Human (Ur-Quan Masters)

Humans, also known as Earthlings, and Hunams (by the Spathi), are a relatively young race native to Earth, the third planet of the Sol system.





Biology
Humans descended from primates: omnivorous social creatures that had to co-operate and use clever strategies to scrounge food and defend themselves from larger predators. Physically, humans are similar to many (though not all) spacefaring species, including a bipedal configuration with mobile graspers (hands and feet) with a wide range of motion and a dedicated sensory appendage (a coconut or "head"). The Humans describe this physiology as humanoid. (Perhaps the Syreen could use the term Syrenoid. 2)

The Earthlings have managed to evolve a decent technological culture in a relatively short time with no assistance or uplifting from any other sentient race (although they have been the subject of Arilou Lalee'lay experiments).

Government
Earth was administered by a confederal system called the United Nations until 2134 when it was conquered by the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za during the Ur-Quan Slave War. The Humans chose to take the Oath of Fealty and were incorporated into the Ur-Quan Hierarchy as Fallow Slaves. It is unknown what type of global administration has developed under the Slave Shield.

A clandestine scientific expedition on Unzervalt lost contact with Earth during the Slave War and evolved into the only known colony of free humans. On 17 February 2155, a ship from Unzervalt arrived at Earth made contact with the other Humans aboard the Starbase. The partnership between the Flagship and Starbase represented the only free Humans; the administration could be classified as a provisional military government.

Recent history
In the last few centuries of pre-interstellar Human development (the 18th to 20th centuries), Human technological progress and industrial development exploded at an amazing rate. As Earth developed increasingly powerful radio transmission capabilities in the 1930s, these broadcasts were detected by various races, such as the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za, who began to form plans of attacking Earth as early as 1940.4 Meanwhile, other races, such as the Chenjesu, prepared themselves to warn the Humans of this threat though they still deemed the Humans insufficiently prepared to assist in any organized opposition to the coming threat. Since neither the Chenjesu nor any other alien species would openly contact Earth until many years later, Humans were forced to make the difficult transition to a high-technological society on their own, a fact that has earned them respect from species like the Yehat. Still, the other alien races native to the Humans' region of space also watched with interest and surprise, as the Humans quickly developed into a nascent spacefaring race.

However, as these technological advances were made, the Human civilization continued to be mired in inter-nation conflicts as it had been since Humanity's early history. This pattern was finally shattered by the Small War of 2015, in which several Middle Eastern nations initiated a strategic nuclear exchange of fewer than a dozen missiles. Even the use of such a small percentage of the available nuclear arsenals killed almost a million Humans, however. This shocking catastrophe finally provided the spur for Humans to overcome their deep-seated ideological disagreements. The leaders of the industrialized nations and the Third World, meeting in the United Nations headquarters in New York, decided to take action. Within six months, the UN Security Council had established a large peacekeeping army, and decided to confiscate all mass destruction weapons from all around the globe. The disassembled components of the mass destruction weapons were stored in giant subterranean Peace Vaults. Other actions taken by the UN included forbidding both weapon research and the sale of smaller arms, and closely monitoring laser applications to prevent the design of dangerous weapons. A ten-year concerted effort by the United Nations and the leaders of its member states finally led to the abolition of intraspecies war among Humans in the year 2025.

It was in this time that the Humans gave rise to the Androsynth, a race of artificial clones of Humans, whose right to be recognized as fellow Humans had been withdrawn due to a wave of religious hysteria. Their enhanced strength and intelligence as well as their easily exploitable legal status made them highly useful tools for Humans in the coming century of high technological development.

It was in the 21st century that human sublight space travel became highly advanced, allowing Humans to explore, exploit and colonize most of their own inner star system, concentrated mostly in factory bases on their own satellite, Luna, and in the asteroid belt between the inner and outer systems. The United Nations formed its first major new military arm since the Peacekeeping Army, a space-based regulatory office known as Star Control, established with a permanent headquarters in the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Humans began working on discovering the secret of HyperSpace travel; unfortunately for them, the highest-level workers on hyperdrive included many Androsynth, and in the Slave Revolt of 2085 all Androsynth, with the help of Human sympathizers, managed to successfully hijack all of Earth's orbital space stations. The Androsynth used their high intelligence and the many technological secrets they had hoarded from their masters to modify the space station's equipment into technology far beyond anything Humans had yet seen; defending themselves from Star Control forces with powerful MASER weapons, they soon created the first hyperdrive systems known in Sol space and pushed up out of Human history for the rest of the century.

