Humans (DoM)

**Humans**, also known as **humanity**, **mankind** or simply **Man** (and taxonomically referred to as ***Homo sapiens***), are a race of bipedal mammals native to the world of Terra. Among the galaxy's most prominent and powerful races, the humans have an innate distrust of other races they meet due to their disastrous record of alien encounters, the most prominent being their first contact with the Choktar, who sought to exterminate the humans and take Terra (or Earth as it was called back then) as their new home planet. After six years of brutal warfare, a united humanity pushed the invaders from their planet. After the First Contact War, humanity established the Terran Dominion and reverse-engineered Choktar technology, melded it with their own and began a campaign of rapid proliferation and expansion into the cosmos, becoming one of the galaxy's most powerful races by the onset of the 31st century. Humanity is both respected and feared across much of the galaxy, being recognized as experts in warfare and shrewd negotiators capable of getting what they want most of the time.

## Biology and appearance

### Reproduction and life cycle

Humans proliferate via sexual reproduction, which requires the mating of an opposite sex couple to produce offspring. While developing in their mother's womb, the child (or children) give the woman a distinctive "baby bump" accompanied by significant weight gain. Being mammals, human females give birth to live young, either one or several at a time. Two children born at the same birth were referred to as twins, and three as triplets; the largest amount of embryos naturally fertilized at one time was twelve, although a pregnancy like that has a high chance of several dying before reaching their second trimester and is an incredible strain on the mother. The highest number of children born at one time that are all guaranteed to survive are five, or quintuplets. A woman's pregnancy normally took place after nine months of pregnancy. Historically it had been a painful process, but advances in medical technology has since made the pain lessen considerably. In some circumstances, women died during childbirth, but there hasn't been a recorded incident of this for quite some time. During their first months of existence, human babies were usually fed with milk from their mother's breasts.

The period during which a young human developed from a child into an adult was known as adolescence. This stage begins on the onset of puberty, the period of sexual maturity for humans; females typically begin puberty before males. The legal transition from childhood to adulthood is the age of 18, though many humans treat adolescents like adults some time before that. Typically, humans have an average lifespan of 150, though medical technology could allow them to extend their life beyond that. Despite that, any human over the age of 80 is unanimously considered old.

## Society and culture

Humans are generally seen as very intelligent, abnormally ambitious, highly adaptable, individualistic and thus, unpredictable. Humans generally have a powerful desire to improve themselves and advance their society with much assertion.

Human society emphasizes traditional morality, family values and personal responsibility. Humans believe a stable family is the key to having a good childhood and growing up to be a moral person. The average human family has between five to seven children, a practice that began in the post-war years in order to bolster their population. The tradition of large families has become an ingrained practice within human society and women who bear a large number of children are very respected. In fact, humans hold women in high esteem and their ability to be nurturing mothers are celebrated. Although the vast majority of women remain housewives and caretakers, there are some who join the workforce and even serve in the military; both men and women have equal rights of opportunity, though exercise those rights differently.

### Religion

Religion is an integral part of human life and forms the backbone of the social fabric and moral values that human society is built on. Although the Dominion of Man does not have an official religious body, most of the human population practices some sort of religion and live their lives in accordance with those practices. There are several religions within the Dominion, but the largest religious denomination is the Church of the Covenant, practiced by over seventy percent of the population. The ideas expressed in the Covenant's holy books are the basis for modern human society.