Nations and Societies

There are countless societies throughout inhabited space. The surface of a single planet can host hundreds to thousands of independent government bodies; magnitudes more nations can be found in the orbital space of that planet, the orbit of its moons, and the orbit of the planet itself around its parent star(s). With several tens of thousands of planets in inhabited space,  hundreds of thousands of moons, millions of dwarf planets and rogue planets, untold numbers of other inhabitable locations like asteroid fields and planetary ring systems, and the boundless expanse between them all, there is endless room for every type of people to propagate. Over the 350 years of interstellar travel, societies have radiated into staggering diversity.

One significant roadblock that has plagued interstellar nations (and remains the most powerful driver of radiative cultural evolution) is the difficulty of consolidating power. With travel times between adjacent stars of several months and the information bottleneck created by even the most efficient subspace relay networks, it remains a challenge for established governments to maintain any meaningful hold on interstellar colonies, which must by nature be capable of independent operation, with any potential immediate needs being met more easily by friendly neighbors in their system than their progenitor government lightyears away. Nevertheless, some standout governments have found ways to establish and maintain an interstellar presence.