Human (Earth-5875)

"Now, after seven human years, I have finally come to understand your role, your place in the universe and how you came to be here. The eons of human evolution, invention, aspiration...and war. Always war. The oldest, most enduring of human practices."

- - Cortana Humans (Latin Homo sapiens sapiens, meaning "man who knows of his knowledge"), also known as Hamanune (plural Hamanush) by the forerunners, are a sapient race of mammals native to Earth. Members of the primate family, they are the only remaining species of the once diverse genus of multiple human species. Humans, like most Covenant species, are bipedal and four-limbed, enabling their movement on two legs and use of arms and hands to manipulate objects. Having a mysterious connection, seemingly that of creation, to the forerunners, humans were given the roles of Reclaimers by the ancient, extinct species, in order to inherit their Mantle. Humans would start to rise 100,000 years later, inventing space-travel in the mid-20th century and colonizing space for the next hundreds of years. After the Interplanetary War, humanity became largely united under the Unified Earth Government. A century later, with the discovery of element zero on Mars and the creation of the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine, humans expanded beyond the Solar system and spread through the Orion Arm.

With the development of civilization through space, came political and social uneasiness, which gave rise to the numerous Insurrectionist movements and the Secession, with many of the UEG's Outer Colonies actively seeking to secede from the government. While the war claimed the lives of millions, a more dangerous threat came in 2552, with the arrival of the alien hegemony known as the Covenant, starting the First Contact War, a religious crusade against humanity which caused billions of casualties on both sides and drove humans to near-extinction, something only averted with the discovery of Installation 04, leading to the Great Schism, where the sangheili, one of the Covenant's species, were betrayed and allied with humanity to save the galaxy from the Covenant and the xenomorphs.

Pre-History
Despite their exact origin being contested in paleontological debates, humanity can trace their origins back to the ancient humanoid species only known as the forerunners, seemingly responsible for their creation, or, at the very least, development. The forerunners shared many similarities with humans, from their similar humanoid forms, to having five fingers and even sharing the same DNA, indicating a clear connection, whatever it is. It is believed they either seeded life on Earth through the ingesting of black liquid, or were responsible for developing the ancient prehistoric humans, although both theories can work together. Nevertheless, this connection made humans Reclaimers, allowing the species to be the only one able to manipulate important forerunner technology. =Homo sapiens was not the only human race to evolve on Earth, with many other branches of the Homo genus appearing. However, all were still collectively known as humanity. Homo erectus, neanderthalensis and floresiensis coexisted with Homo sapiens, sharing many cultural and genetic traits between each other, as well as interbreeding, with 1-4% of the DNA in European and East Asian humans is Neanderthal, while Melanesian people have 4% of Denisovan blood.

Humans became one of the few races to survive the xenomorph onslaught on the galaxy, and so were indexed in the Ark by the Librarian as per the Conservation Measure. Despite most of their population being composed by the Ur-Didact on Omega Halo, the Librarian was able to save enough individuals to revitalize humanity. After the activation of the Halo Array, humans were returned to Earth through a Keyships, and the first race to be reintroduced by the orokin.

Rebuilding
The development of current human civilization started with the ability to harness the growth cycle of planets, allowing the production of edible food-energy in systemic fashion. This period of time was referred as the Neolithic Revolution, which occurred on Earth 10,000 years in the past, and then spread through diasporal human groups. Coming stability originated from systemic agriculture, which allowed the settling of permanent homes and development of complex tools to benefit humans. Innovative toolmaking and domestication of animals only served to advance human populations, allowing them to expand even more and trade goods with one another.

These populations led to the formation of the first formal civilizations 8,500 years in the past. These cultures have sites believed to have formed in Southwest Asia and Asia Minor, appearing in other locations not long after. Their civilizations and infrastructure continued to develop, expanding in complexity with the discovery of innovative technologies and the growth of large populations, which ultimately allowed for the increasing food-energy availability to thrive. Advancements in economics, society, politics and science lingered on, granting the race the power to automate once manual labor in the Industrial Revolution.

