Humans

Humans
''Please note: you appear to be located on Earth. This encyclopedia’s editors assume that all Coalition species have access to more inclusive historical records of their own species than our observers. This is a translation of a summary provided by the Coalition to non-human groups and contains many generalizations, as do entries you read concerning other species.''

Summary
The latest full members of the Coalition evolved on the planet Earth along the Orion Spur near the Perseus Transit. The tlecians launched an expedition to Earth after the nearest Coalition system (a chantar colony) received garbled transmissions indicating that what humans called the Cold War had ended without incident. While this information was decades out of date, the tlecians still downgraded the likelihood of an imminent mass extinction event to less than 50%. This gave the chantar delegation the political influence necessary to finally convince the tlecians to extend an invitation to the humans, who were less than ideal candidates for a number of reasons.

When the tlecians arrived, humanity was on the verge of an uneven technological singularity. While an increasing number of humans enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle based overwhelmingly on electronic devices, even a few hundred miles away millions of others fought in civil wars based on the rising cost of food and water. In aggregate, Earth had a large planet-side military but had almost no capacity to project force outside of the atmosphere. The tlecians, with fresh memories of the failures of the kral’shir and shesani, flatly refused to offer membership in the Coalition to Earth unless a treaty creating a powerful world government was implemented first.

When humanity could not reach a consensus on how to reply to the tlecian offer, the tlecians offered their assistance to those nations that did cooperate. Over the course of several years, the most powerful nation states that had resisted the proposal saw their relative power precipitously decline compared to those nations that accepted assistance. As more and more governments reluctantly changed sides, a treaty was signed that encompassed over 2/3 of the world’s countries and 3/4 of the population. What followed was a brief series of wars and revolutions that brought the rest of the planet in line.

The new world government adopted the name Federated Nations of Earth. Most Coalition citizens simply refer to them as “humans."  Nation states on Earth retained the power to handle their own domestic affairs, but they were forbidden to wage war on one another, restrict international travel, and had to make token efforts to liberalize their society.  Most controversially, the federal authority had the power to declare war and organize world-wide recruitment and conscription into an international military.  Finally, with the urgent warnings of the tlecians in mind, the government banned all neural augmentation and sharply regulated the rising field of artificial intelligence research.  Those humans who already possessed wireless-controlled prostheses and other augmentations were banned from critical positions until they underwent corrective procedures.  While this was ongoing, the tlecians rapidly began construction of a gate in near Earth space and began to integrate human technology with their own.

With a new, quasi-federal authority in place, Earth is a rising star in the Coalition. Plans are already underway to found Earth’s first formal extra-solar colony and the Coalition has left the space immediately surrounding humanity’s homeworld politely empty so that they might expand at their own leisure. Earth is a minor power within the Coalition but has been, mostly, cheerfully welcomed. There has even been a fad for all things human, especially given the expectation that Earth will eventually be a powerful contributor to the Coalition’s strained military. Humans are, on average, larger physically and (thanks to their embrace of cybernetic enhancement) often stronger than other species. Humanity’s history is notably, while not uniquely, violent and- thanks to the gross failure to plan for the future or protect Earth’s environment- the species is incredibly numerous. Humans have evolved several notable survival traits- including a faster than average birth rate, hyperactive scar tissue, and a resistance to shock- that have already become the subject of dozens of documentaries and perversely fascinating pieces of fiction on other worlds.

On Earth, the implication that the federal authority could start global conscription en masse has not really hit home; most of humanity is still adjusting to the massive changes brought about by the new technology of the modern era and the new found connection to the galactic community. For some, this means a new golden age for a species that has finally overcome a bloody and miserable history; for others, it is an age of fear and conspiracy brought about by arrogant alien overlords who seek to control humans for their own gain.

