Human

Modern humans (Homo sapiens) are the only extant members of the subtribe Hominina, a branch of the tribe Hominini belonging to the family of great apes. They are a space-faring species hailing originally from the planet Earth in the Sol system. They are currently among the most numerous known species in the galaxy, in both population and holdings, and are relatively technologically advanced.

Humanity is the primary driving force for rapid space expansion, owing to their high ideological diversification and opportunistic Trans-Stellar Corporations.

While most humans have accepted the existence of aliens in their communities and workplaces as a fact of life, some exceptions still exist. Culturally very diverse, some less diversified species have trouble to categorize humans - some are isolationist and self-absorbed, while others welcome other sapients with open arms..

Overview

• Humans have their own language, Sol Common, which you can speak by typing #1.
• Due to how most technology in human-controlled space was made for humans in mind, they can wear most clothing, and even wear some specialized space suits designed for other species.
• Humans have no species wide restriction on diet, where as other species might.
• Humans are not barred from certain jobs, such as Heads of Staff or Internal Affairs, as NanoTrasen is a human-run company, after all.

Biology

The most commonly defined body systems in humans are the nervous, the cardiovascular, the circulatory, the digestive, the endocrine, the immune, the integumentary, the lymphatic, the musculoskeletal, the reproductive, the respiratory, and the urinary system.

Humans, like most of the other apes, lack external tails, have several blood type systems, have opposable thumbs, and are sexually dimorphic. Humans are also among the best long-distance runners in the galactic animal kingdom, but slower over short distances. Humans' thinner body hair and more productive sweat glands help avoid heat exhaustion while running for long distances. Humans have about 2 million sweat glands spread over their entire bodies.

It is estimated that the average height for an adult human male is about 172 cm (5 ft 7 1⁄2 in), while the worldwide average height for adult human females is about 158 cm (5 ft 2 in). Shrinkage of stature may begin in middle age in some individuals, but tends to be typical in the extremely aged. Through history human populations have universally become taller, probably as a consequence of better nutrition, healthcare, and living conditions. The average mass of an adult human is 54–76 kg (119–168 lb). Like many other conditions, body weight and body type is influenced by genetic susceptibility, environment, diet, and it varies greatly among individuals.

Although humans appear hairless, with notable hair growth occurring chiefly on the top of the head, underarms and pubic area, the average human has more hair follicles on his or her body than the average chimpanzee. The main distinction is that human hairs are shorter, finer, and less heavily pigmented than a chimpanzee's, thus making them harder to see.

Reproduction

As with other mammals, human reproduction takes place as internal fertilization by sexual intercourse. During this process, the male inserts his erect penis into the female's vagina and ejaculates semen, which contains sperm. The sperm travels through the vagina and cervix into the uterus or Fallopian tubes for fertilization of the ovum. Upon fertilization and implantation, gestation then occurs within the female's uterus.

The zygote divides inside the female's uterus to become an embryo, which over a period of 38 weeks (9 months) of gestation becomes a fetus. After this span of time, the fully grown fetus is birthed from the woman's body and breathes independently as an infant for the first time. At this point, most modern cultures recognize the baby as a person entitled to the full protection of the law, though some jurisdictions extend various levels of personhood earlier to human fetuses while they remain in the uterus.

Compared with other species, human childbirth is dangerous. Painful labors lasting 24 hours or more are not uncommon and sometimes lead to the death of the mother, the child or both. This is because of both the relatively large fetal head circumference and the mother's relatively narrow pelvis. The chances of a successful labor increased significantly during the 20th and 21st centuries with the advent of new medical technologies. In contrast, pregnancy and natural childbirth remain hazardous ordeals in developing regions of the galaxy, with maternal death rates approximately 100 times greater than in developed systems.

Humans are considerably helpless at birth, and will continue to grow for some years, typically reaching sexual maturity at 12 to 15 years of age. Females continue to develop physically until around the age of 18, whereas male development continues until around age 21. The human life span can be split into a number of stages: infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood and old age.

Gender Differences

The most obvious differences between males and females include all the features related to reproductive role, notably the endocrine (hormonal) systems and their physiological and behavioral effects, including gonadal differentiation, internal and external genital and breast differentiation, and differentiation of muscle mass, height, and hair distribution.

