The fictional background story of Eve Online explains that long ago, humankind, having used up most of Earth's resources, began colonizing the rest of the Milky Way. Eventually, humans expanded to most of the galaxy. Resources became contested and war broke out. One day, a natural wormhole was discovered, providing a link to another galaxy. Because the wormhole was known to be unstable, construction began on the Eve Gate, an artificial wormhole generator that would link the galaxies after the natural one closed. Dozens of colonies were seeded in the unexplored galaxy - dubbed 'New Eden' - at the other end of the wormhole. Unfortunately, when the natural wormhole eventually collapsed, it destroyed both itself and the Eve Gate. Cut off from Earth and its much-needed supplies, New Eden's colonists starved in the millions. Only five known colonies managed to return to prominence, eventually rebuilding society together. These colonies make up the five major empires in Eve: the Amarr Empire, the Gallente Federation, the Minmatar Republic, the Caldari State and the Jove Empire. Players may choose from four of these races (Amarr, Gallente, Caldari, Minmatar) when creating a new character. The fifth race (Jove) is currently not playable, though CCP have said they intend to use the race within the Eve storyline.

Races
 The Amarr, a group descendant from a splinter group of the United Catholic Church called the Conformists, were the first of the playable races to rediscover interstellar and faster-than-light travel. Armed with this new technology, the Amarr set about expanding their empire, enslaving several races in the process, focusing heavily on the primitive Minmatar race who had only just invented space flight for themselves. The Amarr Empire found its expansionist vigor through the Reclaiming, a crusade to bring their own ideals to the galaxy. This was swiftly ended after their confrontations with the Gallente and, most notably, the Jove. After the destruction of an Imperial Navy task force in conflict with a single Jovian mothership, the Minmatar rebelled against their masters and broke off to form their own faction in the Eve universe. The Minmatar are the downtrodden of the galaxy, holding the least number of star systems while much of their populace are still enslaved in the Amarr Empire or refugee members of the Gallente Federation.
The Gallente and the Caldari homeworlds were situated in the same star system. The Gallente homeworld was originally settled by French colonists from Tau Ceti, while the planet that would later become Caldari Prime was purchased by a mega-corporation, which began to terraform it. However, the process was incomplete at the time of the gate collapse, and Caldari Prime remained environmentally inhospitable for millennia, delaying the rise of advanced society. The Gallente, with a more hospitable homeworld, restored a working civilization some hundred years before the Caldari, building the first democratic republic of the new era. However, the Caldari were able to reverse-engineer the terraforming equipment, giving their technology a substantial boost. Initially Caldari people were part of the Gallente Federation. However, animosity between both drove the Caldari to found their own empire. This decision led to a 93-year war between the two factions that was eventually settled when neither party could win over the other. One result of this war is that the original Caldari homeworld is now under Gallente occupation which has further increased tensions between the two factions. Also, recently a Gallentean Nyx-class mothership deliberately collided with a Caldari station, killing hundreds of thousands.
The Jovians (currently a non-playable race) were, like the other races, a human colony. After the collapse of the gate and the crumbling of interstellar trade and travel-ways, the Jovians were able to revive their civilization almost immediately, losing very little time and very little information thanks to the relative shortness of their "Dark Age". For years they expanded outward and explored their sector of space as the other races still huddled, overcrowded in their isolated home systems. Eventually, the Jovians turned to wide-spread genetic engineering in order to mold themselves into a people more suited to deep space life and long range interstellar exploration. Through their history there have been two previous Jove empires, located in different sectors of space than their current holdings. The Jove abandoned their last empire in the Curse region (now populated by the pirate faction, the "Angels") after their genetic experimentation resulted in the deadly "Jovian Disease", a condition that causes a depression so deep the afflicted lose all will to live. Little is known about the Jovians, except for the fact that they have extremely advanced technology (the Jove being the source of Capsule technology) and are very secretive, having severed all stargate connections to their space.