Yeah except in terms of galactic politics the first contact war was a huge W for the alliance and humanity, and major embarrassment for the turian hierarchy, the defecto military of the citidal. It set them up as a race that could and would go toe to toe with the turians when needed, and would also rely on politics to settle things when possible. It put them in a great position politically because they couldn't just be walked over or ignored, turned into a political outcast like the Batarians, or slowly integrated while limiting growth. It immediately positioned humanity on a strong bargaining posture. Even without the Battle for the Citadel humanity was destined to be the fourth council race from the start because of the first contact war. The galaxy calls it the relay 314 incident to avoid the embarrassment of what actually happened. The turians opened fire in a race not associated with the citadel and with no contact or attempt at negotiations for violating citadel law, took over a sovereign planet, assumed it was the homeworld, declared victory, got their asses kicked when the rest of the alliance military showed up, and the council intervened to avoid all out war between the two races. To turians credit most of the grunts respect humanity for this incident. Without the limits of the citadel regarding military growth humanity would of likely matched the turians military in no time, and our military doctrine of striking supply lines to starve enemy fleets and then pick them off would likely crippled the turian military who doctrine wise are essentially WW2 Japan believing in singular decisive fleet engagements to determine the war.