Confederate States of America

The country that is probably least deserving of being a part of Pact of Steel that, in fact, remains its only traditional democracy (or republic, to be exact). That remains a part of it only because it has to and, in fact, detests any other member of the Pact. It is, however, forced to remain part of it due to the way its society works.

Structure

Confederate States of America are a country that is pretty much a copy of United States of America. In fact, it was a part of it for a while. There is a president (elected for twenty years and only for a single term) that is pretty much the absolute ruler of the country, limited only by the Congress. Divided into House of Representatives (that represent entirety of Confederation's population) and Senate, that represents... and here the CSA strays from the USA, since the Senate represents mostly the wealthy oligarchs.
Of course, they are in no way ruling power of the Confederation, though there have significant power, much greater than they could have in United States of America. Their power is, however, in a precarious balance with the House of Representative, with both chambers often at odds with each other.
The planetary governments are essentially elected locally via a bit complicated elections that actually aren't proportional and give disproportionate part of the votes to the wealthy. The difference, once again, isn't enough to give them real power and it is rare for people disliked by the general population to be elected by being in good standing with the rich.

Public Agenda

Mostly, survival. It is the only member of Pact of Steel in its sector - that is also mostly embargoed by the USA that controls the only hyperlane going out of the sector. What's more, every country in the sector 19 is essentially hostile to it... and on a deep, ideological level.
USA considers it a worst type of secessionists and considers its liberation a sort of democratic crusade. American Commune and People's Republic of America are it's almost perfect counterparts and consider the liberation of 'the opressed masses' of the Confederation it's mission.
However, the USA is forced to fight on ten fronts at once, often against enemies it hates even more than Confederation... some of whom are said Commune and People's Republic. Which essentially makes a Sector 19 a clusterfuck of mutual hatred that allows the Confederation to stay afloat simply by being heavily fortified and keeping in touch with modern technological breakthroughs in weaponry and defensive measures.

History

Confederation started as a sort of historical reenactment for people who decided that roleplaying historical Confederation in space was a good idea. This included slavery, though as in most such situations it was done mostly as a form of reenactment - slaves were literally workers that were named different.
Once again, a country that entered the field of historical reenactment found itself no longer able to discern the truth from acting. As first and second generation passed, the part about slavery started being treated in a more realistic way, with certain right being taken from them. What started as laws supposed to improve industry output in the face of Unification Wars ultimately divided the Confederation's society into three main stratas: slaves, free citizens and oligarchs.
However, some things that could happen in eighteen century couldn't stand in twenty second and twenty third. While slaves could be sold and bought as workers, they were still protected by law from abuse on the same level as free citizens. Despite its stratified society, in face of law all inhabitants of Confederacy remained equal.
Because of that, slavery among Confeds remains pretty much a form of both employment and social welfare (since owners are supposed to give their 'property' certain _____. When they can eat, drink, sleep and so on enough for it to be considered humanitarian. What's more, they are also allowed to buy themselves out of slavery, but most of them actually chooses easy live of slaves to uncertain freedom.
This led a whole region (relatively autonomous part of the USA) to split off due to the national government growing increasingly hostile to the entire idea of slavery. This historical reenactment of American Civil War was brief while bloody, and ended with CSA proving to be impossible to be conquered without entire US attention being concentrated on them. Which, due to perpetual war on every US border, was unlikely.

Demography and Population

About 2% of the population is considered to be the 'wealthy', 39% are free citizens, while the rest (59%) are slaves. There are vast differences between human, Variants and alien presence in all three stratas, with baseline humans and aliens being overrepresented among the wealthy, while Variants make up for the significant part of the slaves.
This is by no mean caused by racism. Humans formed the core colonies of the Confederation, which also meant that they formed entirety of early oligarchs - and many of their companies exists to this day. Aliens, in the same time, came late... but brought many interesting and unique skills that made enslavement through debts and unlikely occurence.
What's more, the sheer cost of Variant creation meant that many of their colonies started underdeveloped... making their conquest even more likely plus their economies even weaker, which often culminated in fall into slavery. The slavery itself is by no mean racial. In fact, with ideas or racial superiority long gone from public opinion, citizens of current Confederacy would have consider an idea of enslaving someone merely due to subspecies/species as decidedly unhealthy and wrong.

Religion

Dominant religions are Neocatholic Church and Paleocatholic Church... theoretically. In fact, the same problem that disallows the Confeds from joining Res Publica applies here as well.
While overwhelming majority of the Confederation population is a part of several protestant rite churches that are very close to either Neocatholic Church or Paleocatholic Church in terms of their ethical system. In fact, normally they would be simply a part of it, however here the pretense of being unique orgnizations is upheld only to avoid suggesting that either Church is fine with slavery. Trying to persuade hundred of billions of adherents that actually it isn't like that was deemed too expensive and troublesome to attempt.

Foreign Relations

Curiously, the Confederates are more or less ok only with two Outer Colonies factions - the Res Publica Christiana and Ancien Régime. Being a mortal enemy of USA ruins its opinion among the New North Atlantic Treaty, Islamic League is out of the question completely, and both 'red' alliances are obviously hostile due to it being a democratic oligarchy.
The problem is: both alliances that are ok with it can only be so unofficially. Both RPC and AR signed international treaties condemning slavery. While their chief members mostly understand that slavery in Confederation has very little in common with slavery of for example Imperium Romanum or Free State, acknowledging it publicly would ruin both their internal and external image.
Because of that, while both alliances are more or less friendly, they also try to keep distance from the Confederation.

Confederate States of America

Deo Vindice

Capital: Davis Spire, New Richmond.
Official Languages: English (American version)
Religion: Local Churches (99%).
Government: Democratic Oligarchy
Faction: Pact of Steel
Current ruler: President William Alexander
Population: ~17 000 000 000
Currency: Confed Dollar

Demonym

Confederates, Confeds.