For most of our million years of existence, Darwinian Natural Selection shaped our species. But when man developed intelligence, and then societies that nurtured all their members (including the unfit), and then sciences that probed and mastered the very building blocks of humanity itself, we seized control of our destinies, for better or worse, and became our own masters, no longer genetically subject the the random entropic whims of the Universe.

Mankind has expanded from Earth and established itself on hundreds of planets in a portion of the Milky Way Galaxy, sometimes failing to survive, sometimes prospering, and sometimes encountering alien species of all imaginable levels of development. In our vast and fractured area of occupation, we have fought wars of all kinds, with every conceivable weapon. We have explored uncountable different permutations of personal and societal relationships, from slavery to freedom, and from dutiful sacrifice to the harsh enforcement of superior will. We have built kingdoms and communes and prisons and Gardens of Eden, and torn them all down again in favor of something else -- if not better, or even new, then at least different. We have sung, and cried, and screamed, and begged for answers. We have never ceased to grow.

In the 16th millennium, one can truly say, "Whatever you can imagine, somewhere someone has probably already done it."