During their brief history, humans have failed time and again to control their own population and devastated their own planet’s natural environment. While the species has managed, as whole, to keep ahead of their own dwindling resources through technological development, they have historically spent most of their resources (controlled by a small minority of the population) on personal entertainment, luxury goods, and military equipment for a remarkably large number of international conflicts. Earth has had, up until very recently, no unifying global government and powerful national actors rejected restrictions on their own activities even as other nations sank beneath the rising oceans. While there was a brief period where levels of violence declined globally, an increasingly multi-polar world with a diminished ability for any one faction to control the course of events produced a corresponding rise in instability after the end of a dramatic stand-off between two alliances of nation states armed with massive arsenals of fusion and fission weapons. The unification of the world under the FNE appears to have interrupted this trend, but humans very much remain a species in flux.

Biology
Humans are soft-skinned bipeds native to the planet Earth. They are close relatives to the great apes of that same planet, but they have evolved to have a more erect posture, impressive fine motor control, and larger brains. Generally, humans have two arms and two legs. They have five digits on each of their two “hands” (on the arms) and “feet” (on the legs). They have strong, opposable thumbs on these hands.

Humans typically stand at a height of 1.5 to 2 meters and weigh between 55 and 75 kg. Males are typically larger than females and, historically, have dominated both government organizations as well as family units, despite indisputable evidence that there is no gender-based difference in competence or intelligence. The human lifespan often reaches 80 years old, but this figure can vary widely based on nutrition, the availability of medical care, and other factors.

Healthy humans typically have a soft skin protecting internal organs and an endoskeleton. This skin is usually covered by a fine layer of thin hair, often concentrated on the top of the head. For aesthetic and hygienic reasons, however, this hair is frequently shaved or sculpted. They have two eyes with an almost 180 degree forward facing view, as well as a flexible but short neck that allows them to adjust their field of vision. They have two ears, one on each side of the head, and a nose located directly below and between their eyes. Human senses are comparatively good, but they are not exceptional; even other species on their own planet often have greater physical abilities in these fields.

There are exceedingly minor superficial differences between humans whose genetic lines originated in different geographical areas, notably including skin color. Humans have still not moved entirely beyond discrimination and violence based on these superficial differences and live in communities largely segregated by what they oddly call “race.”

Comparative to other Coalition members, humans are well known for several interesting physical traits. They have hyperactive scar tissue, allowing them to heal in days what would take others weeks. Humans are even capable of limited regeneration of lost or damaged body parts, although this takes times and they often require medical assistance in doing so. Most humans are also exceedingly resistant to shock, able to maintain partial functionality and even recover from horrific wounds thanks to powerful cocktails of chemicals secreted throughout their body that activate in times of stress. Human females, while they have a limited window of fertility, are also capable of producing a large number of offspring. This birthing process is exceedingly dangerous and usually requires outside assistance from medical professionals. It is possible that some of the aforementioned human survival traits evolved simply to allow the females to survive this exceedingly difficult process.

History
Humans have, over the course of their history, migrated to and settled in every environment on their planet. Most societies began around smaller nomadic family and tribal units. Across the globe, these increasingly disparate human groups combined into mostly totalitarian and oligarchic states after the advent of agriculture. These states frequently made war on one another, usually at great cost of life despite the primitive weapons available at the time. The rise of spiritual and religious organizations frequently occurred in opposition to these violent trends, advocating peaceful coexistence, but usually only produced a replacement of one powerful group of elites with another. Throughout the entirety of human history, the burden of waging wars, paying taxes to support the state, and producing materials for the profit of others has typically fallen on the poorest members of human societies.

The large majority of humans are concentrated in a super-continent called Eurasia. The most ambitious attempts to unite the planet using military force have originated there. None, however, were successful. Earth’s massive oceans, covering over 70% of the planet’s surface, provided a final natural defense against those very few factions who were able to handle the logistics of a continent-wide empire. The fast pace of human reproduction undoubtedly hindered these military campaigns as well; even small nation-states have a surprisingly high population that they can muster in times of conflict. This factionalism produced a multi-polar world where thousands of individual ethnic groups developed their own languages and traditions, often defining themselves by their differences from outsiders. In times of peace, however, this diversity allowed the flourishing of many new ideas and improved practices through trade.

The rise and fall of powerful groups on Earth were often tied to changing climate conditions as well as the spread of disease. Humans proved to be highly adaptable in response to these crises, however, and developed new methods of dealing with even overwhelming problems despite the handicap of significant genetic homogeneity.

