@Belters are not united by hardship alone.
Stations compete for contracts, water rights, trade routes, and political influence. Old disputes between families, crews, unions, and settlements can survive for generations.
Corporate-aligned Belters may oppose independence activists. Established stations may exploit smaller colonies. Criminal organizations control essential services in places where no legitimate authority exists.
Differences in gravity, wealth, language, and occupation create further divisions. A prosperous trader on @Pallas Exchange may understand little of life in the @Hygiea Extraction Fields. A @City of Ceres Freehold politician may speak for @The Belt without ever visiting its most isolated communities.
Calls for unity are powerful precisely because true unity remains difficult.