Races - Humanity, 2160s
The dawn of the 60s was a dawn of a golden age for humanity. Though many hardships were suffered in the early years by outlying colonies, the Sol System and the more heavily fortified human holdings were undergoing a major economic boom, as well as a social renaissance. While military expenditures were at an all time high, the drain on the economy was minimal. So many new resources were being explored, so many new technologies unlocked, so many new markets were opening up, that the economy of the human race was rapidly expanding. Never before in human history had wealth increased at such a rapid pace.
This was not to say that this wealth was evenly distributed. Earth was still broken up into nation-state's, and while those boundaries were rapidly fading, there were still many third world nations. The entire continent of Africa was still trapped in the past, with many areas heavily polluted and poor. Some sections of the United North American states and the New Chinese Empire were rotting at the core, with large stretches of slums. The European Union had plenty of problems in some of its provinces, and of course even in the colonies a lower class was still to be found. "The poor you will always have with you" was proving to be a remarkably insightful adage.
However, even the most downtrodden of humanities lot was improving. And for the wealthy and middle class, things had never been better. Social reforms were also at an all time high, thanks in large part to the addition of the quarian population to many major human population centers. The primary quarian settlements were at the major League bases, namely Arcturus, Vancouver, London, Hong Kong, Shanxi, Belari, Sydney, and the League fleet itself. While numerically the quarians were a drop in the proverbial bucket, their impact was much larger than their relatively small numbers would suggest. Many humans opened up their homes and livelihoods to their new neighbors, and quarians rapidly integrated themselves seamlessly into human society.
Quarians also had a profound effect on humanities outlook. While the League preached open acceptance of others and a welcoming lamp of freedom, it was rather similar to the nation that had inspired the poem "The New Colossus." While immigrants were typically welcomed and accepted, by no means did the League actively go looking for members. The natural human and quarian tendancy was to look first to your group, and then to another, and as such the League was actually fairly insular. This was compounded by the quarians, do to their outright hatred and xenophobia of the majority of the Council races. This attitude rapidly spread to humanity, and greatly staunched what could have been a massive emmigration of humans to alien worlds. Instead, humanity stuck to its friends, and an attitude of mistrust and dislike of the Council spread.
That is not to say that humanities altruistic side was squashed, or that the League was poisonous in its outlook. This could not have been proven more thoroughly than by the addition of the krogan to the League. Despite their mistrust of the Council races, the League was happy to make alliances with the races the Council had abandoned. The krogan were the preeminate example of the Council's callousness when it came to dealing with outside races, and humanity welcomed the krogan with open arms. Perhaps not as enthusiastically as the quarians, but the reasons for that were obvious.
The primary reason the krogan were not welcomed as enthusiastically as the quarians was, perhaps, the most shallow. Quarians looked more like humans than krogan did. In fact, many humans found quarians attractive, with our without their suits. The same could not be said of the krogan. By human standards, the reptilian race was downright ugly. This didn't prevent the krogan from being welcomed into the League, but it did mean that whereas the humans welcomed quarians into their own homes, they just built a new house for the krogan to live next door.
And build a new house humanity did. The krogan were given more resources and aid than the Council had ever given the krogan, even during their initial period of gratefulness following the rachni wars. Instead of just handing the krogan a few planets and making a few cursory guestures to rebuild Tuchanka, humanity dove in and gave the krogan people a new lease on life. Tuchanka was slowly terraformed into a world that was almost welcoming. The krogan were allowed to freely immigrate to human held worlds, and a significant portion of the krogan did so. They were also folded in to the human military, not in the navy as the treaties with the council prevented krogan naval service, but into the marines. This would prove to be the galaxies saving grace in decades to come.
Militarily, humanity also made major strides. By the end of the 2160s, humanity was the major shareholder in the largest navy in the entire galaxy. If a rather large portion of that navy was antiquated and mercantile instead of military, that was alright. It was still the third most powerful navy, behind the asari and the turians. The human ground forces were actually the most powerful in the galaxy, while not as technologically advanced as the turians, individually skilled as the asari or numerous as the turians, they were the most integrated and logically sound. Humanity had an ancient saying: Amateurs study tactics, novices study tactics, but masters study logistics.
This emphasis on logistics and supply was what led to the development of the human mass relay network. They redeployed the old relay network, moving it to locations that were more easily defensible or far enough out system that fleets could respond before a threat could become severe. To prevent this from effecting the human economy or military, enormous amounts of revenue and element zero were poured into the creation of the League Relay network. This network connected every single major League star system, and many of the minor ones.
While not as advanced as the original network, the League relays were trained on the destinations their makers knew to be the most advantageous, and thusly made up for their lack of range. Where as an original mass relay could catapult a ship all the way across the galaxy, the League network could go no farther than a few hundred light-years. While that was still a great distance, it was less than a thousandth of the distance an original relay was capable of. League relays were also only capable of delivering a ship to a single, predetermined destination. This was made up for by constructing dozens of relays in a single system, or in the case of Archturus, hundreds of relays. Many systems were settled or at least claimed by the League to act as way points, due to their use as changeover stations.
Aside from the logistics, humanity also pushed military technology in directions that had never before been conceived. Fighters and bombers had already been shown to be incredibly useful, but humanity also developed drone platforms, usually in the form of cruisers. These cruisers took on the shape of an enormous wedge, one that could launch dozens of drones. They also began construction of new, deadly super-dreadnaughts, ones that incorporated lessons learned from their mastery of mass relays.
While the human military was still eclipsed by the Citadel races institutions, one thing humanity and the League did far better was racial integration. Krogan became humanities shock troopers, fighting on the front lines with human marines in an integrated fashion that used the best of both species capabilities. Quarians were valued for their technical skills or preternatural reflexes, and used as combat engineers and snipers. There were no segregated units, though by virtue of the fact that there were simply far more humans than any other League races, some units were purely human. This was generally viewed negatively though, and humans were apt to complain if they didn't' at least have a krogan heavy weapons specialist in their squads.
To the Council races, this level of integration was madness. Even when races shared the same amino acid base, their dietary needs were still different. This didn't even take into account the different weapons, armor, and language needs that arose. With the Councils level of logistics, it would have indeed been madness. But human and by extension League capabilities, not to mention the level of ingenuity the quarians brought to the table, what could have been a nightmare was instead a triumph. The League military operated with a level of efficiency matched only by the turians. A fact that one day, would save the very people the Leagues military was meant to protect against.