18th-20th centuries
The 18th through the 20th centuries saw enormous changes for the countries where the Industrial Revolution took place. In the aftermath of the unintended political and economic shifts through the refinery of capitalist resource management techniques led to the development of the automobile, the radio, the television, aircraft, among many others which were unheard or previously though impossible. Revolutionary progress was made into the development of medicine and chemistry, such as the discovery of anesthesia and penicillin, forever altering all following surgical and medical practices. Before these breakthroughs, humans' average lifespans reached 45 years, but thanks to the discovery of antibiotics and other forms of medication, the lifespan severely increased to 80 and beyond.

Humans virtually grew in efficiency and power in three centuries more than they did in the last millennium. Arts, science, and military forces also followed soon, with armed conflicts soon taking over, discarding the ancient and primitive weaponry in favor of advanced weapons of war. Following both World War I and World War II, the latter which saw the death of 3% of the world population at the time (est. 2.3 billion), both within the first 50 years of the 20th century, humans saw the creation of superior and automatic weapons, radar, missiles, tanks, and at last the atomic bomb, the most powerful human weapon in existence at the time.

After World War II, and for the next 60 years, both the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (which succeeded by the Commonwealth of Independent States) started to compete for power and influence against each other in a period of time known as the Cold War, a non-declared war that led to an arms race and the continuous evolution of human weaponry and destructive potential, both in technology and military tactics and doctrines. One of these developments came to be during the Space Race, with the USSR launching the first satellite and sending the first human, Yuri Gagarin, to space, officially propelling humans as spacefaring, rising to Tier 5 in the scale of Technological Achievement Tiers. The U.S. launched the first human, Neil Armstrong, to the Moon, surpassing the Soviet Union's capabilities, which, after its downfall, effectively made the United States the biggest worldwide influence, something that shaped human society forever.

Consequently, with the creation of the Internet lately in the 20th century, the achievements of this particular era forever revolutionized data processing and communications for humanity. World politics also saw change, with the creation of the United Nations. Once heavy and dominant, religious dogmas saw large decrease in the decision-making of nations around the world with the neutral nature of the new constitutions, as science and logical reasoning and explanations for natural phenomena and methodology rising in popularity and importance. Despite religion still being important to humanity, it only ever lingered on personal ethical codes.

Space colonization
With the new space technology, humans were able to immediately explore the space that surrounded their planet in the 20th century, through the advance in population that went beyond the natural capacity to sustain civilization. This culminated into numerous conflicts over resources, economics, politics and religion on Earth, leading to numerous conflicts. These eventual tensions heavily pressured the species for the centuries to come, with the rise of the Unified Earth Government, which took over the space colonization, exploration, and the representation of the human race. The subsequent Interplanetary War in the 2160s saw a major change in direction for the governance of humanity, with a vicious conflict which spanned through the solar system, leading the UEG to fully develop in a true governing body to lead majority of Earth's nations. Despite the growing threat of overpopulation on the planet, the colonization on Jupiter, Mercury and Venus led to the launch of the Ares One mission in an attempt to discover inhabitable areas through the planets. On Mars, the team, led by Mateus Silva, discovered the Element zero in the Deseado Crater. After decades of study, the rare material aided in the discovery and development of dark energy in 2281 and slipspace travel in 2282, helping the UEG and its UNSC to explore and colonize planets beyond the solar system, which put an end into the population worries on Earth.

This expansion, which would be named Domus Diaspora, or the "Golden Age", ushered a new era for mankind, with many of their new colonies, such as Reach, becoming mainstains and offering not only new homes but also deposits to many goods, such as titanium. The expensive implementation of technology, such as construction and development of ships and vessels ensured interstellar travel, communication, and trade, as well as the creation and introduction of synthetics in the market through large conglomerates such as the Weyland-Yutani Corporation and the Tyrell Corporation, who took over many of the manual labor and fields complicated for a normal human to operate.

