With the discovery of the Citadel and the greater community, humanity leapt onto the galactic stage. The Citadel Council intervened and negotiated a peace. The resulting First Contact War was relatively short and bloodless, lasting only months and costing 623 human lives (with a slightly higher number of turian casualties). While individual governments remained unsure on what action should be taken, the Alliance took control and attacked the turians. Only one of the human ships made it back to Shanxi colony, which was subsequently discovered by the turians and invaded. Activating a dormant mass relay without knowing where it led had been declared illegal by the Council, though the humans did not know this.

A scout fleet consisting of three frigates and two cargo vessels, trying to activate a mass relay, encountered a turian patrol fleet. But despite this success, the Systems Alliance was not considered a serious political body, as it was considered to lack the authority of individual nations.Įight years later, humanity made first contact with another alien species and everything changed. Maintaining this expansion policy, the Alliance activated all the mass relays it could find to seek out new resources and possible colonies. The Alliance began a rapid campaign of expansion, establishing numerous colonies and constructing a large fleet, even though it had yet to encounter another species.

The Charon Relay propelled them into space and the reach of humanity grew quickly.

The same year, 2149, the Alliance discovered the Sol system's mass relay orbiting Pluto, previously thought to be a moon, Charon. Shortly thereafter, the various nations of Earth pooled their military resources to create the Systems Alliance Military. Within a year of the discovery, Earth's eighteen largest nations had drafted and ratified the Systems Alliance charter, establishing a representative political body to expand and defend human territory. them' and the foundations of a united human front were laid. Rather than nations fighting each other over their differences, it was now 'us vs. Foremost, were they still out there? While these questions had served to fracture most religions they had a unifying effect in politics. The news of the discovery dominated the media and raised questions not only about the existence and purpose of humanity, but questions about the aliens themselves. Some tried to incorporate this new-found knowledge into their dogma, some remained silent, while a few tried to stubbornly deny the evidence found on Mars. Even established religions struggled to explain extraterrestrial life. New beliefs sprang up overnight such as the Interventionary Evolutionists, who zealously proclaimed the discovery as proof that all human history had been directed and controlled by alien forces. The impact was profound in all areas of human culture, but nowhere more so than religion.

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