The Systems Alliance in Mass Effect may be the most recent organization to join the galactic community, but its war-torn history is as old as time. After discovering the Prothean ruins on Mars, the foundation of human culture shifted overnight. While religious dogma was shattered under the existence of alien life, human politics appeared to do the opposite. The major countries pooled their resources under a united front. Thus, the Systems Alliance was created to represent and defend humanity's interests. However, while it was a cultural and political renaissance, it had unforeseeable consequences.
During this time, humanity aggressively expanded through the regions of space while building up the Alliance military and Navy despite not discovering alien life. Eventually, humanity would immediately come into conflict with two races, the turians and the batarians. The former would spark the First Contact War in Mass Effect, the central conflict that defined human history and Alliance policy moving forward. The latter caused the Skyllian Blitz, or Blitz, a significant battle that establishes humanity's reputation of adaptability and notoriety.
The history of the Systems Alliance is rooted in humanity's inability to control their overwhelming curiosity and self-interest. The response the turians gave that sparked the First Contact War was to uphold Citadel law, unbeknownst to the eager humans. With the batarians, the Blitz was a reaction to human colonization in a region of space promised to them. Wherever angle the conflicts are seen, humanity is the inciting incident of both.
Mass Effect: The War-Torn History of the Systems Alliance
The turians' response that started the First Contact War was swift, destroying the human explorer ships except for one from activating Mass Effect's Mass Relay 314. From there, the conflict escalated with an Alliance retaliation and a ground war for the human colony of Shanxi. While the humans can be seen in a sympathetic light, the turians upheld Citadel law that made it illegal for uncharted mass relays to be activated. It was a law created out of the Rachni Wars, a conflict with a highly intelligent and aggressive hive-mind of spacefaring insects that lasted around 300 years. Naturally, to avoid the possibility of another long bloody war, the turians would do anything to prevent another incident from occurring.
One of the most significant assaults on one of the oldest human colonies, Elysium, the Skyllian Blitz, accumulated all the resources the batarians could muster from pirates to warlords. The Blitz was a response to the lack of action of the Citadel Council in Mass Effect, the universe's main governing body. Fortunately, the Blitz was halted with a combination of resistance from ground forces and an Alliance ship in orbit. While seemingly sudden, the unprovoked attack was a bi-product of years of tension between the humans and batarians. The former aggressively colonized the Skyllian Verge that the batarians were slowly occupying themselves. While the humans were victorious against the batarians and applauded for their adaptability and power, some races would see humanity as opportunistic bullies that would steamroll whoever got in their way.
While the history of the Systems Alliance began with innovation and planetary unity, the cost of expansion is rarely mentioned, nor are the consequences. With the turians, the First Contact War spawned extremists such as Terra Firma and one of Mass Effect's most evil organizations, Cerberus. While there is rarely open warfare against human colonization efforts, resentment has spread throughout Citadel space, hindering more than expansion efforts. The Systems Alliance in Mass Effect is an ideal to strive for; however, it is also a cautionary tale, a reminder that human instinct can be both a boon and a burden.