Jupiter and its Moons

"Whom Jupiter would destroy he first drives mad."

The Jupiter Sphere

Jupiter is the furthest humanity has gone from the Earth without using a Fold drive, and with the recall of the Macross Colonial Fleets well in advance of the formation of any interstellar colonies, represents the furthest populated spaces held by Earthnoids. The Jupiter Sphere, like the Earth Sphere, is populated... though the truth of its population is a well-kept secret. A few major organizations hold sway out in the Jupiter Sphere.

The Jupiter Energy Fleet

The Jupiter Energy Fleet is a neutral organization devoted to the gathering and sale of helium-3. Little is known of their day-to-day experience; they make regular shipments of helium-3 in exchange for necessary supplies through a mass driver network, and only occasionally even bother with more than a token escort for their ships.

The Jupiter Energy Fleet is practically a society unto itself, with its own shipboard government. While theoretically answerable to the Earth Federation, the Jupiter Energy Fleet freely sets its own internal rules, and it's hardly as though anyone else can make them follow the beat of a different drum. There is a significant amount of criminality within the Jupiter Energy Fleet; Fleet ships can differ in how much they tolerate this, but they tend to go under-examined, making them prime vessels for smuggling, human trafficking, arms dealing, and other activities.

Despite the war with supposed lizards from somewhere within the Jupiter Sphere, the Jupiter Energy Fleet's shipments continue totally unabated.

Anti-Earth Cooperative Federation of the Jovian Sphere: Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, and Associated Moons and Asteroids

The Anti-Earth Cooperative Federation of the Jovian Sphere: Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, and Associated Moons and Asteroids (or, if we're pressed for time, the Jovian Federation) is the real power of the Jupiter Sphere, with seemingly limitless industrial power and access to technologies totally unknown in the Earth Sphere. Led by Vice-Admiral Haruki Kusakabe, the Jovian Federation seeks the utter destruction of the Earth Federation apparatus and all who derive power therefrom. Their unmanned (and occasionally manned) units, beamed to Earth at light speed outside of conventional space using a technology called Boson Jumping, have been waging a mostly indiscriminate war against the people of the Earth Sphere.

The average person in the Earth Sphere has no idea the Jovian Federation exists. As far as they're concerned, the attacks perpetrated by the Jovian Federation are coming from "Jovian Lizards" -- a species of aliens that have colonized Jupiter's moons to make war on Earth for no discernible reason, with no discernible intelligence.

For more information, please see: Anti-Earth Cooperative Federation

Culture

The Jovian Federation's culture comes from two sources:

• a diehard nationalist-authoritarian political styling that was common in the Earth Sphere in the late 2100s that largely died out with the advent of supranational unions, and
• cult classic mecha anime Gekiganger 3 (and its half-sequel, half-rebrand third cour Gekiganger V), as well as a handful of notes and artbooks providing designs and suggestions for a true sequel.

Yes, really.

The Jovians took to the latter with such enthusiasm that they let it inform all their biases from the former; over the decades that followed, they developed a culture and ideology built around the following tenets.

• Men should be heroes. A man can only be a hero by embracing justice, defined as defeating one's enemies, risking one's life, and being prepared to die; the ideal man is either dashing and hot-blooded, calculating and cold-blooded (but still a warrior for justice), or a stout-hearted supporter of more decisive men.
• Women should be delicate, classically feminine, and both capable of self-sacrifice and worthy of sacrificing oneself for.
• Your enemies are monsters and should be defeated. It is impossible to treat with those who have wronged you. Indeed, they may no longer qualify as "human" at all.
• Gekiganger III is, of course, the best piece of media ever created by human hands.

The average Jovian believes these things sincerely.

Political Situation

The Jovian Federation's primary goal is to destroy the Earth Federation, including most certainly anyone on Earth and probably many of those in its colonies. Despite this, it allows the Jupiter Energy Fleet to continue operating; food growth to support the growing population is a struggle, and trade with the Jupiter Energy Fleet is a matter of practical importance to get food out to the Jupiter Sphere in quantities that will support further population growth. The Fleet usually claims to be selling this food in the asteroid belt.

The Jovian Federation enjoys a friendly relationship with one unexpected Earth Sphere nation: PLANT. In the PLANTs, the Jovians see their cultural trauma repeated almost note for note, with only modest variation in the particulars; what's more, the first Coordinator, George Glenn, kept their secret and even engaged in some cultural exchange with them rather than show hostility, so the Jovians' feelings on Coordinators are quite positive. There's some degree of cultural friction between them due to the PLANTs' extremely egalitarian ethos, which flies in the face of the Gekiganger-driven male chauvinism of the Jovian Federation. Jovians typically rationalize this as a sign of the sheer desperation of the PLANTs, and take the presence of what they see as more conventionally "passive" feminine cultural icons as a sign that once the PLANTs are no longer subject to the evils of the Earth Federation, they will become a "proper" society.

Phase 2 Addenda

Many ZAFT pilots unsatisfied with ZAFT's return to the PLANTs have instead been drawn into the AECF's military as a deniable asset to be deployed in the Earth Sphere. While they have a path to full Jovian citizenship for valor, it's hard to describe the treatment of these conscripts as anything but disposable.

Technology

The Jovian Federation has currently-exclusive access to the technology known as Boson Jumping, which moves things at the speed of light -- and could potentially have further applications with greater knowledge of dimensional mechanics. To use this technology, the Jovians use devices known as Chulips -- flower-like gates that bring things that enter one Chulip to another Chulip of choice.

The Jovian Federation also has access to technology capable of rapidly producing most industrial goods, including mobile weapons. It is still somewhat limited by the ability of the user to create usable schematics, though a few of the schematics that were uncorrupted when the Jovians arrived informed further developments.