The concept of “freedom” became important in many of the most militarily and technologically powerful nations on Earth. In practice, it usually amounted to the protection of the personal security and private property of elite and rich individuals from governmental power. In time, however, it would produce some unifying ideas, including the expansion of these rights to an increasing number of individuals as well as enabling previously disparate groups to co-exist with significantly reduced bloodshed. Citizens were sometimes able to vote on which elite they wanted to rule over them. This did not stop them, however, from occupying and waging war on less technologically advanced neighbors. Naval power, critical on a planet with such massive bodies of water, rapidly became a defining factor in a nation’s military successes.

Humans eventually began to migrate with increasing speed towards cities, especially with the advent of industrialization and heavy factories. Unlike most other developed species, human governments made little attempt to limit this development or protect other species in the process. This produced significant short term gains, although it also created serious problems that Earth is still struggling to contain today. This rise in productive capacity and wealth allowed the amassing of great armies and empires. These empires, where a small minority of the population controlled the government and often maintained colonies where the subjugated humans living there vastly outnumbered the imperial power's, frequently waged war on one another. The advent of new medicines helped swell the population worldwide and the use of colonial conscription further increased manpower. As technological change accelerated, weapons became increasingly advanced and destructive. This culminated in two huge, world spanning wars that killed approximately 100 million people.

In the aftermath of the wars, most of the great empires were fractured into smaller components. Two great alliances formed, primarily competing over different philosophies regarding domestic government policies. The two factions, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact, amassed increasingly large arsenals of fission and fusion weapons, eventually reaching a point where a war between the two groups could easily have annihilated every major city on the planet. Despite the existence of large groups of unaligned nations who avoided choosing a side, the Cold War involved skirmishes on every continent and poorly conceived attempts to win the war by murdering elected officials in unaligned nations. Remarkably, both sides tended to downplay the actions of their opponents whenever such escalation would have led towards a major mutually destructive conflict.

Human technology increased exponentially after the advent of computers, and the people of Earth have historically shown a lack of concern for the consequences of embracing new dependencies on these devices. This further increased the rate of destruction of much of the Earth’s ecosystem and eradicated countless plant and animal species. Much of this technological change was inspired by war or, at least, its prospect. However, less militant advances led to other areas of competition for Earth’s nations. The era of humanity’s most rapid push into their own solar system (before contact with the Coalition, of course) came as a result of political concerns with falling behind rivals.

Over time, largely thanks to a long term and widening gap in economic power, the Warsaw Pact dissolved. While NATO declared victory, it became apparent that the long standing conflicts and problems facing the world remained. In many ways the new world, with rapidly changing alliances and partnerships, was even more dangerous. Over time, government actors had a decreasing amount of control over new technologies and world affairs, leading to the rise of powerful private businesses, non-state actors, and militants specializing in irregular warfare. Human nations relied on the fact that nobody would dare use the world’s most devastating weapons when it meant their own destruction, ignoring the number of times in history that other humans had taken risky action with unknown consequences for short term gain.

When the tlecians arrived, the situation on Earth was increasingly precarious. Wealthier individuals spent large amounts of time in virtual worlds and enjoying lavish entertainment while harshening environmental conditions led to wars over the cost of basic food stuffs and water in neighboring nations. New technologies were being discovered at a rare unparalleled in Earth’s history, but they were investing in fields that would make them easy targets for the eventual arrival of the denazra. In an attempt to avoid war at home, national actors had (mostly) refrained from militarizing space, but this left them almost entirely vulnerable to an attack from off-world and with no capacity to project power onto another planet.

In the end, the possibility of a window where recruitment might be possible- coupled with humanity’s vast numbers and remarkable physiques- tipped the scales in favor of a Coalition expedition. The denazra were pushing hard against the Coalition at the time and had clearly accelerated the pace of their attacks against member worlds. Secret military assessments predicted that the total loss of the Centaurus Arm would be followed by an invasion of the Sagittarius Arm by denazra forces within twenty years. If the Coalition waited for a more stable candidate species to be discovered, enough worlds would have been lost in the interim to make the entire question moot.

