Life is divided into three terms, that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future.
William Wordsworth
Prologue : In the Beginning
Humanity….we have come along way, evolving, adapting and surviving on our homeworld, Earth…..our home. As we mastered ourselves and survived on a hostile world, we grew, we changed, we created wonders and made grand voyages of discovery across our world. We had our ups and downs of course, an ice age nearly drove us to extinction, plagues and diseases as well, but in the end it mattered little. We overcame those challenges and continued our steady march across the world. Along the way we grasped technology and created tools and weapons to aid on our survival, and soon we were everywhere…..our place as the dominant species assured, our superiority forever separated us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
But like all species on the world, we had our conflicts, but our wars were vastly more devastating than anything the world has ever seen. From the Great War of 1918 to World War 2 which ended with the ushering of the Nuclear Age. Millions dead in these conflicts, perhaps reaching a billion, but in the end of the day, those are nothing more than numbers, statistics, an ever increasing list of deaths because we were unable to see past our own hubris and greed and weakness. But despite all of this…..hope remained. For a few of us were able to see past our own weakness and connect with each other, bypassing religion, race, ethnicity and other trivialities that kept us apart. And then were others, others that ignored everything else, and looked to the stars….
As we reached the middle of the 21st century, a war happened…. a war that would change everything….World War 3, The War that Never Was. No one knows why that disaster was called that except the man who created that moniker, Stephen Hawking. He would later take that secret to his grave, it is said to this very day that he died because he was unable to bear seeing how humanity was slaughtering each other.
The war had started because of the economic collapse of Greece, which lead to complete and utter chaos in Eastern Europe, which proved to be a catalyst to show how powerless the European Union and by extension NATO and the UN really are. The United States, bogged down in countless conflicts, was a tired and war weary nation, a dying empire that was bound to collapse unless something was done. A new President, Harvey McArthur, managed to reverse the tied by initiating sweeping political and social reforms, this however lead to a civil war in the US, a war which forced the US to turn inwards and lose all it's influence in the rest of the world. The Middle East, with it's violence barely kept in check by US forces fell apart and tore itself into pieces over religion and ethnicity. South America was the next to fall, the rise of the high tech criminal corporation known as the C.A.R.T.E.L led to the subjugation of most of the Southern continent in months with the sole exception of Chile.
The conflict of Eastern Europe spilled into the West, the now defunct EU was replaced with the new Western Security Council (WSC) to help defend Western Europe's interests, as East and West fought for control and supremacy, all over the world battle lines were being drawn, China, badly weakened by internal division and economic weakness looked outwards with an expansionist view towards her neighbours and Asia in general, barely hanging on to power, China decided the best way to go on was to conquer it's neighbours to keep the people occupied on the glories of war.
Russia and China were now facing each other, The US ended their isolation to come to the aid of Japan and South Korea who were being threatened by China and North Korea respectively, the C.A.R.T.E.L was now probing the US southern border that was once the Mexican-US border, minor skirmishes turned in bloodbaths that would very soon turn ugly. India and Pakistan were now harassing each other across the border….
All around the world….lines were drawn.
All it needs is a spark.
On 1830 hours standard time, March 21st 2051, 5 nuclear weapons detonated on Tokyo, New Delhi, Washington, London and Berlin simultaneously. These 5 great cities disappeared into a mushroom cloud. This was the spark that set of World War 3, a war that lasted for 15 years.
A war that lead to the slaughter of 3 billion humans, out of 8 billion. When the war finally ended, all that was left was ashes and bodies. The horror of the war lead to the survivors banding together….for the first time, we united fully to prevent such a catastrophe from ever happening again…..and for a time it worked….for a decade we enjoyed a peace that can be only described as a Utopia as we rebuilt our civilization…but it wasn't long before our peace was shattered…only this time…..it wasn't us….and the threat came from the stars.
