While some nation-states still nominally exist, corporate entities hold the real power on Earth and beyond. Earth does not have a unified government, but is generally ruled by three competing power blocs: the Earth Trade Organization that serves as the global coordinating body of corporate states, the League of Progressive Peoples remnant, which represents Earth's remnant of the powers that later turned into the Great Houses of Jupiter, and the People's Republic of China. Earth does not quite speak with one voice. Corporate states like the Federated Cities of the Arctic Circle and the Chelyabinski Rus have created essentially new forms of political entities that rival and in many cases exceed what is left of traditional nation-states. Even the half-century of physical isolation from the rest of the Solar System did not lead to any longer-lasting planetary unity.