I've often felt like an optimistic possibility in real life is the Antarctica approach: different nations still exist on Earth, but they all sign a treaty saying none of them directly gets involved in space. All off-planet colonies are managed by a separate, independent government organization (your Feds, I guess), which has its own military, diplomatic corps, ambassador to the UN, taxpaying citizens and citizenship-analogous member status.\\
Presumably it functions as its own country and each colony counts as a state/province/territory; some colony or neutral station gets designated a capital, and a constitution determines how each colony can manage its own affairs.
The main problem is that none of this makes space any less big, but maybe it might make the setting seem more lived in. There could be ongoing conflicts between Earth governments that want to increase their ties to the Federation (possibly by acting through NGOs), and the occasional Earth nation that's deeply mistrustful of the Feds.
Edited by MadAnthony94 on May 13th 2020 at 1:40:51 AM
I've often felt like an optimistic possibility in real life is the Antarctica approach: different nations still exist on Earth, but they all sign a treaty saying none of them directly gets involved in space. All off-planet colonies are managed by a separate, independent government organization (your Feds, I guess), which has its own military, diplomatic corps, ambassador to the UN, taxpaying citizens and citizenship-analogous member status.\\
Presumably it functions as its own country and each colony counts as a state/province/territory; some colony or neutral station gets designated a capital, and a constitution determines how each colony can manage its own affairs.
The main problem is that none of this makes space any less big, but maybe it might make the setting seem more lived in. There could be ongoing conflicts between Earth governments that want to increase their ties to the Federation (possibly by acting through NGOs), and the occasional Earth nation that's deeply mistrustful of the Feds.
Edited by MadAnthony94 on May 13th 2020 at 1:40:51 AM