We don't know who they are or what they are….we only know they call themselves the Ethereals, they struck without warning or mercy. On September 27 2076, Ethereal warships appeared above Earth orbit and began disgorging drop pods and drop ships towards Earth, the newly formed United Earth Federation was still recovering from World War 3, with military forces at half strength at best. Thus began another 7 long years of conflict between the UEF and the Ethereals.
The enemy had every advantage conceivable, technology, numbers( through the use of their drone units), supplies and even arcane powers that humans would later come to know as "Psionics"…the reality bending powers of the Ethereals tipped the war to their favor, but we never gave up…we kept fighting and fighting for 7 long years until 29th November 2083….a day that will forever be remembered in shame. We surrendered….bowed down towards our new "masters"...it was a disgrace.
The next 150 years (known as the Phoney War) would be marked with blood, oppression and the rallying cry for freedom, it turns out the Ethereals were looking for the "perfect species". As a race they were complete masters of their powers, the Ethereal Supreme could warp the very fabric of reality to his whims, but as a species, they were dying from an unknown disease and were looking for the perfect species that would "succeed them" as they put it. In the end no one really knows how they intend to do it, but what is known is that the aliens went to obscene and repugnant lengths to force humanity to evolve, for the next 150 years humanity was experimented on, we were systematically segregated and based on a multitude of factors like skin color were experimented on…like animals, The experiments were brutal and inhumane, leading to horrific maiming and death. Our people were exposed to vacuum, extreme heat, cold, and pressures; they were forced to work until they dropped, had weight piled on them until their bones shattered. Some were subject to tortures just to measure their pain tolerance, with nails pulled out to the root, skin flayed off, muscle peeled away, bones snapped and set without pain medication. One notorious experiment essentially cooked slaves( as the Ethereals now called us) alive to see which would last the longest. Others experiments included Bio-Augmentation onto large numbers of humans. The Ethereals also created birthing farms so as to sustain the human population .Naturally we resisted, but the fact that they outgunned and outnumbered us by a large margin was a fact that was not lost upon. That being said, Terra Firma, the resistance organization slowly built up it's strength and technology, never stopping to rescue humans and disrupt Ethereal operations. for 150 years we endured, building our strength and escalating resistance operations, the aliens were never able to subjugate the population as they could never dominate our will, while their psionics ensured that they dominated the open battlefield, for some reason humanity was resistant to mind control, it was probably why the Ethereals were so interested in our species. During the final years of the Phoney War, Terra Firma operatives managed to capture a live Ethereal and a Gollop device, a rumoured device that is used by the aliens to detect psionic potential of a species. The resistance interrogated the Ethereal but for 3 weeks it resisted all forms of interrogation, it wasn't until it was weakened by the mysterious illness that was plaguing the Ethereals and the starvation that set in did we make any headway in interrogating the alien….it was then they discovered the Ethereals morbid interest in our species, it turns out these being were around for a long, long time, longer than even we existed, so long that even they have forgotten how long their species lived in this galaxy. It turns out that mankind had 2 things they required to succeed them, an extremely high psionic potential and a robust physique, the latter he Ethereals lacked, but what really got the Ethereals excited over our race was the fact that as psionically capable as we are, we were also capable of resisting the affects of psionics, to be more specific, mind control and mental persuasion techniques that aliens had at their disposal.. Further interrogation of the alien lead to it's death but we gained one last piece of knowledge that was crucial, the construction and usage of a Gollop chamber, to extrapolate, the Gollop device was a key part of the Gollop chamber, used to not only detect the latent psionic potential but to also awaken it.
The first human psionic, known as the Volunteer was made when he volunteered to be the first to have his latent psionic potential activated, the procedure succeeded, thus, the first human psionic was created. Tests conducted of the Volunteers new psionic powers were extraordinary to say the least, his brain for one, was now operating at 100% capacity, and his body was evolving by the minute, a rate that defied every sort of medical and evolutionary knowledge, a doctor who witnessed his evolution quoted "This rate of evolution can be seen as that of the Borg"…a truer statement than any. Among the changes were that the Volunteer's muscle increased in density and efficiency, the bones became more sturdy, the vital organs became more efficient and quite noticeably his reflexes and senses improved ten-fold.
