Name: Justice Class
Operators: American Union
Manufacturer:

Length: 150 Meters
Diameter (Radiators): Meters
Diameter (Main Body): Meters

Crew:

Propulsion: x 4 ULA Mark 17 Fusion Drives
Max Acceleration: 1.38g

Range: ~4 month before requiring resupply

Sensors:

Armament:

Electronic Warfare: MK 23 Naval Bastille Frequency Generator

The New Years Revolution was an eye opening experience for ISOC. A century of assumed space superiority was destroyed in two battles and barely won back with three more counter strikes. The Statesmen were officially outdated, defeated by armed merchantmen and cyber attacks. During the first two years of the war, the Speaker, Serviceman, and Conestoga classes were made from Mk1 Statesmen hulls, each trying to fill a role that the old design lacked.

After the cessation of hostilities, new projects were spun up, from new missiles to new ship classes. This included the Justice class, designed to hold territory for months and free up larger ships for the front line.

The new theoretical 'home defense' doctrine calls for fleets to be stationed at central space stations, a pair or more of Whips to be in orbit around less permanent anchorages, who are rotated back to the station for R&R when required, while a Justice patrols between a circuit of anchorages. For example, a station is set up around Jupiter's moon Europa, Whips would orbit around nearby mining bases, and a Justice would patrol the mini-system.

Lacking the room for the artificial gravity systems of the Statesmen, the Justice Class' decks are laid out perpendicular to the engines' thrust, taking advantage of the acceleration under thrust to orient the ship's interior. This does lead to zero-gravity conditions when the ship is not accelerating, but commanders of the vessel usually keep a low level of thrust going unless a specific orbit is required.

The Justice is a well armored ship, though all of it is focused on frontal attacks, with the radiators, engines, and rear sections being relatively exposed.

Coating nearly every surface is an extremely thin anti-flash layer made up of a highly heat resistant layer of tungsten carbide and an undercoating of industrial diamond. This is intended to provide a high amount of protection against high instantaneous heat flashes from nuclear weapons.

A layer of graphite impregnated aerogel is used throughout the ship for protection against laser attacks. After the Union defeat at Reiss in the beginning of 2320 this became more importanr. One meter of the material is layered on under the anti-flash surface, and additional material was injected into any extra space inside of the ship to provide better protection against penetrating laser strikes.

When in combat, it is expected that the Justice will try and orient the ‘bow’ of the ship towards the enemy. This provides the greatest level of protection to the crew and puts the heaviest armor plates between the enemy and the crew. This upper level plate is nearly meter thick at its widest area, and is made from a composite of industrial diamond, Osmium, and Carbon.

After the disastrous loss of the AUS Jerry Brown in 2320 due to laser strikes coming in through the armored windows of the ship, extra armor is always added to exposed rooms of the ship. With all internal space given over to as much storage as possible, command and control resources were placed on the outside extension. Armored shutters are placed over the skylights to further protect the crew under combat.

Much of the interior of the ship’s structural components and interior walls are made with layers of sandwiched Osmium, Amorphous Carbon, and internal spall liners to provide a level of protection in depth when the ship is struck by incoming attacks that get through the exterior.