ITT: we make a Space Opera

That's not necessarily a deal-breaker though.

Hydrogen is an important building block of organic life. While H2O could theoretically be replaced by another buffer, Hydrogen cannot.

> Roughly one million years earlier, humanity colonized the galaxy's habitable planets, almost exterminated actual aliens entirely, and gene-modded the other species into existence, before fracturing in a civil war and collapsing into thousands of independent states, which eventually collapsed themselves, forming countless primitive pre-FTL societies and a handful of post-FTL civilized petty empires across the galaxy.
> This is completely unknown, most humanoid species, including baseline humans, assume they are descended from a precursor species due to their shared genetic material, most uplifted species believe they evolved independently or were created by the precursor species
> Humans are fairly low-tech and have no clue they are the devolved descendents of the baseline Precursors.

Hmm, what if the overwhelming majority of habitable planets were 70-80% the size and density of earth? Would that be enough to sustain a hydrogen-rich atmosphere?

The year is 3005 and FTL travel, for a thousand years before this humanity was using relativistic vehicles. In the year 2846 a civil war began across the galaxy. Vast relativistic fleets numbering in the thousands sent to atom bomb each others planets. The war ends, an entire department is set up in the Federations bureaucracy to deal with genocidal ships showing up at random systems.

...

There are no aliens
It's just humanity exploring the stars mapping star systems and setting up outposts on rocky desolate worlds. Kinda like one of the early concepts for the Mass Effect series mixed with The Martian and that Matthew McConaughey space movie I can't remember the name of, Jesus Christ

Well I have played both Aurora and Stellaris so I'll make use of the course of events in both of those games that I've experienced to put forth my idea of a setting in this thread.
>Mankind untervent a 53-year long civil-war to unify itself
>20 years afterwards first contact with ayylmao's is made when the Nordic Republic (mankind) military reconnaissance vessel jumps into a system and finds a xeno colonization effort of a planet underway
>note; human military is in charge of FTL exploration and reconnaissance
>contact is not made immediately; after sending report and receiving orders to passively observe the xenos for a while
>decryption of their messages is achieved; xenos method of government is empire
>after sufficient level of linquistic understanding of their language is achieved, the contact is made
>the xeno empire and their emperor is not amused because how dare you spy on us first before talking
>due to cultural and historical differences the Nordic Republic and Hontos Empire have yet to achieve diplomatic relationships above "do you mind if we fly through here? No fuck off"
>second xenos race encountered is a small theocratic kingdom of "Enlightened" (actual translation is actually pretty long-winded so this is what was settled on) whose planets have their infrastructure built into the shapes of holy symbols that are visible from space
>they do not count anything but themselfs sentient beings and thus why sometimes they try to colonize other's planets or try to salvage starships and spaceports of others
>this is why their kingdom is merely a quarter of their original size because they pissed off the Hontos
>third xenos faction is totalitarian democracy of "Ventek Unity" that wages proxy wars against the Hontos Empire through minor offshoot factions of theirs
>Information regarding these various factions:
>Mankind: 132 systems controlled, 56 colonized
>Hontos: (estimated) 170-200 systems controlled

Continuing

>There are rumblings of a loose coalition forming between these minor powers, but the major species have been assuming that there would be too much infighting for it to hold together for long

>Enlightened: 18 systems controlled, 10 colonized
>Ventek: (estimated) 130-180 systems controlled
>minor factions stuck between the Ventek and Hontos are limited to 1-2 systems each and most of them are in constant state of civil war
>Out of all these only mankind has untervent all-out war in the scale it has in the last 100 years
>therefore mankind's ship designs, doctrines, tactics and technologies are a whole lot more refined and optimized compared to other's
>note: refined does not equal scientifically advanced; railguns, missiles and magnetically-contained-fusion-thrusters are still the standard for mankind
>mankind is not expansionist and has taken neutral approach to different races
>still has to curb the occasional enlightened salvage fleet however

Titan has 14% of earth's gravity but a 1.45x more dense atmosphere and still has hydrogen.

>Mankind untervent a 53-year long civil-war to unify itself
>Stellaris
I love playing as the Commonwealth of Man and "reunifying" with the United Nations of Earth. Except lately whenever I try the UNoE is located on the other side of the galaxy.

>playing Stellaris
>terraform Earth
>there is no custom Gaia world skin for the continents
JUST
Would have reloaded but I was playing ironman.

Humans are renowned for bringing candy to the rest of the galaxy. To this day, even candies now made by other species usually have humans on the packaging and logos, and do not explicitly state they aren't made by them.

Because of the association with delicious treats, humans are usually depicted as friendly harmless fatsos in alien media, and human councillors and ambassadors sometimes struggle to be taken seriously.

>all these people jumping on the hurr there's no aliens train

but why tho, it's a space opera

kek
although i find this amusing, I find it hard to believe that an alien species with a biology capable of enjoying our kind of sweets, wouldn't also make their own

Because dipshits love to be contrarian.

Killer Joe?

>we make a Space Opera

Might I suggest mezzo-soprano for the humans?

>only humans
>UNACEPTABLE

>humans but some of them are purple or have a rubber forehead or some other miniscule detail
>10/10 SPACE OPRAH

BUT THAT'S LITERALLY THE POINT OF SPACE OPERA

>the story's not over until the large, egg-bearing, entity sings ...

>one generation ship sets off to a specific star system
>as technology improves, successive newer ships head towards the same destination
>engine improvements mean that the slower ships will gradually be over-taken by the later ships
>due to mishaps on the earlier generation ships, a number of them have awoken out of cryo-sleep
>with the fate of starving to death as younger ships pass by, some of these ships have decided to lay ambushes
>later ships have to deal with boarding parties from the earlier ships, attempting to hijack and occupy the progressively faster ships (as well as better stocked)
>the latest ships are being sent with the specific task of dealing with these aggressive older ships, in order to secure the transport of innocent colonists to the final destination.
>none of the ships have actually reached the destination yet

Meanwhile in a town square on 139-Tau, just left of central...
youtube.com/watch?v=x66TYd9nAMI

>earth's relatively high gravity
I dunno if I was the first guy to propose this as the 'special trait' of Humans but I'm proud nonetheless.