But what really made psionics dangerous was that the physical changes that the wielder gained paled in comparison to the power of the mind, to be more specific, the wielder of psionics can bring into reality the existence of paranormal abilities. And so it was decided that only the most elite and mentally stable and disciplined members of the resistance would gain the use of psionics, for in the next few years, humanity would launch it's uprising on the alien invaders, we fight to regain our future and our home. There shall be no mercy or quarter given.
Finally after 20 years of preparation, Terra Firma struck, across the world, hundreds of Ethereal military bases were struck, all of them being destroyed simultaneously after several days worth of intense fighting. The Ethereals were bad bloodied but not yet beaten, there were several hidden fortresses that needed to be captured to secure even more valuable technology and the destruction, or preferably capture of the Ethereal temple ship was paramount, to make matters worse was the fact that the Ethereals and their remaining drone units had every intention of making us fight for every inch of ground, going so far as to fire their orbital based laser weapons down on earth to any suspected resistance hideout, or to simply just target cities and towns in hope of drawing attention away from them. The fortresses and the Temple ship also housed factories to create new drones and facilitate repairs, and the Ethereals themselves although weakened, still had enough power to blunt our attacks, it was at this time we saw how terrifying psionics can be, they created violent psionic storms that easily massacred our forces out in the open and forced them to take shelter, slowing down our assault, eventually we were forced to deal with the Ethereals through covert means by sending out assassins and commando teams to eliminate them, the method was successful, but more often than not entire teams, teams that consisted only of Psi-Adepts, were lost in taking down single Ethereals….and so the war slugged on for another 3 years, finally on the year 2236, we had pushed them back to the Temple Ship, in the alien tongue it was called Teppelin.
The assault on Teppelin began on the morning of October 1st 2236, it was bloody battle, with psionics powers being used on a regular basis so much so that the entire terrain of the region was changed, and troops on both sides slaughtering each other with merciless precision, this was a take-no prisoners battle, and he who wins will rule the world and gain a future, and the loser will willow away as a slave.
While the main battle was going on, a assault squad lead by the Volunteer was assigned to assassinate the enemy leadership, the priority target was the Ethereal Supreme and the rest of the Ethereal leadership, as they reached the throne room, they discovered that the Ethereal Supreme was charging a Rift Generator, a super weapon that creates a black hole with the power to destroy the entire solar system if it were to activate, while the Volunteers squad mates were holding off the Ethereals guards, the Volunteer himself slaughtered the entire alien council who tried to stop him and after a protracted fight, killed the Ethereal Supreme, but it was too late, the device was activated, beginning a countdown sequence, it was in that moment the Volunteer received mysterious visions as to what he can do to shut down the Rift Generator at the cost of his own life, it wasn't just him that was receiving visions, every human psionic was getting visions of some sort, realizing what he must do the Volunteer teleports his squad mates away from the failing Temple Ship and creates his own black hole, strong enough to counter the black hole created by the Rift Generator, the resulting clash tore apart the temple ship and distorted the space around them before disappearing in a flash of light.
It was done, humanity had won….the demoralised Ethereals were in despair, most chose to commit suicide, some chose to fight to the bitter end, but it mattered little….we won, we paid through our nose for that victory, but we won.
It took the world an extra 15 years to organise itself, clean up the destruction caused by the aliens and destroy any remaining alien resistance. Finally, January 20th 2251 would mark the day where Earth was cleansed of the Alien menace and the Terran Federation was borne, finally we were united, where each person was treated the same as the rest, where skin color and religion were factors no longer…it was too bad it took a World War and more than a century of alien occupation to get us to see eye to eye.
