Two thousand years in the future, humans have expanded into space. There are colonies on moons and "dead" worlds that don't have any living things on them until the humans settle (these are usually mining colonies), and entire societies living in space stations. But, humans being humans, they want more. They go further, and make contact with species that aren't their own, they begin to immigrate to planets that have existing populations and societies, they begin to trade. Things are awesome. Until, of course, the human government collapses when Earth becomes completely uninhabitable and there's a mass exodus as people scramble to find a place to live before it becomes completely impossible for anyone to be there. Of course, this leads to a population problem in the colonies and space stations, so humans explore farther. They try to find a planet to settle and call their own. But they can't; all habitable planets are inhabited already. So, after finding a planet that they like, that's very close to the conditions on Earth but without all those pesky natural disasters, they make contact with the current inhabitants, asking for permission to settle there. Fearing that the humans will kill their planet as they did their own, the inhabitants refuse. So, humans being humans, they invade. They invade this planet and forcibly take it from the inhabitants, to the horror of every other species out there. When they win their war, they enslave what was left of the original inhabitants- a practice unheard of by the rest of the galaxy until the humans came along- putting them to work in very lucrative mines and on plantations and in other rather dangerous situations. Some humans bring them off world to work in the original mining colonies on the "dead" worlds and moons, or to be companions as they move to space stations. As time passes (and I mean centuries, here), the galaxy gets used to this enslavement, and this particular race of aliens becomes a commodity to the rest, and the slave trade flourishes throughout the galaxy. That is, until the enslaved aliens (none of whom ever remember being free at this point, as the first of the slaves are now long dead) decide to revolt. They don't really care about taking their planet back; their entire lives, for generations, it's belonged to the humans. They just want their freedom. The revolt turns into an all-out war, with humans and aliens who have profited from the slave-trade fighting to keep their slaves, and humans and aliens who see it to be the horror it is and the slaves who started it all fighting for their freedom. The more radical of this second group think it's necessary to kick humans off of the world they stole and give it back to the slaves, while the majority think that it's not the current humans' fault that they were born on that planet and think they should be allowed to stay and live and flourish there, just without the slavery. This is where our story begins. My character is Lt. Mercury Flint
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