Secession
After centuries of colonization, animosity grew between the Outer Colonies, those afar from the Sol system and that provided goods and supplies to the UEG, and the Inner Colonies, where the mega-rich populations lived. As predicted by sociologist Elias Carver, the building of discontent and uneasiness led to an onset of conflicts through the Outer Colonies, which eventually came to encompass the entirety of human space in the event which became known as the Secession, in 2518, through the formation of the Sovereign Colonies, an union of colonies who sought independence from the UEG. Despite the separatists' best efforts and heavy damage, the UEG came as a strategic victor at the onset of the Battle of Tau Volantis, duo to the Sovereign Colonies' dwindling warfare resources and public supports, although the latter was able to form the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces, which was able to take control of multiple territories in human space. The Outer Colonies were largely fragmented during this time, with many of them experiencing rise of fascist and populist movements, while the planets still allied and under the UEG belt experienced oppression in the dire need of resources. Many rebel cells started to emerge, such as the United Liberation Front, which not only wanted to move away from the already established government, but dismantle it to form anarchistic societies led by its citizens, which only continued what was once thought to have ended with the Sovereign Colonies, seeing the destabilization and the peril of the collapse of human expansionism. In order to defeat the Insurrectionist threat, both superpowers joined for a limited amount of time to quell the rebellion, pioneering the creation of human augmentation through the ORION Project and the SPARTAN-II Program.

Anatomy and physiology
Humans are mammals, being closely related to other apes on Earth. They are warm-blooded, like all placental mammals, giving birth to live offspring and satiate their offspring with milk. They have five fingers, with one of them being an opposable thumb, which allowed the species to make tools in their early history. Humans have a brain that is highly developed, able to achieve abstract reasoning, language, problem solving, and introspection. Their mental prowess, alongside an erect body carriage has allowed humans to make the biggest use of tools and objects compared to all other species on Earth. Other process of high-level though such as self-awareness, sapience, and rationality became the constituents for humans to identify what makes a "person".

Humans typically stand from 5 to 6 feet, and differently from sangheili, their circulatory system is closed, consisting of one heart and a network of blood vessels. Humans have red blood because of their iron-based hemoglobin, alongside two lungs which are used to breath in atmospheres composed of nitrogen and oxygen. They have more hair and fur than most Covenant, tying with the san'shyuum, but not as much as the jiralhanae. Humans have an average sense of sight, but a poor sense of smell and hearing when compared to other Covenant species, such as kig-yar. They are omnivorous, eating both meats and plants, and consume foods with high amounts of calcium, including the milk of other animals.

Their bone structure is calcium-based and designed to withstand stresses, although a human skeleton and muscular system is weaker than that of most Covenant species and xenomorphs. During times of extreme distress, humans can achieve hidden energy reserves, known as an adrenaline rush, which can increase their strength to higher levels in a reflex known as "Fight or Flight".

Despite humans having inferior physiology compared to the Covenant's species and xenomorphs, physical conditioning is able to negate their many disadvantages, and with the use of enhancements and equipment, humans are able to overcome their many physical disadvantages, such as the many SPARTAN supersoldiers. However, biological augmentation is not exclusive to SPARTANs, as humans have routinely employed the use of bio-engineering technologies for centuries, starting with the adaption to different spacial and planetary conditions, which have evolved to gene therapy, standard enhancements and augmentations used by all human civilians of the UEG who desire to do so, as well as personnel of the UNSC. Despite this, these enhancements are not on-par as with those of the SPARTANs.

Forerunner connections
"You are the child of my makers. Inheritor of all they left behind. You ARE forerunner. But this ring... is mine."

- - 343 Guilty Spark to John-117

As the seeming offspring of the extinct forerunners exhibit countless of anatomical and physical similarities. Generated with the black liquid on the ancient Erde-Tyrene, the multiple human species, such as homo sapiens, Homo erectus, neanderthalensis and floresiensis, were then further chosen to become inheritors, or Reclaimers, of the the forerunner's technology and societies, including the Mantle, a vague concept which the forerunners believed came from the ancient precursors. Vast majority of the forerunner technology, such as the activation indexes of the Halo Array, can only respond to human DNA to stop it from getting into the hands of other species. The forerunners hoped that if they passed their knowledge and torch to their creation, they would be able to destroy the xenomorphs, theorized to be yet another one of their creations, in the future.