As the Federation rebuilt itself, the treasure trove of alien technology helped, from gene therapy and mods to laser, particle, plasma and mastery of railgun based weaponry and technology to fusion reactors and much more, everything we needed to come back strong. Of course, there were difficult times too, the nature and power of psionics was called into question, there were some who wanted to keep that power to themselves, others wanted it gone, but in the end psionics was made available to everyone, the Ascension Project as it was called, was created to awaken and train potential psionics users, with many of the instructors drawn from the resistance, which now established itself as S.H.I.E.L.D, potential psionics users were plentiful, and was continuing to grow as the human race as whole awakened a new power that would change them physically and mentally. With medical improvements in gene therapy and gene mods, diseases were all but nonexistent and the usual physical weaknesses that we had was minimized to say the least, humans now are physically stronger and more mentally capable the ever before.
While of this was happening, sociological changes were also taking place, the most of important among this was the creation of the "Human Paths", a philosophical discipline that was created to help channel our focus and discipline into our work using psionics. To elaborate, the Human Paths are a rigid code of behaviour and discipline that governs the day-to-day life of every single person, it acts as a physical and psychic focusing lens that allows humans focus their insatiable curiosity to bring out the very best of their powers and use them responsibly while avoiding illogical actions and uncontrolled emotions that can wreak havoc on their powers and cause them to endanger everyone else as psionics is also affected by emotion. Contrary to popular belief, each person can and almost always will take on multiple paths, however, almost all the time these people will have one path that they have mastered above all others, in layman's terms, solid performance at everything, master of one.
For 70 years we flourished, after we healed our wounds from the last war, we looked to the stars, we first colonised our moon, then the planet Mars, than Mercury and Venus, before moving towards the most distant planets in our solar system, colonising the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and the eventually the entire Sol System, we also dedicated ourselves to integrate Gene Therapy and Gene Mods( otherwise known as Bio-augmentation) into the society, where once these augmentation procedures were seldom used due to the fact that we were once lab rats for the alien invaders, now we embraced these genetic upgrades slowly but surely, there were riots in the streets by those that did not wish to inherit our future by being trapped in the past, but nothing they could do could stop the march of progress, and sure enough our species embraced Bio-augmentations, and our physical and mental capabilities improved beyond our wildest dreams….then we looked out and saw the vastness of space and saw how small we are in the universe, but it did nothing to dampen our insatiable curiosity and our instinct to explore, we expanded to other star systems, colonizing and terraforming barren planets and turning them into garden worlds, during our travels into the stars we encountered new races, the logical Vulcans, the deceitful Romulans, the militaristic Cabal and the unified pirate empire known as the Fallen, there were conflicts and threats to us of course, the Romulan-Earth War on 2336 was one of them, not to mention various incursions and raids by the Fallen and the 7 year war with the Cabal that lasted from 2345 to 2352 which ended in a draw.
We also faced other threats, the Iconian empire from the Delphanic Cluster invaded our quadrant of the galaxy on the year 2400, intent on conquering it for the greater good of their religion, those that converted were spared, while those that didn't were culled like livestock with the unlucky few being turned in servitors, mindless, grotesque humanoid cyborg slaves meant to serve the Iconians, the war itself lasted for 12 years, entire sectors of space burned and planets decimated, it took a unified alliance of every species in our quadrant to push them back, but we did it, we won, and despite this setback humanity came back stronger than ever, we rebuilt and continued colonization, and for 750 years we flourished, expanding over a thousand worlds and creating an empire of own. Despite being beset by minor wars around us our empire stood strong, our people prosperous and proud, yet focused, devoted to their duties, courageous and never arrogant.
And then…they came, they fell upon the Galaxy like a storm, and swept all before them…monstrous abominations that devoured entire planets and civilizations…..we do not know of their origins, as the refugees that passed through our space were to terrified to even describe them accurately, all we did know is whatever that enemy was, it was clearly attacking and devouring everything.
