Everyone knows humans; after all, I assume you're a human. (If you're not, I have so many questions!) But for the purposes of a good wiki, this page is going to attempt to document humans as if they were a made up race. Anything that seems incongruent with reality should probably be ignored.
While all races build communities our of necessity, it seems that Humans have taken an annoying but required element of survival and internalized it to such a degree that they are physically incapable of not forming social groups. If you put a human in a room with another (non-threatening) creature, and simply wait a few hours, the human will have formed a bond with that creature. Put one in a room with nothing but an inanimate object, and 9 times out of 10 they will have formed a bond with that object! They simply can't shut it off, even if they wanted to.
This trait has lead Humanity to be one of the most prolific races in the galaxy. You can find humans in every corner of space, especially if they're not supposed to be there. The human governments control the largest amount of space, with each faction controlling almost as much as the other races combined. If you consider the Sooni to be part of Humanity (arguable, but as they can successfully mate with humans, not unreasonable) then Humanity controls one and a half galaxies.
With the good comes the bad. Humans are excellent at building community, but that doesn't mean they're any better than others at building consensus. Creating social groups with such ease means that it's also very easy to create a social group in opposition to another group for no reason other than the fact that the other group exists. This means that Humans have a terrible habit of falling into 'us vs them' mentalities much easier than other races. (Not that the other races are immune, mind you.)
At the end of the day, if there's a group out there, there's probably a human leading it. And then another human leading a group that's against the first group. And probably a third one that is leading a group to broker a truce between them.
For the purposes of this setting, Human history is considered canon with actual real life events. For events after "now", see the timeline.
For the purposes of this setting, Human biology is unaltered from real life. All diseases that exist right now still exist in the future, along with some new ones. Most modern diseases have been made less lethal, though things can still go sideways in rare cases.
Human lifespan is the biggest improvement in 700 years. Humans now regularly live to be 130 years old. The oldest recorded human is 151.
"Let's say you're looking for something you've lost. After searching high and low, you still can't find it. Let's also say you're running late and you need whatever this is for whatever you're doing. You get frustrated, angry and ready to scream. You swear you will end the universe unless it manifests whatever you're looking for. Then, just as you were about to give up, you find it in the one place you kept thinking it had to be, despite the fact you've looked there two or three times already. Every one of us has had this experience, but none of us ever really knew what it meant. It turns out, if you talk to a Lyndri or NorAellian, they'll just give you a weird look. They don't believe you; what they're looking for never 'just shows up'. How can it? They have no Focus users."
--Alastair McKenzie
Humans have the very rare ability not only to use Focus, but to use it without training. They are not born to it quite the same way a Sooni is; most humans can't even do the most basic Focus usage, even with training. Instead, they are a race of unintentional focus users.
While the majority of Humans can't ever learn to use Focus, even with training, there's still quite a few of them that could be trained. What's more, there have been some Humans who have, over time, learned how to use Focus without any training. (The most famous of these being Jonathan Simon.)
Impressive as Human's potential as Focus users is, they also have a built in limitation. As creatures so naturally inclined to create communities, they unknowingly tap into the will of those in their social groups, meaning they sacrifice some of there individual will to the will of the group. This can be a boon by making a group of Humans harder to stop than a single one, it also makes it harder for a single Human Focus user to exert their will upon the universe; if their will is against the average will of their social groups, even if those groups aren't made up of Focus users, they will have to work much harder to overcome the group's will.
The most dangerous and powerful Human Focus users are those who have been isolated from others, either by choice or by other circumstances. This means that Human sociopaths are prime candidates for being powerful Focus users.
It's hard to describe Human society, without simply listing every human society, and describing each in turn. However, here is a cheat sheet to compare most "Modern" Human societies to 2020s America society:
Humanity has always been one to create overarching identities for their groups and more often than not, historically speaking, those identities either take the form of tribes (nations, civilizations, teams, etc) or religions. The sheer power and weight that the collective group will possesses most often tends to be ascribed to a higher power of some sort.
As of yet, no definitive "God" or "Deity" has been set within the narrative. All depictions of religion should be handled with respect, as people's beliefs tend to become a core element of their identity. This is especially true when dealing with evolutions, fragments, offshoots, or just the actual religion as it exists today.
Several religious groups have survived fully intact into the modern day of the story, and practically any religious group of significant size could reasonably be expected to show up if needed. The ones listed below are not meant to be an exhaustive list, just ones that have had some specific thought put into them.
Eastern Orthodox Church - Relying on its cultural ties to Russia, this group has witnessed a slow, but continuous growth in membership as the People's Republic came to dominate Earth, and then the Sol System at large. Eastern Orthodox churches can be found in every major Terran world, though it has not seen as much growth in smaller worlds on the frontiers.
Catholicism - The Catholic Church fled Earth and the Sol System roughly the same time the League did, and in fact, they traveled together for years. When First Contact was made, the Catholic Church went their own way from the League. They established themselves on a system in what would eventually become the Confederacy. They maintained their independence for centuries until political pressure from both the League and the Terrans forced them to seek full membership in the Confederacy. They maintain Diocese on worlds across all of human space, and so far, both the League, Terrans, and the Confederacy government have respected their right to do so, all of them seeing little to be gained in limiting religious groups.
Flock of the Shepherd - An amalgamation of dozens of mostly Protestant groups, both denominational or non. The Flock was formed onboard the League ships fleeing the Sol System and developed largely as a pragmatic measure. These denominations did not fully fade away into a united whole, and in fact, any number of them can still be found in operation on any given League or Freelance world, but the Flock now sees itself as the truest expression of Protestant Christianity across the galaxy and decisions made by its leaders tend to be followed by most Protestants.
