The irony is, of course, immense, and in some academic circles, 'a Jovian folly' means more than the mere sum of its component parts. Pirates, supplied and egged on by their Jovian benefactors to pester and possibly even harm the Earth Alliance, managed to destroy perhaps one of the best loved ships in the EA armada. In return, the EA promptly destroyed the pirates, and then, their rebel masters.
While one must always remember that, certainly by this time, the EAI commissars held the deciding vote in going to war, popular opinion was most definitely in backing of seeking vengeance for the Tereus - against the pirates or against the rebels. The populace was not dragged into any war, not this time - possibly the reverse, as EAI commissars bowed to public opinion and sanctioned the deployment of the Lindos to Pluto.

It was only after the destruction of the main pirate base (and the end of organised pirate resistance) that the Jovians were discovered as manipulators of the ragtag Asteroid Belt fleet. An unsupported attack on the Maginot line by the Empress, not to mention a Jovian High Command eager to take the advantage of initiative, failed and created an opening for the EA.
Although many target the final battle around Jupiter as the deciding moment of the 2372 war, this historian feels that the true moment of victory came when the EA managed to parry the rebel attack and set in motion their own plans - a series of offensives from the rear of the rebel front while the EA fleet kept the rebels occupied. Had the EA lost their momentum, or had the Jovians never lost theirs, then the outcome of the war could have been very different.

The EA, through their temporary flagship, Lindos, secured Neptune, Uranus and Saturn, obliterating two destroyers - the Tempest and the Constant - in the process. The rebels were caught unawares, and the Lindos caused a lot of damage - namely the UNU - before the rebels caught on, by which time reinforcements for the Lindos had arrived and Saturn was under siege.
Eventually, the Jovians were cornered - all other planets were under EA control, and a fleet of warships surrounded their home. A desperate attempt by the once again unsupported Empress to destroy the headquarters of EA High Command failed. Their only choice was to stand and fight. While the more romantic of us might express feelings of admiration for the 'gutsy' rebels, one believes that the decision was born less out of idealism and more out of an inability to do anything else.

The final attack came in the form of a multi-pronged attack. Pairs of EA destroyers each led attacks on various rebel positions within the system of Jupiter's moons. The only exception was the assault on the Jovian headquarters and the three surviving rebel capital ships - Eternity, Imperial and Majesty - which was led by Nemesis.

Curiously, while the Tereus was popular with the people for its longevity and familiarity and despised by High Command for extremely high repair costs and constant retrofits, a new and untested Nemesis was the prize of the EA but distrusted by the populace. Regardless, it was the Nemesis, with its heavy armour and powerful weaponry, that struck the deathblow against the rebels.
With the end to any further possible hostilities - save the re-opening of the Delta Serpentis jump node - one might expect an end to the various security measures limiting the freedoms of the population. However, this was not to be. In hindsight, truth, the end of conflict in the Sol system did not bring about an era of eternal peace and enlightenment... but the general unwillingness of High Command to relinquish power is somewhat worrying.

Furthermore, the end of the war saw further mobilisation, not demobilisation. More warships were built, more fightercraft constructed... the creation of the EAI Timoros system, despite the absence of any foreign hostile power, should be indication enough of the Earth Alliance's desire to strengthen military, and thus its own, power against giving power back to the people.'

Excerpt from TP Andersen's 'The Sol System 2335-2372'