States and Geography of Human Space
The Intervention has fundamentally redrawn the map of human space, weakening many, or even most of the former great powers and pushed smaller colonies, nations and corporations to the fore. Guerrilla resistance has also left much of humanity in a state of lawlessness and disorder, prey to pirates, terrorists and guerrilla bands, many of whom are left over from the fight against the aliens.
In general, power has shifted away from Earth and it's inner colonies and into deep space.
The Asian Alliance
The Asian Alliance, encompassing China, India, Japan, United Korea, ASEAN and various other, lesser states is Asian are Earth's one remaining super power after the massive destruction caused by the Intervention. With alien fleets pouring out of Earth's jump gates, India and China, the world's greatest powers, together with their neighbours put aside their differences to defend Sol and the inner colonies.
When their fleets began to falter, the Asian Alliance was the first brave enough to take the traditional refuge of a power that cannot defend its self with normal military options and launch a full scale nuclear attack on the combined alien fleets and their bases and fortresses deployed within Sol, freeing the system though at great cost.
The Asian Alliance sees its self as the most advanced and progressive power in human space, with a liberal policy on genetic engineering, cybernetics and computer science (though these are mostly products of the stresses of the intervention) and excellent art, science and aesthetics. Or so they claim. Other powers tend to believe the Alliance's claims of liberalism are more propaganda than fact. Further, the Alliance is bound by the need to rebuild its self after the war, and by it's truce with the aliens, which keeps it from openly acting against them.
The Alliance's military spearheaded the deployment of specialist craft in the war, and continues to innovate in military tactics, experimenting with battlecruisers, heavy frigates, and mass use of small craft and mobile weapons.
The Alliance's military spearheaded the deployment of specialist craft in the war, and continues to innovate in military tactics, experimenting with battlecruisers, heavy frigates, and mass use of small craft and mobile weapons.
Former Great Powers
Before the war, there were numerous great powers, all of which took steps to colonize other planets. The war however shattered most of them, leaving them devastated and destitute on Earth, and forcing their colonies to carry on their vision without guidance.
Equatorial Union
Including large elements of South America, Indonesia and Africa, the Equatorial Union was previously the richest economic zone on earth, making its money through the use of space elevators. Unfortunately, following the nuclear attack against them, the aliens struck at the elevator network hard, collapsing the beanstalks onto Earth's equator and causing untold damage.
Part of the Union was absorbed into the Asian Alliance, and it's government has basically ceased on Earth. In the colonies however, they continue to build, and continue the Union's principles of enterprise, freedom and technology, and preserve some of the Union's unparalleled inventiveness and science.
European Union
The European Union, including Russia, saw some of the bloodiest fighting of the war, with their fleets along with the Jovians in the initial attempt to stop, or at least delay the attack on Earth. Their military suffered the heaviest causalities in the war, as did their civilian infrastructure. Post war, the European Union is looking to its colonies for rest bite and resources, and supplying considerable numbers of its surviving skilled specialists to the effort.
United States of America
While it was considerably damaged in the war, the United States of America and its allies in Mexico and Canada was in some ways presented with an opportunity. Long having lost its status as the Western Hemisphere's greatest power to the Equatorial Union's Brazil, The USA now seeks to regain its former glory, and is extremely active in support its surviving colonies, and even founding more. They also take a hard line against the Compact, and aliens in general.
Jovian Confederation
United Nations Colonial Administrative Region
Established under the old United Nations UNCAR is an alliance of independent colonies with a unique history. The Earth based UN began to gradually fail as an institutional framework in the mid to late twenty first century, as its leadership of five great powers came increasingly not to represent the true state of power in the world. This led to its increasing irrelevance and eventual disintegration.
In the colonies however, then linked by months of travel time and weeks of informational lag, UN institutions provided a valuable go between, facilitating trade and created many local legal frameworks and institutions. Many of the colonies created by smaller nations and independent groups felt closer to the UN than they did whatever state their people hailed from, and even as the UN degraded on Earth it became stronger and stronger in the colonies.
The Intervention's focus on Earth left UNCAR's relatively stable and prosperous colonies fairly untouched, at least at first. The UNCAR's military and that of other nation states in the area rallied together and formed the vanguard of the human counter offensive which eventually made the War too costly for the aliens to pursue.
As only a few of the UNCAR's colonies were directly invaded, and it survived the war mostly intact. No official truce has been agreed between the Interventionists and the UNCAR, so these colonies retain a large supply of jump ships and salvaged alien systems.