The setting:
Year:
Around 2200-ish? 2025 to 2200.
Tech Level:
9 9 to 10, no super-science, no FTL, *no AI/limited AI.
Switches: If a switch has a more realistic option, assume that is the one that is used unless otherwise notified here.
Setting summary: Humanity has colonized much of the solar system, and Space War I started over the issue of Belter independence when someone did something precipitous "because negotiations were going too slow."
Open for suggestions, discussions, and critique.
Major Factions:
- Earth-Mars Alliance: more of an alliance of convenience than anything else. Essentially a democratic/capitalist expansion of the United Nations; each nation has a number of votes per population; internal national matters, beyond basic human rights, are governed by member states.
- Belters: theoretically; in reality, the Outer Belters are likely to pull their own bid for independence just as soon as the Inner Belters win the war for them. A high Control Rating anarchic democracy, where each captain of a ship or commander of a station has near-unlimited power unless they are voted out of office - or out of an airlock! In the belter government itself, captains and station commanders have votes according to their monetary net worth.
- Saturn (and later, Jovian) "Alliance": in reality, almost as likely to fight each other as anyone else. A loose confederacy of various and varied settlements and stations inhabiting the moons and asteroids of Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and, later, Jupiter. Note: "Jovian" is more of an ambition than a fact; colonization of the Jupiter area is limited to Ganymede, Callisto, and a massive station further out.
Minor Factions:
- Mercury Mining Consortium: would be a major faction, but as a loose alliance of mining corporations splitting a single close-orbit planet, they have a lower population than even the Outer Belters. Very heavy use of automation. High Control Rating, but even an ordinary worker has a considerable sallary.
- Venusian Revitalization Project: basically several semi-automated space stations. Might become something in several hundred years; largely ignored for political reasons. Exports the various gases they are siphoning out of Venus' atmosphere, as well as artwork and science (paywalled "papers"; publicly-funded science, etc). Governed as a technocracy.
- Jovian Landers: Theoretically, a city in a gas giant could be hung under a large enough balloon. Right now, they have a few floating towns, and a reputation for being more than a bit crazy. The Jovian Alliance claims political governorship regardless (inasmuch as the Jovian Alliance can agree on anything).
- Outer Belters (provisional): Right now, they're 100% right behind the Inner Belters in their bid for independence. Afterwards? Well... . Government is per Belters, save that individual ships and stations are more varied.
Edit: Automation is a matter of daily life; for example, the closest anyone gets to "manually mining" is pulling **levers on their mining rig, or when you need a delicate touch that can't be provided by telepresence at TL9, or across light-lag distances, or when any lag is bad.
* I have assumed some levelling off of computational power, as per the "soft wall" theory; that is, additional progress can and is being made, but at a much lower rate, and with much more difficulty. The moon has not been turned into a giant supercomputer due to heat limitations; replication errors; rational and irrational fear of replicating robots; lack of ready lunar material; and other concerns.
** Some people question "why something as primitive as levers?" "Levers are very fail-safe." is typically the answer.