Birthright

after a small atomic war between two human cities a century later, which totally obliterated the Sirian

population, that Man discovered the little creatures were empaths who had been killed by involuntarily sharing the agony of the war's victims. By that time it didn't matter, though; Man was the dominant life form on Sirius V, just as he was on a hundred other planets sprinkled across the galaxy. He trod with a cautious foot when necessary, a diplomatic foot when expedient, and an iron foot when possible. After seven more centuries of exploration, colonization, and selective imperialism, Man had built himself an empire of truly galactic scope. He lived on only fourteen hundred planets, while two million worlds were inhabited by other life forms, but there was no doubt as to who was the master of the galaxy. It was Man the Industrialist, Man the Activist, Man the Warrior, and more than one doubting world had been decimated to prove the point beyond question. Man had been prepared for his conquest of the stars. He had the technology, the gumption, the will. The taking of the galaxy had been almost inevitable, completely inherent in his nature. However, the administration of his newfound empire was another matter altogether.... FIRST MILLENNIUM: REPUBLIC

1: THE PIONEERS

...As man began expanding throughout the galaxy, the most vital part of this undertaking was carried out by the Pioneer Corps. Beginning with a mere two hundred men, the Corps numbered well over fifty thousand men by the end of the Republic's first millennium, and their bravery, intelligence and adaptability form a chapter unmatched in the annals of human history... —fromMan: Twelve Millennia of Achievement, by I. S. Berdan (published simultaneously on Earth and Deluros VIII in 13,205 G E.) ...If any single facet of Man could be said to present the first harbinger of what was to come, it was his creation of the Pioneer Corps. These technicians of expansion and destruction roamed the galaxy, assimilating what they could for the Republic, frequently destroying that which could not be annexed with ease. It was a bloody preface to Man's galactic history, and while one can objectively admire the intelligence which led to the annexation of many extremely inhospitable worlds, one cannot but wince at the end results. Perhaps no early triumph of the Pioneer Corps better illustrates this than the assimilation into the Republic of Zeta Cancri IV.... —fromOrigin and History of the Sentient Races, Vol. 7, by Qil Nixogit (published on Eridani XVI in 19,300 G.E.)

It evenlooked hot.

It hung in space, a small, blood-red world, circling a binary at an aloof distance of a third of billion miles. Its face was pockmarked with craters and chasms, crisscrossed with hundreds of crevices. During what passed for winter, it could make lead boil in something less than three seconds. But winter had just ended, and wouldn't come again for thirty Earth years. There were no clouds in the traditional sense, for water had never existed here. There were, however, huge masses of gas, layer upon layer of it in varying densities. Here and there one could see the surface, the ugly jagged edges, but for the most part there was just a billowing red screen. The surface was as red as the gas, red and grizzled, like a man badly in need of a shave. There was no dirt, but the vast shadows managed somehow to make it look dirty. Dirty, and hot. And, sometimes frequently, sometimes infrequently, there were the wildly flashing lights.