Not all of the Inner Colonies are racial or cultural blends. Smaller groups, like the Scottish on New Glasgow for instance, founded some Alliance colonies. And then there are the Russian and Chinese colonies. For each nation, colonists had to demonstrate absolute devotion to The State. And the vast majority of colonists came from only certain acceptable racial groups. The Chinese and Russian colonies achieved a uniformity that Western Alliance colonies never did.
Most people think of the Wild Wild West as the period from end of the Civil War till the 1880s, during the reign of the gunfighters. Historians generally consider it to take place from 1803, when the United States purchased Louisiana, to 1912 when Arizona became the 48th State of the Union. “Go West Young Man” was the mission statement of generations. To the Indians, it was a declaration of war, and they fought our march west with every trick of war they knew.
I grew up in northern Minnesota, where we had a special kind of dog. Timberwolves were the gengineers’ first wild project you see, and some called them a failure. Yes, they’re intelligent, but they refused to follow our rules. They escaped and disappeared into the wild. Then one day, a pack of Timberwolves walked into a rural town suffering from burglaries, dragging the burglar behind them. Let me tell you, he confessed his crimes to the sheriff real quick.
The Inner Colonies are linked to Earth almost as closely as the Core Worlds. Most colonists came from the many aspects of life their nation enshrined. And they are located inside The Wall of interstellar debris that separates us from the outside galaxy. Because of that, they are firmly part of Earthspace, and share much more in common with Earth and the early colonies than those outside The Wall. They are worlds full of blending cultural and racial lines.
The reason there are relatively few starships is the cost of hyperdrives. Spaceships are extremely common though. Most star systems are teaming with small ships moving between planets and moons carrying cargo or passengers. People take weekend trips to vacation moons, or perform a daily commute to a job in the asteroid mines. Humanity stretches across every system we have colonized, islands of civilization in the dark of space.