History Main / UnitedSpaceOfAmerica

* Mostly averted in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' prequels. The Galactic Republic seems to be mostly based on UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic, with shades of [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Germany during]] [[UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic the 1930s]]. This makes the rise of the Galactic Empire analogous to the rise of UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire and UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, with Palpatine being a combination of Emperor {{UsefulNotes/Augustus}} and UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. Played straight, however, with Naboo, where Padmé served two four-year terms as elected monarch. The Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic also had a limit of two four-year terms, unless emergency powers are granted.

* Averted in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' prequels. The Galactic Republic seems to be mostly based on UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic, with shades of [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Germany during]] [[UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic the 1930s]]. This makes the rise of the Galactic Empire analogous to the rise of UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire and UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, with Palpatine being a combination of Emperor {{UsefulNotes/Augustus}} and UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. Played straight, however, with Naboo, where Padmé served two four-year terms as elected monarch.

Finally, there's an American tradition of using a science fiction setting to examine (''Franchise/StarTrek''), criticise (''Series/TheTwilightZone'') or satirize (''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'') contemporary American culture in ways that would be uncomfortable otherwise. These shows resemble America in space because that's the whole point--a point that frequently gets lost when these shows are exported or translated into other languages.

* ''Series/TheExpanse'' does this to a great degree. The Secretary General of the United Nations refers to his home as "The Residence", a clear reference to ''TheWhiteHouse'', we are told that the security detail that protects him is called the "Secret Service", the spaceplane s/he flies in is referred to as "UN One", and elections feature US-style televised town hall debates.

See SpaceRomans when other cultures are [[RecycledINSPACE recycled in space]]. See AmericaTakesOverTheWorld for when the world is run by the United States of America itself. Compare FictionalUnitedNations, which has a similar based-on-a-real-organization derivation.

* Played with in the backstory of ''TabletopGame/BattleTech''. Plenty of colonies traced their culture and ancestry to the United States of America (e.g. New Dallas) and they were also among the closest colonies to Terra due to America's powerful status within the Terran Alliance, which allowed the USA to secure the best real estate around humanity's homeworld. That proximity backfired when the Succession Wars erupted, as the worlds closest to Terra were heavily fought over and sometimes rendered uninhabitable. As a result, by the game's opening year of 3025 Asian and European cultures are prevalent throughout the Inner Sphere, with few if any American-derived cultures depicted.

* Averted in the ''Film/StarWars'' prequels. The Galactic Republic seems to be mostly based on UsefulNotes/TheRomanRepublic, with shades of [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Germany during]] [[UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic the 1930s]]. This makes the rise of the Galactic Empire analogous to the rise of UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire and UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, with Palpatine being a combination of Emperor {{UsefulNotes/Augustus}} and UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler. Played straight, however, with Naboo, where Padmé served two four-year terms as elected monarch.

* Played with in the backstory of ''TabletopGame/BattleTech''. There were plenty of colonies that traced their culture and ancestry to the United States of America, but they were also the closest colonies to Terra due to America's technological edge allowing them to get there first. When the unification wars started, they were also the first to be burned to the ground leaving the Successor States with very few "North American" survivors. The South Americans went on to help form the Free Worlds League.

See SpaceRomans for another culture that often is RecycledINSPACE See AmericaTakesOverTheWorld for when the world is run by the United States of America itself. Compare FictionalUnitedNations, which has a similar based-on-a-real-organization derivation.

** Once humanity starts colonising new planetary systems (in two entirely separate efforts, no less), the nation states and political factions of Earth no longer even seem relevant. Various new factions, built around colonisation and transhumanist ideologies, become more dominant, and they tend to have a rather even [[MultinationalTeam mix of various nationalities]] and a government structure very different to that of the United States, or other contemporary Earth countries. At that point, it seems the old allegiances to Earth governments or the idea of nation states is well and truly dead. The United States, Russia, China and any number of countries big or small ''are barely mentioned'', even though you can still trace people's backgrounds by paying attention to their names. Some planets of the "Amerikano era" are revisited to see how things had gone, but the efforts prove a disappointment, virtually all of these colonies having failed sooner or later. Though some of these early exo-colonies still retain very US-inspired names like "Grand Teton" and "Yellowstone", they are recolonised by the now starfaring Demarchists. This leads to the hilarious twist of planets like Yellowstone (in the Epsilon Eridani system) having [[CultureChopSuey a very cosmopolitan society]] featuring people with European and Russian, North American, East Asian and all manner of other give names and family names, but the most influential and politically dominant elites and families have French-Canadian, French and Cantonese sounding names. (Tellingly, you get people with names like Nils Girardieau, Thalia Ng, Dan Sylveste, Gillian Sluka, Tom Dreyfus, Xavier Liu, Pauline Sukhoi, Jane Aumonier, doctors Demikhov and Trintignant, and the list goes on...) The era that marks the height of Yellowstone's prosperity is even dubbed by the very French historical term "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_%C3%89poque La Belle Époque]]".
* The last greater vestige of United States' influence on the entire setting is the main ''lingua franca'' - Norte, from "Norteamericano", an amalgam language of North American English (US and Canada) and North American Spanish (Mexico, most probably). Use of different future languages is noted throughout the various novels and shorter fiction in the series, and presumably, most of the time, the characters are speaking in the most widely understood Norte. Other major languages are Canasian (a Canadian French and Cantonese hybrid), the mother tongue of the Demarchist elites, and Russish (an English and Russian hybrid), used in addition to Norte.

