Io - Moon

History of defences

At the beginning of Io's colonisation no defences were needed since the incredibly hostile environment shielded the moon from any ability of naval attack, however as the CoN began colonising their own moons around Jupiter Io instead began to become a more vulnerable target as though there are no need for anti siege or invasion defences since it is impossible to land troops on the moons surface without two metre thick walls to protect them from the charged particles and just as impossible to keep any ships in orbit without the shelter of orbital harbours stopping rapid attrition of even the most durable ship hulls. Instead the moon is highly vulnerable to hit and run attacks on the moons surface by anything including ramming ships into the surface which won't burn up due to the nearly non existent atmosphere. This fear would be realised during the Richard Nixon accident and stoked fears in the government that this would only embolden an attack by the CoN on this now increasingly important ship building world.

By 2500 Io contained by far the most up to date and powerful defences in the entire solar system, unlike Titan who's defences were not updated after the calming of tensions following the solar scramble Io was seen as too important by PASO to risk losing to a surprise attack. Jupiter's immense gravity well keeps all ships from entering and exiting lower space anywhere near Io meaning any force that was to attempt an attack would be detected days before arrival which only added to the strength of previously developed strategies of defence in depth.

Current defence plan

The current defences outside of the latest generations of ships date back to the Dominic Plan after the near collapse of the PASO following the Miscommunication war and splinter war that was lit off in its wake. They shook up what had quickly proved to be outdated tactics, systems and command structures that had been quickly overwhelmed and exploited by attackers. Io was only attacked briefly in a probing measure by the CoN disguised as splinter activity looking to see what could be exploited. The attack failed but the proximity the attack got to allowed some long range munitions to be slung at the moon although all missed or did little damage it very well could have ended the colony had the CoN pressed a real attack with a larger fleet from Europa. In 2410 work began on implementing the Funnel Snare in which the long lance fleet stationed at Io would ride out to meet the enemy fleet but stay out of effective range peppering them with missiles while dozens of task forces of fast minelayers in harbours dotted around in Jupiter's Orbit worked to corral fleets into a tighter and tighter formation slowly over days whittling down even larger fleets into a tight formation which slowly but surely without room to evade effectively without compromising other ships in the formation would eventually become encircled as the minelaying ships close the net. Unlike regular mines which act independently the snare mines not only keep in contact with other mines and their minelayers but are able to move independently to tighten the snare once deployed until the enemy fleet either surrenders or is destroyed by a simultaneous detonation.

Io has one industry that every part of the moon specialises in, in one way or another, fleet construction. Ore is mined from the crust by the Anaconda company is shipped on mass by rail to Nagfsy where it is then processed and refined into the raw materials needed in the PASOs single largest reasource mill encompassing 79 square miles. The refined reasources are then sent to the legendary Io foundry, using the magma reservoir to heat the foundry, where the materials are shaped into every part needed for the hulls of ships up to and including the casting of the half mile long barrels for battleship MACs. The parts are then sent up one of the five space lifts to be assembled in space. The foundry has never operated at full capacity, since it underwent a multi trillion dollar expansion after the incident over Verinox B but fortunately tensions were eased and the new facilities were never used. The foundry at full capacity would require millions more people to be brought on to Io as the population currently could not support it.

Three seprate infrastructure projects mark Io's surface in multiple domes connected by rail infrastructure. Unlike on other worlds Io's hostile enviroment requires special precautions to deal with the near constant magma flows and erruptions which spray thousand degree molten rock over the structures on a monthly basis. All structures on Io are covered in a thick titanium-carbide molybdenum cerment able to withstand both the high tempratures and under go plastic deformation to withstand the impact of the volcanic material.

Nagfsy

Named after the planets capital, the Norfolk automated geothermal foundry and ship yard or Nagfsy for short, this region contains the majority of the moons population in the south of the Colchis basin near the Pele magma reservoir to take advantage of the heat for industrial work.

Marcus Daly mines

The largest district on the moon but also the least populous, the mines have a central hub north of the Bulicame region comprising the habitation centre along with maintenance bays for the STCE equipment.

Tarsus Harbour

The orbital Harbour over the Tarsus region was the home of the PASO interplanetary fleet during the solar scramble and today is the largest fleet repair station in PASO controlled space along with one of the largest training centres. The Harbour boasts the largest breakwater system in Humanities possession protecting the harbour from damaging ionized particles up to 20 miles out.