People a few hours away can have different cultures and languages, but you think people literally months away from each other will somehow be more united? Why? How much in common will a third gen asteroid miner who can die if his environmental controls so much as hiccup have in common with someone living in a functioning biosphere? A coal miner and s Wall Street banker already see each other as practically from different species, just wait until they more or less are.

> Interplanetary travel will do this

That's optimistic. Do you mean when the first person steps on Mars (or orbits Venus!) or large scale travel?

> Do you mean when the first person steps on Mars (or orbits Venus!) or large scale travel?

Interplanetary capabilities will rapidly collapse the list of releveant societies. Reducing then number of parties in the room facilitates agreement.

Nah, then we will end up having interplanetary strife between earth, mars, and the belters.

A unified Earth fighting a unified Mars is still a unified Earth.