Military Details:[/b] During the war, all the reserves were called upon to defend the Jovian colonies. This leaves the Colonies with an almost disproportionate number of active troops compared to reservists: 320,000 active servicemen and 10,000 reserve. A vast majority of the Jovian Civil Protection Service and the Jovian Special Weapons and Tactics Service were also conscripted into the Marines to fill in gaps in the ranks of the military police. The Jovian military has held out better than most, having several surviving ships left and a large number of tanks, power armor suits and aircraft, but almost 70% of all servicemen are either in the Navy and Air Force. Jovians rely on mechanized solutions such as armored vehicles and powered exoskeletons to make up for their lack in numbers. In addition, they have a strong nuclear arsennal, maintaining at least 37 ground-strike MIRV nuclear weapons of various yields and approximately 68 nuclear ship-to-ship warheads in the single megaton range.

[b]Noteworthy Assets:[/b] 

[i]CNS Europa:[/i] Before the war, the first pair of [i]Galilei-class[/i] Supercarriers, the Galileo Galilei and the Nicolaus Copernicus, had just finished field trials and were on the fast track to being commissioned. These fifth-generation Supercarriers were each built to be a portable command facility, airport, battleship and support ship at once. Spanning 1,128 meters in length and with a mass two times that of the best Earth-built warships, they carried enough nuclear weapons with them to scorch the surface of a planet and enough ammunition to support their own personal war. A total of eight were built, tasked with replacing the older Einstein-class Supercarriers. During the war, all but two of these warships were lost. Military analysts concluded that the ships themselves were not the problem: it was numbers. The aliens often came with a massive size advantage, and while a Galilei-class and its strike group could take on the equivalent alien formations without much trouble, they often fought outnumbered 5:1. One by one the CSGs fell, leaving only two: the Europa and the Ganymede, with the Io still being constructed. With the Ganymede's main battery damaged, it has been kept behind the front lines until the completion of repairs. Thus, the Europa remains the most powerful ship in the fleet, and the most important one at the same time: with the government and the fleet's command using it as their headquarters, it remains at the center of the Jovian fleet formation.

[i]Helium-3:[/i] Europa was a primary exporter of Helium isotopes before the war, but it had also accumulated a sizeable emergency deposit for times of either economical or material need. When the war struck, the fleet violently defended the 'Fuel Bank' on Europa, sacrificing most of the 16th carrier strike group so that the fuel could be 'evacuated' by the dozens of tankers.

[b]Supplies (approx.):[/b]
[i]Water:[/i] 2 Weeks
[i]Food:[/i] 3 Weeks
[i]Air:[/i] 2 Months

[i]Fuel:[/i] 109 Lightyears (Jump Capacity)