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The Main Belt and the Kuiper Belt were settled predominantly by spacefaring people too independent to submit to GEA rule. The original ancestors of today's Belters were the private transport owners who originally ferried settlers from Earth to Mars, often under the guns of GEA itself. This left them with a distrust for centralized authority of any sort, as well as a general disdain for planet dwellers. Many of the earliest settlers were transhumanists, members of fringe subcultures invested in posthuman evolution, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence - all fields discouraged by the increasingly conservative and desperate government of Earth. The two trends of transhumanism and autonomy led to the creation of a small but fiercely independent society occupying the space between Mars and Jupiter, as well as the much larger Kuiper Belt at the edge of the system. Many Belters also share an ideology that the point of living in space is not to recreate Earth, but instead to adapt to the new environment. Belter society is very loosely divided between the residents of the large asteroid colonies of Vesta, Ceres, Pallas, and Hygeia (all in the Main Belt), Pluto (in the Kuiper Belt) and the vast “Wilds” of the Main Belt and the Kuiper Belt. These large colonies are called "Cities". They are home to about half of the known population, with nearly a million individuals near the four main belt colonies. Each one is entirely self-governing, though all are members of the very loose "Belt League". Life in the "Cities" is relatively free-wheeling, though still comprehensible to most other humans. These five major asteroid colonies are the primary source of food and technology for the unknown thousands of Belters who prowl the "Wilds" in individual family-owned vessels, mining asteroids, drifting in the dark, and generally doing whatever they want to do, in whatever way they wish to do it. In addition, the Belters claim ownership of the Trojan asteroids orbiting near Jupiter. This is a source of frequent minor “range wars”, as the L4 and L5 Trojans are claimed by the Saturn Federation. City-dwelling Belters are regarded as cranky individualists by other societies, while Belters living in the wild are regarded as nearly-alien barbarians at best, or something akin to Reavers at worst. Neither reputation is entirely undeserved.
Nobody knows exactly how many Belters there are, or even all the varieties that exist. Most Belters are genetically adapted to micro-gravity, making them physically weaker than most humans, though a bit more agile. Many of the more isolated Belters have been so genetically or cybernetically modified as to barely qualify as human anymore. Indeed, given the heavy development of artificial intelligence in the Belt, some Belters may never have been human at all. This presents no real social difficulty as far as Belters are concerned; they are famously accepting of morphological differences. Most Belters tend towards quasi-libertarian philosophy bordering on solipsism, guarding their rights, territorial claims, and sovereignty with ferocious jealousy - indeed, only in the “Cities” are non-Belters safe. In the Wilds, it is best to either be in the company of friendly Belters, or heavily armed. Non-Belter vessels are often seen as a source of supplies, spare parts, and slave labor by less scrupulous Belters. Belters tend to be well equipped with newtech, and their vessels are both fast and well-armed, though designed for constant zero-gravity aboard.
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