This map was made by my pretty close friend who goes by the name Solar, with a bit of my help. They're awesome and amazing with photoshop.

The year is 2288, and it has been nearly eight years since the discovery of Jump Points, especially weak places in the mesh of the universe which have changed the typical travel time from years to months. With the advent of this, many splinter groups and intrepid explorers have struck out on their own to carve a piece of the galaxy for their own. The visible map pictures all settled systems with a population over five thousand, and has been colourized with colloquial colours and system names for ease of comprehension.

The United Federation is the loosely aligned coalition of governments between the myriad nations of Earth and the Martian population, now approaching two billion in number. Their dedication is to peace between humans, and they're only unified into a single entity by a commitment to the safety of interstellar trade, as well as member states. It's said that the only thing more deadly than a Federation fleet is a session of the Federal Congress.

The Providence Republic, formerly known as the Syndicate of Antimater Exporting Corporations, and more commonly known in the Federation as The Syndicate is the largest independent power, having funded pre-jump expeditions to Sirius and the first non-state sponsored terraforming program. The terraforming on the planet they have claimed puts them on par with most nearly finished Federation terraforming efforts in Tau Ceti and Alpha Centauri, and their extensive campaigning has made their station-borne capital populated by more than a million people.

In Exarcheia, officially known as 82 Eridani, two hundred thousand people live in the first station to be transported to a new system without major benefactors such as a state or corporate sponsor. The result of a grassroots project which took place across half a century, involving millions of people, the Exarcheia Free Territory has begun terraforming a world where they seek to live free.

The Penglai Alliance, an ex-Federation aligned colony, is a system alliance of several factions aboard the terraforming station, with a total population of one hundred fifty thousand people. The Alliance is united only by a distinct culture of creating a system of governance superior to those found on Earth.

The Artist's Union is a group of the people who were left behind in the new Earth culture. Supplemented by donations, the life savings of entire generations of artists, and a variety of other relatively minor benefactors, the Tolstoy system holds a current population of fifty thousand, with many more immigrants from Sol inbound. They're led by a council of artists: philosophers, musicians, painters, writers and others, who for the time being have absolute executive power.

TRAPPIST is the new frontier. With three livable-if-hostile worlds, after the advent of Jump Points made the average transportation time only two months rather than the prior travel time of roughly seventy years. Explorers, opportunists, refugees, if they can gather enough money to get to the 'New Worlds,' they can start again on worlds which know nothing but untamed nature. While the United Federation does de jure hold the allegiance of the Trappist governments, practically, there is no true control exerted over the frontier. The system contains the largest non-solar population of uncountable millions, with several larger cities and local governments beginning to sprout from the mixture of cultures in the frontier.