On the year 3169, we encountered this race on the planet Tyran, a peaceful colony world, but the contact was anything but peaceful, as their fleet approached the planet, it was beset by unnatural and random violent weather anomalies that severely hindered military and public services, but what happened next threw the entire planet into chaos.
Almost a quarter of the civilian population in Tyran revolted, the once ordered and disciplined citizens turned into mindless cultists proclaiming the greatness of the "Genestealer" gods, with some turning into insectile monsters that cocooned their victims before devouring them. When the alien fleet arrived, it was something out of a nightmare, vast insect-like ships with claws and appendages, even eyes of some sort engaged the defence fleet, our fleet held the line but the superior numbers and complete and utter lack of fear or any base emotions from these aliens aside from a drive to feed, to make matters worse the cultists had take over most of the orbital defence platforms on the planet and were attacking the defence fleet with it, six ships were lost and the position of the fleet became unattainable, rescuing whatever survivors they could and ensuring that none of the aliens were brought aboard, they abandoned the planet to the ravenous invaders. It was during that day the aliens gained a name….the Tyranids.
And so our people mobilized for war, only this time, it was fight not just for our future, but for the entire galaxy. Intelligence Reports from S.H.I.E.L.D had shown that the alien horde was invading from the western fringe of the galaxy, numbering in the trillions, half the horde had separated to attack one half of the galaxy, the other had begun to attack our half, and we were right in it's path….and so began this glorious, doomed conflict.
I could tell you about our counter-attacks to unbalance and disrupt the alien advance, I could tell you, how, despite being woefully outnumbered against a ravenous alien entity with a hive mind and a biology that constantly adapted to whatever weapon we threw at them, we continued to fight on make the aliens bleed for their victory, the price they paid numbered in the billions, I could describe to you how for 100 years our Empire was steadily pushed back as the Galaxy was being burned to the ground and it's species and life drained away by ravenous monsters, I could go into deep detail on how every solar system was turned into a fortress, the non-combatants evacuated into safer zones while the defenders sacrificed themselves to buy humanity a little respite, I could tell you that our darkest hour came as the Tyranids were encroaching the Sol System and the cradle of our species, of how we devised a plan that would not only end the war, but would annihilate Tyranids throughout the galaxy, it was the final battle, they were besieging the Sol System with the Gravemind leading the assault, as the last fleets made their stand around earth, we fired our ultimate weapon, the Crucible, an psionic weapon of immense power that was designed to destroy the entirety of the Hive Mind, with the Grave Mind leading the assault, the weapon would wipe the aliens out, for good.
The best part was we didn't need to worry about collateral damage, everyone else was already dead anyway. As our fleets were being annihilated, overcome by sheer numbers, two world ships, each the size of planets, combined carrying the 35 billion human lives, a fraction of what our population once was and all of our heritage, our history, engaged their FTL drives and jumped away from Sol to the Langragian Point, a set of coordinates that lie just beyond the Milky Way Galaxy, as soon as those Arks left the Crucible fired, unleashing waves upon waves of mind shattering psionic energy that obliterated the physical and mental state of the Gravemind and the alien species into nothing ,all across the galaxy the Tyranids fell dead, their Hive Mind extinguished and their physical state dissipated leaving a devastated universe devoid of life, we looked back towards Earth one last time,…it's funny, we've always yearned for exploration, driven by our curiosity and to an extent, our fear of what might happen when don't explore. Now we are leaving, it's our turn to be explorers, as I sit in my room aboard the Ark New Hope, wondering about our future, as I finish my rambling about humanity in this short recollection of mine, I briefly wonder whether I could have written more, there was so much to write about, but then again it doesn't really matter, so many gaps to fill, I was never a historian anyway.
All I know is, that our future lies in the other galaxy, in Andromeda.