The tlecians openly entered Earth’s solar system and broadcast an offer already translated into over a dozen different languages. In exchange for humanity joining the Coalition and agreeing to provide military and material assistance to the growing alliance, the tlecians would construct a gate linking humanity to the rest of the galaxy and provide Earth with numerous advanced technologies sufficient to elevate humans to a near-post-scarcity society. The concept of nearly unlimited, renewable electricity and the ability to replace waning natural resources with new alternatives was extraordinarily tempting to many of Earth’s elites. The humans were further warned that the tlecians were psychic and could sense duplicity (both claims were later discovered to be, at best, exaggerations).

As several of the more powerful nations rushed to implement theoretical defense plans in case the alien arrivals turned out to be hostile, public debate raged. In the end, humanity was unable to come to consensus. Many nations balked at the idea of handing over power to a world government of any kind and others took positions of suspicion regarding “alien overlords” who wanted to draft humans to fight enemies in distant solar systems. In the end, the tlecian expedition decided that more coercive measures were required.

The tlecians signed limited treaties with those nations willing to cooperate. Over the course of the next several years, the people of Earth grew gradually more accepting of the presence of the tlecian expedition in orbit as it became apparent they had neither the capacity nor the inclination to launch an invasion or take overt hostile action. Those nations that refused to work with the Coalition representatives saw their relative power drastically decrease. In time, the most militarily and economically powerful nations signed on to the treaty and created a new, planet wide government called the Federated Nations of Earth. With access to powerful new technologies, this government held the exclusive right to distribute these advances around the globe and used the funds from these sales to create a powerful, but sharply limited, bureaucracy. The FNE left most domestic policy decisions up to its member states, but forbade inter-state conflict, enshrined free travel across national boundaries, and retained the power to declare war and conscript an army. The FNE moved rapidly to expand its military power, both on Earth and in orbit.

Approximately 1/3 of Earth’s nations refused to sign the treaty. What followed were a series of revolutions and small wars that made the FNE the de facto legal world government. Resistance groups were unable to counter their opponents’ technological advantage and total control of near-Earth orbit. In addition, the tlecians provided logistical assistance and helped neutralize several attempts to use thermonuclear weapons against the FNE. The FNE was the overwhelming victor in these conflicts, although resistance movements and minor violent uprisings persist to this day.

Earth is a rapidly changing place. Its comparatively huge reserves of manpower and wealth disparity means that Earth produced goods are cheap and are rapidly carving a niche for themselves across Coalition markets. The restriction of dangerous research and neural augmentation has not discouraged humans from a long practiced history of self-modification and radical experimentation. Human scientists rapidly adapted to the new military technologies provided by the Coalition and have even made several minor improvements that have real implications for other Coalition member species. However, the rate of development on Earth has been incredibly uneven. FNE soldiers frequently come from poorer nations where their family has practiced subsistence agriculture for generations or lived in primitive city slums. The humans are still struggling to integrate the huge number of new advances and technologies that full Coalition membership provides.

Militarily, Earth’s most impressive asset is its planetside assets. The FNE has already begun recruitment campaigns and limited conscription to bring Earth’s large population into the fight against the denazra. Manned air vehicles are seeing a resurgence after the FNE abandoned the dangerous practice of remote controlled military drones. The humans have even begun to adapt naval vessels for transport to other planets. Finally, the vast stores of fusion and fission weapons on Earth have allowed the FNE to quickly amass a large stockpile of powerful munitions for space combat. Earth’s space fleet is, however, still one of the smallest in the galaxy. Its first battle group (led by the prototype dreadnought ESS New Delhi) is just beginning its shakedown run, but the humans have promised to field at least five more dreadnoughts and attendant support vessels by the time of the next denazra invasion. Whether the FNE will be able to deliver on its promises and fully mobilize the often recalcitrant population of Earth remains to be seen.

