Mnemosyne - a picture of Solar System in the 27th century

[MichaelPoole]

I think it's a little weird that the kuiper hegemony has "pirate" raids on mercury, given how relatively far they'd have to travel compared to targets. Also weird that their "corporatist economy" is dependent on piracy in order to thrive, especially with a population of ...30 billion, which I'd expect would require more stability?

also i know we're talking about an speculative economy 600 years from now, filled with weaponized fusion torch spacecraft, but the economics of stealing something as dangerous as antimatter from orbital factories and spacecraft sounds ...off-scale, as if somali pirates or al queda stole nuclear weapons and nuclear submarines on a regular basis.

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"It lacks the hybrid fusion-antimatter drives of the Mercurian Federation and the exotic nuclear propulsion systems used by the Commonwealth of Jupiter, but it makes up for that by the use of unusual solutions to long standing problems and the ability to miniaturize heavy and power hungry components (as well as its willingness to ignore safety rules). Rumour has it that their latest project is reclaiming the homeworld of humanity, Earth, helping the inhabitants back to their feet and taking vengeance to all that have betrayed Earth. Because of this, other powers have been toying with the idea of imposing a trade embargo on the Hegemony, preventing it from trading with any spacefaring polity, however, this move has been so far prevented by Mercurian’s deep belief in free trade and movement, as well as the fear Hegemony inspires in the rest of the Sol system."

-not that i've ever been to space, but having worked in a few mildly dangerous environments, ignoring safety rules seems like a very unnecessarily deadly and  ***expensive*** quality in a culture.
-given how comparatively easy it is to track and destroy spacecraft in space, and the relatively greater distances between objects in the outer solar system, why would the kuiper belt host a powerful and fear-inspiring culture compared to somewhere closer in-system?

You are assuming humans are rational beings. Mercurian Federation are strict libertarians and the Kuiper Hegemony are socially darwinist fascists. Think less Somali pirates, more Nazi Germany. About ignoring safety rules, I mean in the same relative sense that say, the Soviet or Nazi rocket program ignored safety rules, or how the Apollo program of the 60s was ridiculously unsafe compared to norms NASA requests from SpaceX Dragon 2 capsule now. Their main fighter craft have drive modes explicitly designed for kamikaze attacks, they don't exactly care so much about survival of the pilot.

If it seems a little too edgy, keep in mind it's the first faction I sketched out. Jupiter's moon's inhabitants and Mercurians are a lot more chill.