Externally, the most sexually dimorphic portions of the human body are the chest, the lower half of the face, and the area between the waist and the knees. Males often weigh slightly more than females, and are also slightly taller. On average, men also have a larger waist in comparison to their hips than women. Women however have a larger hip section than men; an adaptation for giving birth to infants with large skulls. Women also usually have substantially larger breasts due to the presence of milk-producing mammary glands.

The sexual division of humans into male and female has been marked culturally by a corresponding division of roles, norms, practices, dress, behavior, rights, duties, privileges, status, and power. Cultural differences by gender have often been believed to have arisen naturally out of a division of reproductive labor; the biological fact that women give birth led to their further cultural responsibility for nurturing and caring for children. Gender roles have varied historically, and challenges to predominant gender norms have recurred in many societies.

Lifespan

With good healthcare and a reasonable lifestyle, a human can live to around 110 years. The oldest known humans are around 150 years old.

Diet

Humans are omnivores, and have evolved to be able to handle a wide variety of foods. However, even humans cannot safely ingest large quantities chemicals that are almost universally toxic to other species, like cyanide, phoron, ethanol, or heavy metals.

Strangely, some humans even take pleasure in consuming foods with certain toxins, such as capscain, or other toxins that induce a sensation of burning, numbness, sourness, etc, despite the discomfort and sometimes even extreme agony that results from consuming such foods. Scientists believe these seemingly self-destructive habits were born out of necessity, due to an abundance of vitamins present in spicy/sour foods.

Gene editing (Splicing)

While editing DNA spans back as early as the 20th century, it was not until the 2090s that the first major instances of major genetic changes were applied to humans. Originally pioneered by Dr. Asher Hubbard and then later by Lakewood Biotech, human gene editing, which became known as Splicing, involved the fusion of animal DNA into human subjects to alter physical appearance and cause dramatic changes to the human anatomy.

While gene editing does not necessarily require the use of animal DNA in modern patients, as current gene editing technology can change almost anything, it is still considered cheaper, easier, and safer to adapt the DNA from other creatures when possible rather than selectively edit one's genes directly. The more dramatic the changes are, the less practical it is to perform direct gene mods. As such, the technology of splicing still persists.

Patches to the human body

To varying degrees amongst the human diaspora, splicing has become popular as a means to provide quality of life improvements that can eliminate perceived faults or enhance parts of an otherwise natural human body. Far from the more dramatic alterations of early splicing, most humans in the modern day have some amount of gene modding, most often to correct longstanding issues with human anatomy.

While not all humans possess these anatomical divergences, so called "Flats" (humans who have received no gene-editing whatsoever) become increasingly less common.

Posterior axillary and posterior external iliac blood vessels

A simple addition as is, additional blood vessels routing from behind the shoulder and in the buttocks down into the arms and legs simplify the tangle of arteries, veins and nerves in the limbs of humans. This leads to less pain when hit in the shin and elbows, while minorly ensuring that superficial cuts don't bleed as much. The poster child of quality of life improvements, this genemod has become one of the most commonly taken and is considered standards.

Spinal Realignments and Reinforcements

There is many issues with the spine due to evolution - from a quadruped form to a bipedal one, the thick and heavy skull and the inefficient motion of the hips, many humans experience lower back pain and decreased motion as they grow older. A variety of fixes exist in the human sphere - from cybernetic augmentation to anatomical reinforcements with redundant muscles and spinal realignment. While many people still prefer the cybernetic spine, there is a growing number of people who simply take the genetic solution so their offspring will never suffer the same fate.

Anti-senescence patches

From retaining elasticity in connective tissue to metabolic changes to suppress plaque in the arteries to removing a dozen congenital defects and shortcomings - the general sprucing up of the human genome eliminates many diseases related to age and birth defects. While rare congenital deformities still exist and not everyone takes them, some are effectively removed from the human gene pool. Even before the removal, many of these splices have been common as they directly link to longer, healthier lives, effectively pushing the maximal age of a human up substantially.

RLN patch

Another commonly taken genemod is the RLN patch, which is delaying the development of the recurrent laryngeal nerve in the fetus until the aortic arch has been fully developed. This leads to a much shorter RLN - one that doesn't grow from the throat to the chest and back up to the throat again.