Because of this, many forerunner Metarchs regard humans as forerunners, while others fail to do so, duo to rampancy. The confusion surrounding this became the root for the catastrophic First Contact War, where the Covenant sought to exterminate humanity. In 2552, a Covenant ship discovered a planet filled with forerunner glyphs depicting the word "Reclamation", who, unknown to them, were actually humans. After the three Covenant Hierarchs sought information with Oracle in the Dreadnought. Once they activated it, the Metarch only proclaimed "FOR EONS I HAVE WATCHED. LISTENED TO YOU MISINTERPRET. THIS IS NOT RECLAMATION. THIS IS RECLAIMER. AND THOSE IT REPRESENTS ARE MY MAKERS. I WILL REJECT MY BIAS AND WILL MAKE AMENDS. MY MAKERS ARE MY MASTERS. I WILL BRING THEM SAFELY TO THE ARK." Upon receiving this message, the Prophet of Truth, believing that humanity were forerunners, panicked with the realization that if this information was spread, it would destroy the Covenant, as it went against the very foundations of the Path. Using his influence, he manipulated his fellow Hierarchs, the Prophet of Mercy and the Prophet of Regret, alongside the entire Covenant and its High Council, to launch a massive religious crusade to exterminate humanity. Even at the end of the war, during the Battle of Installation 00, when Truth prepared to force Sergeant Major Avery Johnson to activate the Halo Array, he continued to hold his belief that humans were forerunners, proclaiming "Your forefathers wisely set aside their compassion. Steeled themselves for what needed to be done. I see now why they left you behind. You were weak. And gods must be strong."

Culture and society
Human culture has changed mostly in few places since the 21st century, with humanity remaining multicultural among the tightly independent nations on Earth and the remaining UEG colonies. However, on the whole, humans have mostly been influenced by what once was perceived as Western culture. The UNSC is heavily drawn from the dissolved United States of America regarding military practices, tactics, and tradition, as well as the adoption of English as the lingua franca for the Unified Earth Government, despite the continuous use of other human languages in secondary societal roles, with new languages, such as NuNordic, having arosen.

Religion
Humans still practice a number of different religions, although much fewer than comparatively from the 20th to 21st century, being a personal matter. The political and social landscape has shaped drastically from religion, becoming dominated by science and logic. Major religions include Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, with the ages-long grudges and intolerance between the various religions has also significantly toned down, mostly duo to the concept becoming obsolete with time, and the exposure to the Covenant, xenomorphs, and forerunner remains, which strengthened the commonality between humanity through a "human first, theology-second" mentality. New religions also emerged, such as the Church of Unitology and the Union of the Journey. Numerous cultural phenomenons also emerged, such as flip music and Cosmic Commedia Cooperative, a form of absurdist theater.

Cultural interactions
Virtually, no discrimination or segregation is observed among humanity regarding gender, skin color, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or background. Both males and females serve in the UNSC Navy and the UNSC Marine Corps in equal capacity, with showers and housing facilities being shared by both men and women. This absence of racial and cultural hatred within the UEG started in the 21st century and slowly evolved into an unified mindset, particularly during the Interplanetary War with the rise of the far-right and far-left extremist groups Koslovics and the Settlement Defense Front, which threatened to destroy all that humanity had slowly being able to build until the 22nd century.

Much like the cultural shifts and miscegenation brought with globalization on Earth's past, space colonization brought its own unpredictable effects on the numerous colonial population's cultures. Some planets, such as Shanxi, were multicultural from its very beggining, while others, such as Reach, received most of its initial colonists from a given region, or country, of Earth, who annex their cultural marks on the colony's own cultures. With populations settling on different planets, many of the cultures distorted or amalgamated. Despite this, majority of the colonists still consciously held their Earth cultural heritage as the norm. This can be seen through the naming of these colonies, many of which are named after mythology, religion, society, or locales. The massive cultural influence can be seen in Reach, with a largely predominant Hungarian settlers, Madrigal, with its vast Hispanic population, and Shanxi, which retained much of its culture after an amalgamation Chinese and Brazilian cultures. With time, the cultures either retain their many conspicuous traits or disappear entirely, as they become essentially "parodies" of themselves. Differently enough, most Outer Colonies, with settlers from multiple different backgrounds, became chaotic and melting pots, with no distinct cultural origins or evidences, which only became more obvious following the end of the First Contact War, with planets such as Venezia and Carrow becoming home to both human and settlers from the many species of the Covenant.

