Jack of Harts

The San Santiago Sector promised to bring untold riches to the South American Union. It also promised a political upheaval that the Union Council would not abide. Cheaper and faster transports and colony ships sent hundreds of thousands of souls a year to the interstellar colonies, and colonies began requesting official seats on the Union Council. The richest members of the Union saw their control of the Council waning. So seating the interstellar colonies, they formed a new Central Council made up of only the founding nations and the richest colonies of our Solar System that could annul any action of the larger Union Council on a majority vote. Assured of their control of Union politics, they soon welcomed their new and growing colonies into the Union Council.

The South American Union’s colonization of San Santiago, and their discovery of the hyperspace run connecting it directly to Alpha Centauri, changed that sector of space forever. It had taken their colony ship nearly three years to make the trip to San Andres via Altair. Seven years later, that same hyperdrive traveled from San Santiago to Alpha Centauri in under two years to find the Peloran had made Contact while they were out on the edges of civilization. And the improved hyperdrives they were helping Earth build would soon be able to make that trip in under a year. The Union Council held a golden goose in their hands, and they strangled that goose for all it was worth. They had a century of sunk losses to recover.

The South American Union first ventured to unwanted stars. San Pedro, San Mateo, and San Marcus orbited dim or distant stars that took years for their hyperdrives to reach. The Big Three targeted stars they could reach and exploit far quicker and left those systems alone. And Union colony ships moving to San Lucas and San Juan required long transits through systems owned by other nations. The Union spent the better part of a century colonizing and investing in those five colony worlds, efforts that mostly resulted in backwater vanity projects that would never affect interstellar politics. Most of the colonists were rugged types that enjoyed backwaters, but they were far from returning the investments poured into them. The Union Council was not amused.