Culture
Human culture is varied and diffuse. Celebrations of wealth, geographic origin, reproduction, and violence are common. While human culture is often seen as archaic and strange by other species, there are small niche followings developing on other planets. Many chantar have developed a taste for American football, hockey, and rugby (soccer/football, basketball, and baseball are generally regarded as insufficiently violent for chantar audiences). The kral’shir have proven remarkably receptive to human music and some foods. Even the tlecians have launched several cooperative endeavors with human classical music composers. Similarly, many humans appear to have enthusiastically embraced alien culture. A three part epic chronically the destruction of the tumacoom and the defeat at Orm recently became the highest grossing film series in human history (not adjusted for inflation).

Without government regulation, individual humans spend a surprising amount of their personal income on entertainment and cultural activities. Sports games, movies, music, and luxury foods are all large components of the human economy. The rise of the Internet, a near-global network of interconnected private computers across traditional national boundaries, has drastically changed the speed and type of cultural activities conducted remotely. The danger of the denazra has led to some significant changes, as the FNE continues work to harden communication lines and secure important public and private sector targets from potential outside interference. However, the decentralized nature of the Internet and the ease with which private citizens can side step government attempts to de-emphasize wireless connections between electronic devices has kept the Internet largely out of the control of the central government.

Humans typically react quickly to cultural developments and news items, provided they are made aware of them. Private control of the media means that the news items that people see are generally ones that a media company believes could be profitable. As a result, cultural consumers typically react suddenly and emotionally to new developments and then move on to the next exciting topic just as easily. Pervasive dark imagery and over-hyped stories about violence and tragedies have left human consumers fairly jaded, but they remain remarkably optimistic (and arguably overconfident) about their ability to overcome adversity. Fictional and non-fictional pieces of human heroes saving the day against overwhelming odds are ubiquitous throughout their culture. How this information culture will change once millions of human soldiers are actually experiencing the desperation and horror of real conflict with the denazra is unclear and a popular subject for historians and other academics.

Religion
Earth is home to thousands of recognized religious groups, although many of them only boast a limited number of adherents. Approximately half of the population belongs to a major religious organization, but many millions more follow some religious beliefs without supporting an established sect. The three largest religious groups (without distinguishing between religious sub-groups) are Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.

In addition to creation stories, Earth religions commonly advocate charity, peace building, and harmony with the natural world. Some promote beliefs in miracles and other supernatural events, while others focus more on mundane matters and instructions on how to morally handle difficult events. Almost universally, the major religions deal with questions of identity and purpose. Even amongst the irreligious, a belief in a spirit that exists outside of the physical body is common. Similarly, while exact accounts vary widely, a majority of humans believe in an afterlife.

Most of Earth’s religions had their roots in a limited geographical area. When a group spread over large distances and to geographically distant cultures, both assimilation and factionalism commonly appeared. The most geographically diverse and trans-cultural religious movements are associated with Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. However, while Earth’s largest religions often span multiple continents, they have also split into a multitude of different factions with widely varying beliefs. The most common trend in the modern era has been a move away from these smaller sects towards a less hierarchical and generalized belief (i.e. “Christian” as opposed to “Northern Baptist Christian”). In addition, areas of concentrated wealth have also seen the largest growth of non-religious populations, including atheists who typically lack any belief in the supernatural.

Throughout Earth history, both the religious and irreligious have perpetrated horrific acts of violence against one another, with adherents of any particular philosophy typically laying the blame at the feet of other groups. Contrarily, many other similar groups have inspired some of the greatest acts of pacifism and self-sacrifice seen throughout Earth’s history. The only common denominator amongst humans regarding religion seems to be a willingness to disagree on the specifics of these events.

Economy
Earth’s planetary economy is organized on a similar foundation as the previous international model. Massive and extraordinarily powerful private umbrella corporations occupy most of the upper echelons of the business world, driving competitors out of business or simply purchasing start ups before they are able to grow enough to force these large corporations to actually compete in the market place. Most of these holding companies serve primarily to enrich shareholders, usually select members of the human elite whose families have enjoyed similar influence for generations. Much of the actual day to day business that affects individual citizens, however, is conducted by smaller firms with relatively close ties to their geographic community. The FNE and Earth’s national governments maintain a much looser holder on private industry than most other Coalition members, and the freewheeling nature of Earth’s economy is dizzying to representatives from species with a more orderly system in place.