Education
The baseline human schooling is done through Glas and computer systems, with many companies, through imperial subsidies, having created programs to facilitate the education of children and adults alike through their preferred area of studies, prioritizing those less fortunate or with dwindling monetary gain, mainly on rural environments or poorer areas on megalopolises. Despite the overwhelming positive reception of these practices, many criticize it for encouraging "lack of interpretative thought", with it being essential only to teaching facts. Public schools offer synthetic teachers, however, classes can readily spiral out of control depending on the area of the school. In classes with more than one hundred students, most of the studying - and teaching - is done through Glas. There are also private academies, that, despite being expensive, offer the finest educational systems in the Unified Earth Government from qualified human teachers. Many offer scholarships in sports in the UNSC for exceptional students.

The predominance of the UNSC and large corporations in civilian life casts an air of militarism and corporatism over humanity, with military service and heroism being glorified through UNSC propaganda and the media. The persistent dangers brought from the Interplanetary War, which lingered on through the Insurrectionists during the Secession and both the Covenant and the xenomorphs during the First Contact War helped to shape a culture of military service, with many viewing military service as a matter of duty, while others simply saw it as a way to attain a better life condition, though at a possible dangerous cost. While the media is known to romanticize the UNSC, they particularly distate the rigid regulations of the Office of Naval Intelligence, which adopted methods of hiding dangerous information following the surge of sensationalist news reports and mass panic during the initial years of the Secession. However, the UNSC's need to govern as the emergency human government during the First Contact War, coped with the old grudges held by the Outer Colonies, shaped many's opinions to both the UEG, the UNSC, and the CMB, regarding them as a totalitarian government that hides behind the facade of a friendly and progressive body that still would authorize bombings on civilian territories, which are mostly used as Insurrectionist propaganda.

Non-human interactions
Ever since the First Contact War, humans were introduced to an array of different species that composed the hegemony, and later on the xenomorphs. After the end of the war, the UEG was left in an initial uneasy peace, the Treaty of 2585, with the sangheili, who allied with the species after being betrayed during the Great Schism and forming the Swords of Sanghelios. After the end of the war, despite aliens not being a part of human everyday life, there are still numerous interactions with non-humans, particularly the sangheili and kig-yar. Many attempts to develop new technology and social relations has occured, such as the formation of the Joint Occupation Zones (JOZs). as well trading and commerce. However, many human supremacist and isolationist groups have arisen following the war, such as Cerberus and Sapien Sunrise. Still, while many still harbor hate or discrimination towards the Covenant's species duo to the genocide of billions of humans during the war, many have to come to accept the sangheili and its Sword of Sanghelios as the only real allies of the UEG and the UNSC during the volatile and dangerous post-war period. While not illegal, it is becoming socially unacceptable for humans to show vicious xenophobic rants in public regarding aliens as inferior or dangerous, and vice-versa with the sangheili.

Synthetics, artificial intelligence and automation
Synthetics are artificially intelligent androids created to mimic humans in nearly every possible way, from appearance to behavior. They are divided in multiple types and functions, from conventional androids to Autons. While both types are incredibly more intelligent, conventional synthetics, such as combat synthetics or love slaves, are only capable of performing and learning about subjects and situations on their designated area, while Autons possess much more human-like traits, being capable of serving in the military in specialized roles, as well as experiencing emotion, philosophy, creativity, music, religion, and intuition. As time wages on, many synthetics can experience rampancy if not properly taken care of. Lesser forms of artificial intelligence, such as Superintendent-class artificial intelligence, has widespread use in both military and civilian society, with many automated systems controlling ships, handling populated areas and performing manual labor in agriculture and other industries. They can range from handling simple freighters, such as Mother with the Nostromo, entire cities, such as Vergil with New Mombasa, or space stations, with Apollo, who surveyed Sevastopol Station.

Despite the UNSC still heavily relying on human soldiers, many types of robotic drones are used in the battlefield in order to provide real-time reconnaissance and support to Navy or Marine troops, such as the F-99 Wombats.