Glossary
FTL
The current FTL engine basically open up a tiny wormhole which is used to shorten the distance to the intended destination. Ships have reported to travel 16 times quicker than light, although it is more common to achieve a speed of 8-10 times quicker. It is yet unknown why the speed vary so much.
The technique is still very unexplored, and the current design has some serious drawbacks.
First and foremost it is very expansive to build ships for FTL travel. To travel through hyperspace puts huge strain on the ships, so they need to be built way sturdier than traditional crafts. They need to have a large computer and complex engine to archive FTL aswell. Secondly, it between a day up to a week for the computer to calculate all the factors to open up a wormhole to the right position. This has to be done individually for each ship.
The range is limited. Our computers aren't able to calculate how to open a wormhole if the distances are to long. We are currently limited to our neighboring stars.
Maybe the worst drawback is that only 67% of the jumps are successful, often ships are destroyed in hyperspace, or we simply loose contact with them. Therefore conventional movement is the norm in the solarsystem.
Conventional engines
Conventional engines are the most common today. They are way slower than light. Our quickest ships are able to travel from earth to Pluto in two weeks, most ships take twice that long. [/spoiler]
UN
A few decades ago almost every nation on earth was a part of the UN. This changes after the Iran-Israel nuclear conflict. Today, the UN consist of Europe (except the UK), Australia, New Zealand, Africa and middle-east. It is a powerful alliance, but the nuclear fallout in the middle-east drained a lot of founds the last 20 years, the UN has fallen behind both AA and EUEA militarily and economically.
AA
The American Alliance, consisting of the American continent, UK and Japan. While not as economically superior as it once was, it has the most powerful military of the three alliances. It is also the only alliances who has an established military presens in space, this will ofcourse change the next few months after the attack on Napoleon.
EAEU
EAEU has grown considerably the last few decades, and its economy is almost in pair with the AA, the alliance has also invested a lot of founds into its military, although they still lack a proper space-fleet.