Jack of Harts

The South American Union arose out of the fires of the violence accompanying the Second Great Depression to become a major world power. They may not have been one of the Big Three, but they had no wish to survive under the benign, at best, neglect of anyone else. They move into space on their own, built their own orbital elevator, and planted their own colonies on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. They even went to the stars on their own terms and colonized worlds and systems as they could. Though they did cooperate with the Western Alliance when it came to colonizing some of the open worlds like Pacifica, Paradisia, and Serenity. They had no reason to antagonize the Alliance after all. Playing nice rarely hurt anyone.