"Excerpt taken from Former Fleet Admiral Horatio Hansen journal"
"Date : January 25th, 3269"
"En-route to the Andromeda Galaxy, ETA unknown"
Codex : Humanity Part 1
Humans, alternatively known as Terrans, are the newest species too enter the galactic stage in Andromeda, and despite their smaller numbers, are an extremely advance scientific and technological society whose achievements in both those fields are eclipsed only by their courage, strong sense of duty, efficiency, skill and mastery of psionics. Humans have a fairly robust physiology. Their internal makeup and reproductive processes are typical of most bipedal mammals, and their size and proportions give the appearance of being strong, fast and agile.
Biology
Due to the unlocking of psionics, which granted humans 100% usage of their brain, granting them full muscle control, giving them increased strength with initial strength recordings of untrained humans being able to bench press up to 400 kilograms, although the individual becomes tired quickly, furthermore overexertion can lead to serious muscle pain and mental fatigue due to over taxation of the brain, as the muscle limiters in the brain can only be opened for a limited time by untrained humans, speed with some humans being able to run at 24 miles per hour on average for a reasonable period before exhaustion sets in, endurance as well as vastly increased mental capabilities. But by far the greatest advantages that psionics gave was the ability to bring into existence and reality psychic phenomenon's which would normally be considered impossible. Another trait that psionics had unlocked for humans was an increase in adaptive capabilities i.e a soldier trained in extreme conditions would be physically superior to a civilian by a large amount with trained soldiers capable of bench pressing up to 650 kilograms as well as running at 32 miles per hour.
Overtime, due to humanities new adaptive capabilities and a gradual, steady increase in gene therapy and mods humans have achieved a physical form that is best described as the next generation. Humans in general now have achieved a level physical capabilities long thought to be the real of science fiction, where in the past, during the awakening of psionics untrained humans could only maintain their physical capabilities for limited time before mental exhaustion sets in. Current humans are born with the ability to wilfully release the limiters that govern physical parameters, but the greatest advantage current humans have over pre-Andromeda humans is that their physical and mental attributes have evolved to the next stage. Physical parameters (strength, endurance, agility, speed, reflexes, durability, and healing factor) and mental parameters ( the nervous system has improved, reflected in a 300% increase in subject reflexes. Anecdotal evidence of marked increase in intelligence, memory, and creativity.) are vastly superior to their Pre-Andromedan counterparts.
Strength wise average human's now, with the help of much denser and more efficient muscles (with a 90% efficiency rating) can bench press up to 620 kilograms on average and have a running speed of up to 38 miles per hour, while trained soldiers can bench press up to 800 kilograms and run up to 49 miles per hour. This is without them deactivating the limiters in their brain, if the limiters are deactivated they receive a strength boost to their physical parameters by a factor of 3 for limited periods, which can be increased by training. Reaction times are measured in the micro seconds, with soldiers and trained humans having the upper hand at utilising it. The durability and healing factor have also increased, small to medium sized cuts and bruises can be healed in span of 10 to 15 minutes, however more critical injuries such as stab wounds would take at least a few days to heal, depending in severity, while broken bones would have to be reset to prevent it from healing the wrong way.
Aside from those enhancements, the organs of humans have also vastly improved compared to their pre-Andromedan counterparts, especially with efficiency, notably human blood is now a darker red than what it used to be, as the capacity and blood carrying capacity of the red blood cells have increased by 80%, the lungs increased efficiency also allows humans to breathe temporarily in low oxygen or polluted environments, the kidneys now have an efficiency rating of 80%, allowing toxins and waste to purged more effectively, similarly even the stomach has been enhanced, with food digestion and absorption of nutrients done more quickly while increasing the time span in which defecation occurs, in short humans spend less time going to the bathroom.
Additionally, humans are now capable of living up to 400 years on average, the longest living human currently is Archon Tiberius, at 550 standard years old.
