Roughly 300 years after the human exodus, the bulk of humanity inhabits a stretch of the Perseus Arm, along with three other sentient races that tolerate the primitive apes because they’re useful for doing the dirty work.
Robbed of any significance in the galaxy, the richest of Earth’s remaining corporations banded together to form the Galactic Trade Cartel Consortium (GTC). The GTC board, being complete rank bastards, decided to ditch the lessons of history, along with any form of moral compass, and chose to carry on the grand capitalistic tradition of lying, cheating, plundering and pillaging, all in the name of profit.
Joe Smith, while having a moral compass, doesn’t have much of a spine, so he’s taken his preferred option – drowning it all in an alcoholic fog on some far-out-of-the-way asteroid.
Fortunately for Joe, his friends and family are not ready to give up on him, and when a crisis re-unites them, Joe and the crew set about putting the aliens in their place, saving the galaxy and kicking the GTC where it hurts – the bottom line.