The history of humanity is one of the most complicated stories in the cosmos. Unlike the other major species, humanity remains a fractured and divided group with their world torn between a hundred distinct governments, each with their own priorities and their own allegiances. Most of the major powers have roots going back centuries - the European Union dates from the twentieth with its proper ascendancy coming in the twenty-first and both the Chinese and Russians have been major powers for even longer. Only the Blessed Mexican Empire is a more recent addition, coming to prominence in the twenty-third century after a revolution led by Pedro Ortiz, the renowned pastor-turned-religious militant who seized Texas in the bloody and surprising Mexican-American War of 2295.

Although they are new members of the galactic community, humans are not new to space. Starting in the 25th century, humanity had permanent colonies established on Mars, as well as research stations on six moons of Jupiter and Saturn and their own moon. A single shot late in the century by the Mexicans to send a cryogenically frozen crew to colonise a world in the Alpha Centauri system ended with ship and crew being lost and the experiment was not repeated. Meanwhile, several unmanned probes left the solar system, starting with the Pioneer and Voyager programmes in the twentieth century and continuing in more advanced forms for hundreds of years.

This isolation left humanity out of the galactic loop, and they missed the First Galactic War without even realising it was on. In 2572, an intercepted transmission from the Doggeid relating to the war confirmed that there were other sentient lifeforms in the cosmos: the transmission had been sent from a station eight lightyears away and humanity promptly sent a signal back to try and establish contact, but during the sixteen year turnaround the station was destroyed and humanity remained in the dark.

Realising they were not alone in the universe sent a shock through human culture. Religions had to cope with the realisation: many new religious sects opened up to fill the spiritual void. Space budgets were massively increased by some governments saying we should find the aliens before they found us, and hugely slashed by others who wanted to stay under the radar. A wave of alien abduction stories swept through the media: one Belgian woman claimed to have been kidnapped by a species that bore a remarkable resemblance to the yet-undiscovered Twis'rin, but researchers have put this down as a coincidence.

A few governments continued to try and make contact with the aliens, however. The Europeans put a communications satellite in orbit with instructions to send signals to likely-looking points of space near that from which the Doggeid communication originated. This bore fruit; a Doggeid colony world received a transmission from Earth in the twenty-seventh century. As no systems particularly near Earth were yet accessible by jump gate, the Doggeid sent a slower-than-light expedition from the nearest jump gate which arrived on Earth in 2644. The Doggeid mission carried the technology to communicate faster than light, and the galaxy was informed of humanity's existence for the first time.

The Doggeid soon left, but the humans soon followed them into space. Led by the European Union and the Mexican Empire, primitive slower-than-light ships reached into the cosmos, and primitive contact was made. It wasn't until 2708 and 2725, when the Captab taught the humans first how to communicate and secondly how to travel faster than light, that mankind really joined the galactic community.