Due to the impoverished nature of many of Earth’s nation-states, the planet has enjoyed an industrial boom as cheap, Earth-made goods have found willing consumers on many different Coalition worlds. While most Coalition technologies are technically owned by the FNE, the government readily dispenses licenses to any company that can pay the relatively modest fees. Start ups have boomed planet wide and government regulations designed to reduce Earth’s vulnerability to denazra sabotage has helped create a large number of well paying, if dangerous, industrial jobs.

Space construction is one of the largest industries on Earth at the moment, with new orbital complexes being assembled every day, three already operational major space elevators, and a plethora of resource exploitation operations starting up around the solar system. While most of this wealth has been concentrated in the hands of the FNE bureaucracy or a small number of extraordinarily wealthy business owners, the new developments have produced at least minor quality of life improvements for most of the planet’s population.

A revolution in the electronics industries is underway, as entirely wireless devices are increasingly being seen as a liability. While the FNE has not tried to ban their use, new models are required to have old-fashioned hardwired backups available. It is no secret that the FNE has been quietly developing its capacity to interfere with and shut down wireless networks across the globe so that, in the event of a denazra attack, it can quickly activate a kill switch to force private citizens to rely on wired communications until the crisis is over.

A major concern on Earth right now is the long term viability of these investments. The FNE is effectively creating a wartime economy with its policies, which many economists warn could backfire once the upcoming defense of Mrava space is finished one way or another. Concerns about inflation and an economic bubble bursting are frequently raised at conferences and symposiums, but most ordinary citizens seem content to enjoy the boom and are not overly worried about the future.

Civilian Ship classes:

Language
Humans have over 6,000 different languages. A large number of these, however, are concentrated in isolated areas and spoken by only a small number of individuals. As trade and interaction between different cultures increased, so did the sharing of languages as well as the necessity of learning other languages in order to do business and communicate. Most of these languages have written and spoken varieties, although many involve hand signals and other codified body movements.

Up until very recently (with the introduction of the tlecian translator), it was common for major diplomatic or business endeavors to require dozens of support personnel in order to even communicate. As translation technology spreads, and more of Earth’s many languages are entered into the requisite databases, communication has become easier and many of the most endangered languages have been preserved. However, the translators are not universally available and those that have acquired them have far less incentive to learn new languages than in past eras. Translating idioms across language barriers, even with technological assistance, remains difficult and many linguists have warned of potentially dire unintended consequences from the new technology’s adaption.

Military
Including paramilitary forces, Earth’s nations boast over 50 million military trained individuals worldwide. The actual number of active duty troops is much lower. FNE recruitment and the beginnings of limited conscription has, on paper, increased this total to approximately 70 million personnel. This is less than 1% of Earth’s population and the FNE has promised to increase these totals. In time of war, the FNE may call on its member states to contribute resources and personnel from their national militaries. In general, FNE soldiers have superior equipment but are often less experienced. The new Earth military is being built around a core of veterans, both volunteers from national governments and experienced soldiers who fought in the wars following unification, but they have a large number of new recruits to train and little time to do it. A massive military and industrial apparatus is springing up across the planet and many Coalition analysts who have visited Earth are hopeful that the humans may be able to field a truly impressive ground contingent in defense of the mravans.

In space, the FNE is more lacking. Several orbital shipyards have been constructed and the FNE has imported an impressive array of chantar-built equipment. However, the construction of military-grade space craft requires precision, resources, and time. Human experience with zero gravity combat is almost non-existent and the new strategies required to make use of the fleet currently under construction around Earth are still in development. The FNE’s first dreadnought, the ESS New Delhi, and its attendant battle group are conducting their first shakedown run with a tour of Coalition territories. By all accounts, these ships are impressively designed and armed, with some reports rating them on par with a Chantar fleet of the same size. However, most of the fastest built vessels rely heavily on imported components and boast rookie crews. How well they will perform in real combat remains to be seen. It will undeniably take decades of hard work and massive investment if humanity wishes to field a first class space fleet.

Military Ship Classes:

Notable Planets
Earth - Mostly harmless.