Psionics
Psionics is the blanket term that refers psychic effects that includes telepathy, psychokinesis and pyrokinesis amongst others. Psionic capable races are shown to generate an invisible field around them, this field of energy controlled by the mind, in it's passive state it sharpens one's senses and perception, normal psionic users, known as Initiates, are capable of shielding themselves, enshroud their bodies with an energy field to boost their statistics, sharing thoughts with orders and projecting them in real time, though the latter is confined to a limited area, are capable of casting bolts of energy in the form of lightning, and are capable of using telepathy freely to enhance their combat skills and seize the initiative in a fight and possess the ability to utilise pyrokinesis with average skill.
High level psionic users, known as Adepts, which consists of most of the Special Forces Group known as N7, are easily one of the most powerful warriors the Terran Federation has to offer, psionics wise they are vastly more capable then Initiates, everything Initiates can do, Adepts do it better, with focus and skill that can only be considered second nature, due to their greater mastery of psionics, Adepts have privy to the knowledge of more devastating psionic techniques and are trained by either Templar's or Archons. Templars are an intermediary rank that an individual achieves as his mastery in psionics grows, once an individual achieves this rank, he or she has become an extremely powerful psionic user, able to use high level techniques with little to no effort and use low level skills as though it is as easy as breathing itself, also, once achieving this rank Templar's are allowed to train other psionics users.
The final rank for any psionics user is Archon, Archons are far and away the most dangerous beings in the galaxy, possessing the ability to create violent Psionic storms that can annihilate the minds and bodies of their victims, it is even rumoured that Archons have the ability to destroy entire planets and armies, though such rumours are unverified, as the Terrans keep the abilities of their Archons a closely guarded secret.
Culture
Human's in general are very intelligent, abnormally ambitious, highly adaptable, individualistic and thus, unpredictable. However, constant warfare, near extinction and sociological development have tempered their will and resolve. Just as humans remained the same, keeping the qualities that make them human, they have also developed an unparalleled sense of public service and discipline. Humans also wear elaborate tattoos, a practice dating back to the 24th century on the Milky Way Galaxy shortly after the war with the Cabal as a sign of victory, currently these tattoos are viewed as a sign of identity for each person, each individual.
Just as they are known for their individuality and adaptability, humans are also noted for their for their strong sense of public service. It is rare to find one who puts his needs ahead of the group. Every citizen, ranging from ages 14 to even the elderly at 300 years of age, serves the state in some way, as anything from a soldier to an administrator, from a construction engineer to a sanitation worker.
Human devotion and a strong sense of public duty is impeccable, and their society is very regimented and highly organised. It's certainly worth noting that the human military, is the center of their society. It is not just an armed force; it is an all-encompassing public works organization. The military police are also the civic police. The fire brigades serve the civilian population as well as military facilities. The corps of engineers builds and maintains spaceports, schools, water purification plants, and power stations. The merchant marine ensures that all worlds get needed resources. Since their culture is based on the structure of a military hierarchy, whatever changes that are applied and advances accepted by the leadership are quickly adopted by the rest of society with minimal resistance unless if said change does not benefit the faction in general. What is certainly fascinating is that unlike other military societies, the human military does not look down upon it's citizens, this is because in the eyes of humans, all have a important and valuable place in society, from farmers whose efforts keep the rest of their civilization from going hungry, to the sanitation workers who ensure that the city streets and sewers are clean. The second worst sin that can be committed in the eyes of the military is for armed forces members to behave and act as though they are worth more than other members of society simple because they are protectors, such behavior is not tolerated in the human military and depending on severity, may lead to capital punishment.
While humans are still very much individuals with their own personal desires and needs, their culture has evolved as such that they equate the self with the group, and to set aside all personal desires for the good of all. Each human, from childhood, so taught to have a very strong sense of personal accountability, the "human honour" that the other races of the Andromeda galaxy find so remarkable. The worst sin as a whole that they can make in the eyes of their people is to lie about their own actions. Humans who murder will try to get away with it, but if directly questioned, almost all will confess the crime.