The Contact War

Humanity is the newcomer on the galactic stage. Earth is a mess, filled with Megacities, toxic waste dumps, and huge swaths of wasteland populated by violent ferals. Cybernetic enhancements? Sure! Rogue corporations, splinter colonies and wildcat conflicts? Why not! Space is big after all. And to top it all off, the ConFed is not exactly a 'strong' government - different star systems and colonies are not thrilled by an overarching Federal System, while those worried about the aliens shout back that divided we will fall. And of course there is the lesson of Earth and what a clusterfuck it is.

Tropes to keep in mind (as viewed by certain observing alien cultures):

• Humans are weird, and have come up with a unique FTL tech stack unlike anything else the Glacatics have seen; instead of using grav lanes they fling their ships through some sort of interdimensional space. And they survive (generally. Apparently some humans become even more psychotic as a result of this.)
• Humans are really weird, and seem to be far more resistant to Warp Madness than most.
• No really, humans are weird damn it all; humans, having taken so long to find other intelligences and being generally sad about that fact, have uplifted their some of their home-world native species (Dolphins, Primates, Orcas and Cephalopods) - and have a tendency to plug these uplifts into machines (Dolphins apparently love life as a 'voidcraft'. This probably violates galactic laws, standards, and ethics in ways we can't even begin to explain).