Jack of Harts

The San Santiago Sector became prosperous and heavily populated as the decades went by. One colony after another petitioned for and gained a seat on the Union Council, until they had a clear majority on the Council. But the Central Council vetoed far too many of their initiatives, promoting Homeworlds projects over distant Colonial projects. The colonies did not appreciate that dynamic, and after much protest the Central Council invited some of the most populous colonies into the Central Council. A few. Not enough to lose Homeworlds control of the Central Council. They claimed they were following simple population guidelines, but the outer colonies did not miss the trick. They knew it was meant to keep them in their place, and they did not appreciate that.

The South American Union colonized most of the star systems around San Santiago and San Andres, but they optioned out certain systems to others. They needed money to fund their own great expansion after all. Probably the largest of the options they sold was the system that became Felicity. It orbited a star too strong for Union hyperdrives to reach. Even the Western Alliance couldn’t map the hyperspace run from Alpha Centauri, but they had been researching ways to localize those rapids from closer stars like San Santiago or San Andres. A proposal for Alliance and Union cooperation to map and colonize the system soon appeared, and Felicity became the next core Alliance World colonization effort. All nations welcome. Especially their friends from Union space.

The South American Union picked the San Andres colony with care. It was in a largely unexplored sector of space, but there was a star in its neighborhood that might be able to connect directly back to Alpha Centauri. Even the Big Three hadn’t managed to find the hyperspace run connecting the two systems from the Alpha Centauri end and abandoned thoughts of the system. South America sent their best scientists out to San Andres, and then to the world that would become San Santiago. It took them years to lock down the hyperspace run back to Alpha Centauri, but once they did, it opened the entire sector up to a new wave of human expansion. The Union Council finally had the big discovery that could bring them riches unimaginable to Earthborn minds.