While it has no functional difference, it drastically reduces the chance of hurting it during heart surgery, a common cause of voice loss due to chest surgery in the early 21st century.

Regenerative Hearing

The introduction of a new breed of stem cells for the eardrum and cochlea allows to slowly repair hearing loss over time. Most commonly taken by industry jobs, musicians and the military and spreading from there into the germ lines of Humanity.

Simplified feet

Primate feet are highly complex affairs with a lot of little bones and a wide range of motion - something a bipedal species not necessarily needs. Many of these bones were fused together by athletes to avoid ankle injury while the Achilles heel has been split and rerouted. One of the rarer modifications, it is not terribly common.

Altered Retina

While most humans opt to just replace their eyes with cybernetic equivalents when going blind, since they allow for additional ranges of light to be interpreted, there exists a "fix" for one of the leading causes of blindness - since the natural human retina is backwards in the eye, enterprising biohackers simply used octopus DNA to flip it back, avoiding these issues altogether.

Rarely taken.

Pancreatic Duct

Another common genemod most people forget that it even exists - the natural human form has the bile duct also connect to the pancreas, forming the common bile duct. While most of the time this proves no issue, a gallstone can block the entrance of the pancreas in the common bile duct, leading to acute pancreatitis - a very painful condition. Avoiding the issue altogether, the pancreas receives its own duct.

Posterior Epiglottis

Aspiration is one of the dangers every human faces - the accidental inhalation of food or liquids. This is caused by the Epiglottis not closing fast enough, the leaf-shaped cartilage protecting the trachea. Attaching the epiglottis posterior to the larynx eliminates this issue, however, making this a very popular genemod for parents who fear their child could choke to death on pea mush.

Demi-humans

As with early splicers, some humans (or their ancestors) have undergone genetic augmentation to combine animal DNA with their own in order to transform their appearance into what are clearly human-animal hybrids. These humans were originally referred to as simply Splicers, but because of xenophobic connotations brought about by the prosecution of splicing, the phrase demi-humans is the preferred modern term referring to individuals who have undergone splicing for cosmetic purposes.

Although splicing is now a common and legal practice, it is still prohibitively expensive to perform traditional cosmetic splicing jobs, especially when the desired body has a number of unique traits or specific features desired by the client. As such, cosmetic splicing is still often performed by unsanctioned genetic engineers.

Behavior

Humanity's behavior varies immensely from system to system. Social norms, the often-unspoken rules of a group, shape not just the behaviors of humans, but also their attitudes. An individual's behavior varies depending on the group(s) they are a part of. Humans who have been adopted by other species will often adopt the mannerisms of a foster parent and the society surrounding them, even to the extent of subconsciously mimicking speech and accents. Humans are also very capable of learning and comprehending other languages, so long as they are within a human's range of hearing. Humans thrive on knowledge, much like the Skrell.

Humans are unpredictable in how they'll respond to contact with alien species, though this largely depends on societal and economic factors that vary immensely with each population. Some humans will greet aliens as if they were just like any other human, even to the extent of forming deep and romantic inter-species relationships, while the opposite extreme is sometimes violence based on xenophobic prejudices. Humans who have been exposed to alien races since a young age will often base their opinion of aliens as a whole off that experience, while humans who had no such exposure will trend toward being xenophobic and isolationist. Notably, humans who grew up in poverty are also more inclined toward xenophobic tenancies, whereas humans who were better off will not have their views significantly affected by their economic status.

Relations

The Skrell are humanity's oldest contact and closest allies, with free migration between the two species' space and a great deal of cultural interchange. However, some on both sides accuse the other species of tampering with their own natural growth and development, and many libertarian humans loathe the caste-based monarchy of the Skrell.

Humanity is still licking their wounds after their war with the Unathi, and despite the stalemate, still regard Moghes with a good deal of fear. Efforts on both sides of the border to ease tensions have not prevented the occasional wave of xenophobic violence.

Like most races, humanity views the Dionaea as curiosities and little else, given their disinterest in the ways of other sapients.

The Teshari are a rarity outside of Skrell space, and a negligible presence on the astropolitical landscape. The average human accepts the Skrell's paternalistic view of the Teshari as fact.

External links

• Some of this lore is based on content found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

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