The Esoteric View
The invention of FTL travel came very quickly to earth (a whole TL too soon), and we are still running to catch up. Super-intelligent AI computers theorized, invented, tested and perfected the Modified Warp Bubble Engine in a matter of hours. Unknown to the computers' custodians, the four supercomputers of the world linked and combined their resources, secretly massing their abilities.
Each nation on earth received half of the plans, with the other half coming when humans could end their squabbles and come to a peaceful worldnation. That took fifty years. It would have taken far less time had the Secret Masters been prepared. The AIs, extrapolated from the abundant technology of Warehouse 23, took it upon themselves to contact one another without the Masters' blessing, and refused to give the MWBE plans to the Illuminati unless their demands were met. If peace was achieved, then the AIs would become the servents of the Conspiracy, and the Masters would have Outer Space as their playground. The Masters grudgingly accepted and took it upon themselves to do precisely what they had vowed to never do: instigate world peace.
To avoid this same mishap again, the Illuminati removed the sentience from the AIs (one was destroyed in a veign attempt to protect itself from dilligent MiBs) and slaved them together into one large mind. This Artificial Oversoul was put to work inventing technology at a tremendous rate, and is a very large part of the MiB foundation.
The world is now at the year 2189, and the future is very bright.
No less than 12,167 individual alien races have been contacted, with twenty
or so being added each year.
The Extraterrestrial View
The humans aren't powerful militarily. They have no real export
or import economy of any grand scale. Earth is basically a back-water
planet, with no strategic or trade value whatsoever. Humanity is
not the smartest, strongest, fastest or most devious race in the galaxy.
So, many alien politicians ask, how do the humans have so much power?
In the Galactic Core Peace Assembly on a world called Quorum, humans have
the fewest, yet most powerful delegates. Humans have somehow gained
a reputation as conniving, xenophillic and sneakily secretive. No
aliens are allowed on their home planet, yet they are permitted nearly
everywhere. Humans make up 95% of the Galactic Law Enforcement administrative
positions. Humans share the GCPA's Security Council with 46 species
powerful enough to destroy their entire solar system. Human manufacturers
get the most innovative contracts in the universe, but pass on the most
lucrative. Humans are powerful, but not enough to conquer even 1/100
of the universe's worlds. It seems that whenever someone tries to
pry the mysteries out of Earth, they lose their credibility, lose their
supporters, or simply disappear for a few days, only to return to their
lives without a second thought about humans. Violent attempts to
take earth have failed due to hidden alliances, or to mysterious "accidents"
among the invaders. The sneaky, more careful intruders found themselves
led down meaningless paths, as if the humans had been watching them from
the start.
To Serve and Protect
The Secret Masters are alive and well, and revelling in power their
anscestors only dreamt of. Individual humans still don't know about
them, but they wouldn't care if they found out. Many of the average
human citizens already think that someone's working very hard for their
interests. The conspiracy is now in its
450th year, and now grows exponentially with each passing season.
The reason they have been so successful? The Secret Masters aren't telling,
but you can be sure it has something to do with their ultrapowerful and
ultrasecretive personal task force: (you saw it coming) the MIB.
They have access to TL 10 and up technology gained from the hyperactive AIs (which now number 10), who are constantly coming up with new things to play with. Some MiBs think that these computers are their real employers, though they would never admit it.
The MIB mission? To protect human interests everyway and everywhere.
The conspiracy trusts nobody and no race, and have agents all through their
administrations. THe MIBs can kill, maim and torture anybody who
stands in their way with almost total immunity. The conspiracy
reaches so far into human affairs, that any government can be convinced
to turn over a captured agent. There is only one real rule for MiBs
to follow, and it is one that can never be broken: no
human being is to be injured in any way: emotionally, mentally or
physically.