First Contact
It was at the beginning of the 22nd century when Humans first made contact with a truly alien race.3 The Chenjesu, who had been aware of Humanity since the 1930s, now saw that the situation with the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za had grown desperate; Ur-Quan hostilities had broken out within range of Sol and, though great in technological sophistication, the Chenjesu and their Mmrnmhrm allies lacked the resources and labor to expand their fleets quickly enough to match the swelling Hierarchy of Battle Thralls, while their new Yehat and Shofixti allies were still too far away to assist in the main conflict. As a race with a large population, powerful industrial technology, and easy access to many natural resources, the Humans were the ally the Chenjesu desperately needed. In 2112, Humans had pushed out the farthest they ever had from their sun, building a major installation on the asteroid Ceres. Now, a messenger ship from the Chenjesu accosted the Humans at Ceres Base, begging for their help in what they termed the "Great Crucible of Sentience".

The Humans were immensely shell-shocked, having been in the unusual state of utter isolation from alien races for their whole history. They rallied admirably, though, and spent the next several months consulting with Chenjesu ambassadors about the full extent of the atrocities, consulting recordings of the Ur-Quan in action and sending delegations to travel through HyperSpace with the Chenjesu to visit worlds that had already been devastated by Ur-Quan attack. Finally, the Humans agreed among themselves to join the Chenjesu cause. On August 1, 2116, the highest official of the United Nations, High Provost Ivana Or-Kachov, along with Star Control's General Juan O'Reilly, signed a concord with the Alliance of Free Stars' civilian Secretary of Space Zeep-Zeep (of the Yehat) and Commander-in-Chief Bzrrak Ktazzz (of the Chenjesu) pledging Earth's full commitment to the war in return for Alliance protection.

The speed with which Humans were thrust into such a perilous situation without even a basic experience in dealing with other sentient races may have contributed to such diplomatic blunders as the disastrous Human/Syreen crew exchange, an accidental human attack on an Arilou fleet, and the Great Insult that poisoned relations with the VUX. Nonetheless the Human industrial base became crucial in the war effort; a massive, worldwide effort was made to reignite the engines of war formerly concentrated in the nation of the United States of America. In a nod both to expediency and tradition, the final assembly centers for the new starships of Earth were established in the city of Detroit, Michigan, long a bastion of Earth's heavy industry. Additionally, it was Star Control's Synthetic Special Reconstruction and Intergalactic Intelligence division that pieced together diverse data to come up with the first detailed profiles on Hierarchy races available to the Alliance — though these profiles have since been shown to be somewhat flawed and biased. Star Control itself in this era became one of the major operations centers of the Alliance, directing many fleets of many races.

Interestingly, it was Earth's entrance into the Alliance that coincided with the sudden appearance of a fleet of the Arilou Lalee'lay, a race no other race had ever encountered before, around Luna with desires to join the Alliance. Suspicions of some connection between the Arilou and Humans seem to have been borne out by recent events.

Humans fought bravely in the war, producing a relatively crude but numerous and flexible fleet that fought on multiple fronts, while also providing many officers and crew for allied fleets. Those who had chosen to maintain the Peace Vaults in the first days of the Peacekeeping Army were vindicated; even the Chenjesu were shocked by the total destructive power represented by the sheer number of the old alliances' nuclear warheads and the United States' half-finished orbital laser defense systems. Primitive as they were, refitted for ship-to-ship combat they became the reliable and ubiquitous weapons system of the Earthling Cruiser.

Unfortunately, the Alliance proved unable to hold off the Hierarchy forces forever, and once the Sa-Matra came into play the Alliance was doomed. The Ur-Quan Kzer-Za, having very little respect for the complex bureaucratic jumble that characterized human government, insisted that the human terms of surrender be decided upon by a purely democratic vote, which led to humans becoming a slave-shielded fallow species in the year 2134.

After the War
By chance, however, it had been a Human expedition that went to the Precursor ruins on Vela 1 in that same year, just before the war ended; when the Humans were marooned there, the world was renamed Unzervalt ("Our World"). The story is well known of how the Humans activated the Precursor factory there and created a great Precursor ship, the equivalent of an all-purpose cruiser/service tug, which they managed to send away from the planet before they were discovered and shielded by the Ur-Quan. It was this Precursor ship, The Flagship, commanded by the famous young Captain, that returns to Earth in 2155 and joins with Commander Hayes of the Hierarchy Starbase maintained in Earth orbit, launching a series of guerrilla actions against the Hierarchy. The ragtag fleet known as the New Alliance of Free Stars is lead by these Humans for most of its career, and it is their actions that eventually lead to the downfall of both Ur-Quan subspecies in 2159, freeing the Kzer-Za slaves and preventing a wholesale Kohr-Ah genocide. For all their faults, the free races of the galaxy owe the Humans a great debt.