* ''Veeery subverted'' in AlastairReynolds' ''Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries''.

* ''Veeery subverted'' in [[Alastair Reynolds]]' ''Literature/RevelationSpaceSeries''.
** The US played some sort of important role in the early centuries of colonising the Solar System, including mentions of NASA or its successor partaking in the colonisation of Mars. (Captain Brannigan, a [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld very long-lived character]] in the setting, is noted to have been born in the 21st century and witnessed the colonial era of Mars.) This era also sees efforts to send out interstellar, unmanned Von Neumann probes into nearby planetary systems, with the goal of the automated ships making landfall on habitable planets and raising a local population of colonists from frozen embryos. This era later becomes known as the "Amerikano era", and most of its early attempts at interstellar colonisation fail.
** By the early 23rd century, the colonies in the Solar System seem to have broken off entirely into their own polities. These include Mars itself, now fought over by the [[HiveMind Conjoiner movement]] and the Coalition for Neural Purity, both equally multinational power blocks, and several successful polities on the moons of Jupiter, including the stronghold of the Demarchist movement/regime on Europa. Several influential political and scientifical leaders of the Demarchist movement are ''French-Canadian'' in ancestry, in addition to plenty of other nationalities from an array of background in Europe, Asia, North America and other continents.

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' has two AI personalities that represent this. Federation Builders seek to make allies and combine multiple strengths of races without subjugating any of them and have a feel of a StarTrek style Federation. Democratic Crusaders wish to bring Democracy to the Galaxy and will be hostile to any empire that does not have a democratic government.

Finally, there's an American tradition of using a science fiction setting to examine (''Series/StarTrek''), criticise (''Series/TheTwilightZone'') or satirize (''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'') contemporary American culture in ways that would be uncomfortable otherwise. These shows resemble America in space because that's the whole point--a point that frequently gets lost when these shows are exported or translated into other languages.

* The United Earthes in ''Comics/UniversalWarOne'' is supposed to be the United Nations Organisation's sucessor, but the military is NATO-like and civil society is very similar to the american one. The United Earthes flag features stars and red/white stripes like the american flag. We have no information about the government, except that its capital is New York, and one of the characters comments that they could not have Washington as capital as it would have been too obvious that the USA are dominating the United Earthes.

** Its also worth nothing, however, that while TheFederation is ruled by a President, its actually closer to a Parliamentary-style democratic republic rather than the one the US uses (the Presidental candidates are nominated directly by the Federation Council (the President in [=DS9=] mentions he didn't even WANT the job, but got stuck with it through nomination) even though the final vote goes to the people) making the President more of a Prime Minister.

* ''Series/BabylonFive'' does this by having the Earth Alliance be created by the major powers in the wake of FirstContact to replace the UN. It took a war to bring some of the smaller countries in (or something like that), and San Diego got nuked by terrorists as a result. The President and Vice President are directly elected, but the various countries of Earth still exist, subject to Earth Alliance law. 'Earthdome' is however in Geneva, home of many League of Nations entities, not San Fransisco or New York.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': The United Federation of Planets was basically the United States [[RecycledINSPACE IN SPACE!]] Bonus points for having the Klingons played as the counterpart for the Soviet Union and the Romulans act at least a little like Communist China. One of the most prominent examples of this trope is the use of "USS" as a ship name prefix.

* Used, and quite disturbingly subverted, by ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity: Nova''. The Federation has a US-like government, especially compared to the [[ProudWarriorRace Aurorans]], who have a system based around clan elders, and the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Polaris]], who have a caste system. However, the US ([[ConspiracyTheories probably]]) isn't being [[TheManBehindTheMan run by]] [[StateSec the FBI]]. (Fortunately, there's also the fourth faction: the Rebellion against the Bureau.)

On the other hand, this ''can'' be justified, if only because the US is the only country (so far) to actually achieve manned spaceflight outside of Earth orbit, and the people who get there first will naturally set things up to their liking. The United States was established as a [[AmericanFederalism federal]] system, with protections for the rights of its constituent states combined with elements of direct representation of the people in the central government. Any democratic world government assembled from existing nations and not established by conquest would likely also take a similar federal form, either along presidential or [[UsefulNotes/CanadianPolitics parliamentary]] [[UsefulNotes/AustralianPolitics lines]].

* There's a plot-important election in the ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' series, in which the proto-Lensmen are trying to get Rod "the Rock" Kinnison elected to what amounts to President of North America. It's ''explicitly stated'' that the only part of Earth that really matters is North America, the implication being that the other backwater regions will fall in line with whatever North America says. "North America" in this context is the post-WorldWarThree successor state to the United States but clearly has an AmericanFederalism style government.

* The initial conflict in Creator/WilliamHKeithJr's ''Literature/GalacticMarines'' series is between the US and the UN (European-dominated) over the discovery of human remains in alien ruins on Mars. Despite the archaeological mission being funded and run by the US, the UN insists on attaching observers with a military escort. The observers than immediately want to hide the discovery until proper decisions can be made at the highest level. Meanwhile, the American archaeologists believe that a discovery of such magnitude must be revealed to the public. The different philosophies (common good vs. individual achievement) come into sharp conflict here, eventually resulting in a war with, of course, the US Marines coming out on top.