The second most prolific planetary settlers, Humans are one of the newer species to join the alliance. Among the galactic species they are most known for their love of digital media, droids, and exploration.
Biology
Humanity is biologically the same as they have been historically. I'm not doing a formal writeup of this lol. (yet, anyway)
Culture
Earth
While humanity has spread its wings to planets and stations beyond their home system, a fondness for their home planet seems to follow them no matter how far they travel. It isn't uncommon for colony-born humans light-years from their solar system to take an interest in images and news from earth. There is an entire industry that revolves around selling small pieces of earth as good luck charms to space-faring humans, though the sustainability of this is certainly suspect.
Colony Culture
Many humans live in planetary or moon colonies across the Sol sector, though some new colonies are being built in Choir. Most of these colonies are enclosed within structures that maintain the right atmosphere and temperature for survival, though a special few are either habitable enough or have been terraformed to be able to sustain life. Even planets that harbor life may not always be suitable to humans, and can be structure-based despite the native biomes.
Humans born on planets and moons will form a stronger sense of identity around the place they grew up in than those on stations, and frequently feel that living and growing on "real ground" makes them superior in some way to those that live in free-floating stations. For those concerned with safety, living planetside is held up as the least risky option, even though some planets provide their own, unique dangers. Planet-side colonies more frequently create their own law systems, cultures, and declare independent states than stations. Since there are so many human colonies, it is impossible to generalize them all. There are, however, a few notable categories of colony:
- Mining/Resource Colonies (Settled to harvest from their planet/moon)
- Research Colonies (Typically settled on life-bearing worlds or worlds near phenomena of interest)
- Expansion Colonies (Settled for the sake of expanding to new frontiers)
- Cultural/Schism Colonies (Settled by a group of people seeking to preserve or develop their own culture)
Station Culture
A significant portion of humanity lives in space-faring or planet-orbiting stations. Stations can either be independent or based out of another colony or larger station. Life on a space station brings its own challenges, but technology has advanced to the point where specialist training isn't required to life a life out in space. Space stations are able to emulate or simulate gravity, but typically to a smaller degree than a full planet's gravity. Humans that live in a station their entire life may require physical therapy to transition to a higher-gravity planet. Humans coming to a station from planet-side may experience nausea typical of "station sickness".
It's not uncommon for station-based humans to see themselves as more free and "outside the law" than those under the rule of planetary colony governments. Even stations that are under the jurisdiction of larger colonies tend to experience a feeling of distance from those they orbit above. This can be amplified by the tendency of planet-side humans to consider station living as "lesser" or missing some aspect of "real living", which station-goers can come to resent. Stations can be in orbit or free-drifting in space, but those that travel will generally need to stop in star systems to recharge their power supplies. While planetary colonies may be more stable in the long-run, a space station is orders of magnitude easier to construct and found, and thus more common.
History
Pre-Space
Humanity developed fast. Earth, like most life-bearing planets, was rich in resources that humans quickly learned to utilize. As they advanced in the sciences, humanity looked up to the stars far earlier on their technological scale than any other species. Humans made it to their orbiting moon with relatively simple technologies (when compared to the craft that other species used for their first lunar trip), though any real space presence would be saved for the far future. Humanity's enthusiastic use of their planet's resources led to a decline of Earth's biodiversity and climate. This caused a lot of fear and pessimism as to the future of their planet, and some thought it would be better to try and find a new place to live before the planet died.
Some humans attempted to make it to other planets in the wake of this, but the only successes would be the lunar colony and the (at the time considered a failure) voyage of the colony ship Jaguar (See: the
Jalgar). All other attempts ended in gruesome or tragic failure. While some focused on these efforts, many other poured their efforts into learning how to heal their planet. Over time, these optimists would prevail and the status of Earth began to return to that of its glory days. In an ironic turn of events, the technologies and knowledge gained by those restoring Earth were instrumental to humanity's ability to finally take to space in an effective way.
Space Age
The first humans to officially take off from the planet and found a new population were those willing to take risks with the new technology for the sake of their goals. These people that voyaged during the early space age would later become their own governing factions separate from the core of humanity.
These Factions are:
The Earthen Authority, Consisting of the Core Earth Population and the settlements created after the early space age.
Seven Star, Founded by one billionaire Pressely Pleiades, his peers, and those who believed in him or were willing to take his money to join a social experiment.
ESRA, The Extra-Solar Research Association, was founded by pioneering scientists but now consists of a full population of station-drifting people.
The Simultist Sect, Founded by a fringe branch of Christianity that seeks to settle on suitable planets in order to "re-attempt" the biblical narrative, thinking Earth a failure.
For a time, ESRA was not separate from the Earthen Authority, but became its own entity due to distance and resistance against certain Earth policies on academics. While Seven Star did not start as a religious faction, the attitudes towards their founder began to take on worship-like elements causing them to clash against the Simultists for a time.
It was members of ESRA that made first contact with the
Chi'Suut, and to this day they still hold the strongest bonds with those on
Chi'Kciponn, though many Chi'suut can be found in the other factions as well.
Joining the Alliance
When Humanity came to discover and understand Slidespace, the rest of the galaxy opened up to them. It did not take long for them to join in the Interplanetary Alliance at the
Trallyr's pressuring, in part due to their shared wariness of the
Terrkarakki species. The Earthen Authority is considered the main governing body of Humanity according to the Alliance, which has brought the other human factions into a formal alliance in order for them all to feel like they have a say in their representation.