Islam - With the fragmentation of humanity and their diaspora from the Sol System, Islam found itself decentralized for the first time, and as a result, they witnessed fractures similar to those seen on Earth during the Protestant Reformation. However, the main tenets of the faith have remained a strong, unifying force amongst all the various groups. What tends to be debated is interpretation and purpose. Islamic Groups can be found across all human space, from individual members of larger communities, all the way up to the New Caliphate Cluster, an exclusively (bordering on insular) Islamic Cluster, on the far edge of Freelance space.
Hindu - As with the Eastern Orthodox church, Hindu has seen a rise in membership commiserate with the spread of the People's Republic. Their rise has been a larger, more pronounced rise than many others, as it more easily adapts to the more Humanistic sensibilities of the Terrans. 70% of Terran colonies are likely to be more Hindi culturally than anything else, though this statistic is misleading. There are very few colonies on either side that are dominated by any one specific culture.
Humanity is always reinventing itself and creating new identities to better fit the times. The human diaspora has proven no different than any other mass movement of humanity: extant religions have traveled with them and new ones have arisen where they land. Below are just a few of the new religious groups that have emerged since today.
The Grace of the Great Mother - In 2097, a Prophetess arose in South America. She called on her followers and on the leaders of humanity at large, not to seek peace and put an end to the war that was now threatening to rage across the entire Sol System, but to remember that these planets were our home and birthright and that we had a duty to care for them as well as for ourselves. In 2118, the People's Republic heeded her pleas. With Mars an open colony world, the population pressure on Earth was eased and the Ecological Recovery Iniative was established. By Second Contact, Earth was well on its way to healing from centuries of industrial abuse. With Subspace Technology and the Terran expansion into the wider galaxy, The Grace of the Great Mother went with them, eventually making its way into League and Freelance space. Wherever it spreads, the environments of the planets it arrives on almost always thrives.
Seekers of the Silver Wing - With subspace technology in hand, humanity immediately did what it does best: spread. Navigating subspace is, by the modern day of this world, a fairly easy and routine thing. This is because entire guilds spent a few centuries braving blind subspace jumps plotted by hand, and explored and charted the myriad systems they found while doing so. Hundreds of these brave explorers were lost in the process, but their sacrifice allowed humanity as a whole to thrive. Over time, these guilds were whittled down and merged with one another until, in the modern day, there are only a few left in operation. The League and the Terrans each employ one such Guild as an official exploratory branch of their Governments, and two or three other independent Guilds operate out of Freelance space, selling system locations to corporations. One of these is different than the others. A guild known as the Seekers of Orion discovered an Earth-like planet with a very unique hallucinogenic plant. On their next trip through subspace, they imbibed the plant and experienced a shared vision of an Eden world with a massive, silver formation in the shape of a wing. This changed the entire group and a religion formed as a result. Now known as the Seekers of the Silver Wing, they still operate as an exploration guild, and still sell system data, but they are now actively looking for a specific world. Oh, and they have never sold the location of the planet that provided them the hallucinogenics in the first place. That world has become their homeworld and none but the highest ranked in their faith may know the coordinates.
The Church of Memetic Intelligence - Imagine for a moment what would emerge if a group of neurologists, philosophers, and psychologists got fed up that Academia wasn't providing them with satisfactory answers for the development and spread of intelligence, and went on a month long bender that led to them deciding that religion was the only path that was left to explore for answers to their questions. You would end up with something that looks remarkably close to the Church of Memetic Intelligence, and for good reason: that's exactly how this group formed. One of the youngest of the new religions, the CoMI has only been an extant group since 2488. Their tenets are fairly basic:
Canticle of Dead Light - In a system light years away from anyone else, a death cult found a white dwarf star burning in green and purple swirls around an area utterly devoid of fusion. Believing that they had found a gateway to death itself, they began constructing a Dyson ring around the star, nominally to cage in death. According to some, they found a structure already encompassing part of the star. However, no known race could have constructed it, and it's believed to be propaganda or fear mongering. To date, they've been constructing their ring for 300 years and they have only made it about an eighth of the way around the star. Note: There's argument among prominent engineers if completion is even possible. The members of the Canticle don't seem to care one way or the other.
The Bloodsign - A cult in the truest and most violent sense. Their leader, a serial killer who had been hoping from world to world in Freelance space, developed a belief that he was given visions in the blood of his victims. He claimed to have predicted several major events, and enough people came to believe him (either through his innate charisma or through obsession) that they eventually broke him out of jail and helped him hijack a passenger liner. The 455 passengers were never found. The ship itself, based on long-range observation by all three governments, has become the center of a growing makeshift station in a dead system. Active efforts are in place to achieve three ends:
The Daughters of Hekate - Like a majority of cults, this one sprang up around a very charismatic and powerful leader. Unlike most cults, this leader has proven herself to be a savvy business woman as well as a brilliant inventor. Hekate (her real name is Heather Collins) has modeled herself after the greek goddess of witchcraft. She claims to be the actual embodiment of the Goddess, and therefore is above the laws of this world. To add to her mystique, she appears to have real magical powers and abilities.
Humans are the main characters of RFI; it's a predominantly human story. Not that the other races aren't important, but because the core story I want to tell is one for humans about humans.
Humans are as humans do. This was a hard page to write, simply because how does one describe one's own species? The mains thing was showing how they fit in to the fabric of the other races.