Jack of Harts politics and history includes the idea that humanity did not go to space united. The United Nations and NATO collapsed under the weight of the Second Great Depression, and the global powers that returned to space where the three great powers, China, Russia, and the Western Alliance, a South American alliance that considered itself a fourth great power, and some other non-aligned nations. Russia and China were ascendant powers that had solidified their control of the nations surrounding them. South America charted its own independent path for the first time in centuries, and the Western Alliance consisted of North and Central America, the British Commonwealth, Western and Central Europe, Africa, and Australia.