Your assumptions regarding the differences between the two
universes, and our political/social setup, are quite correct. We've taken
the idea of a planetary government (not necessarily American in nature;
we've gone back to some older ideas on the operation of a republic) with
a senate and a President that is not looking to take care of everybody
else's problems, and has enough problems on its own. (In fact, at one
point in the pilot, a Senator tells Sinclair "The Earth Alliance can't
go around being the galaxy's policeman.")

I read, a long time ago, that what you have to do in a story is to
get your character up a tree and then start throwing rocks at him. So
instead of making everything easy for our characters, I've constructed
universe that is *difficult*, where you have to work for everything
you get, and nobody wants to cooperate unless they have to. Never
arbitrarily, though; characters have to have good reasons (or at least
what they consider good reasons) for what they do.

For me, the process of overcoming a problem is more dramatically
interesting -- and in a way more positive -- than a universe in which
all over the problems have already been solved. I want to show
characters who have to deal with the same BS as the rest of us, but who
manage to persevere regardless.

jms