Okay, to set some reader expectations, the arc I was gelling just fell apart on the planning table. Again. Man, how do other people make these 'empire builder' fics look so easy? They are really not my strength it would seem.
Not abandoning shit this time, just waiting for lightning to strike again like it did for the last two chapters. But yeah, that's gonna be an indetermine wait. Maybe I'll try some other project in the interim to stay fresh and mentally loosen up, if I can think of one.
Sorry.
Empire builder fiction generally falls into the situation where one has to decide what
kind of empire one wants to build. And I'm not just talking straightforwardly about whether to build an interstellar extra-territorial dystopian megacorporation, but on what basis one is trying to build it, why they are doing that in the first place, and what compromises one might need to face in order to turn it into a reality.
I'm not sure if you're wanting Sophia to be a ruler or if you're more interested in describing how the Terran
Confederation (itself a very interesting term to apply to a polity) uses her technology to rule (and probably getting influenced by her or even ending up with her on top whether through hook, crook or even legitimate means). By its very nature such a choice will also determine a lot, as given that you personally seem to like the ideal of a Terran Confederation it's going to be a hard sell to Sophia to exactly rebel with her supertechnology unless they show great deals of incompetence. Which they haven't so far, so that could cause trouble, especially since Sophia doesn't have to ask the question 'but why should I get involved in politics if I'm happy with the direction things are going', but you could still have that happen both narratively and in a Watsonian sense, even on a small individualist level if you don't want to include the possibility that there could be systematic errors with the way of doing things (that aren't seen due to current pressures and might be the result of past compromises).
So the Vilani have clearly massively shaped this world's politics (even if it isn't a Mass Effect situation where they caused this unification) and while a unified Earth might continue, especially since I'm going to guess that they do it decently in your mind, what happens when the Vilani stop being a threat? What happens when that pressure to unify and cooperate disappears, and the reality of competition starts to set in, now that everything seems to be going fine. Now, of course you have all of these unified strictures and standards, which I think both you and I would agree should absolutely keep a unified Terra, but naturally Sophia doesn't know that.
As you've said, nationalist and separatist movements are at a slow boil, so what if some ambitious yet short-sighted politician decides to try and make that a reality? Perhaps continents might stick together but they recede from the UN, keeping their space and colonies to themselves as they finally compete. Or what if a corporation decides that they want to take advantage of it and in this peacetime (in which Victory Disease could set in as they might have little competition), they try to secede or take extraterritoriality. Or even a colony decides to take their independence and won't take no for an answer, after all they might not want to be controlled and taken for all they've got by whatever corporation, nation or supranational organization initially sponsored them, just like the American Revolution.
Hell, as an idea perhaps Sophia could end up visiting a colony that is well-developed enough to have its own culture and scene, with it having important public-facing projects on it, with her getting caught up in the whirlwind of a revolt when an unpopular bureaucratic decision gets pulled. Sure, she might not agree with the rebels but she doesn't have superpowers, so she has to end up working within the system they make or try an escape in order to get back. It doesn't even have to be a revolution, it could just be a revolt that gets inevitably put down or quickly realizes they don't have the resources they think they do.
In terms of how to write this, you do a good job of balancing world building and characterization, but it might be good to separate the two slightly, such as having interchanging perspectives of Sophia as well as those relevant such as friends and foes versus a more world-building interlude (whether that of a history book, news story or even just interludes of people dealing with the issues and solutions going on now). You could look at alternate history stories to take notes on how they write things, obviously taking into account that you're distorting natural sociological processes with her technology.
You've got a lot of room to write here I feel and I really enjoy your world-building so I'm curious to see how it goes next.
