Novel series about competing factions trying to uplift humanity, one faction has six fingers

Question

I read a series when I was a teenager (late 90s to early 2000s but might not mean anything) that was about an alien race that engineered humans to fight in a timeless galactic war. The aliens had red hair and six fingers. Their guilty sin was they craved human blood, which released brain chemicals. After moving Earth through several stages of technological advancement, they are discovered to have fallen asleep at the wheel by higher ups, and must destroy their base at Atlantis.

A battle ensues between factions, and the one settles in Asia, while the other in Egypt. There is a distinct "chariots of the gods" feel to it, and use of alleged internet photos of missiles on Mars also become part of the plot. So this is why I'm assuming it was written in the 90s. They also store their civilization's command nodule for the expedition at Easter Island. Into the middle of this, a rebel faction of humans shows up that had rebelled at another planet, that was too far along in development to be able to resist the "grandfather" species (with six fingers). Meaning they controlled a vast army that was technologically advanced.

A nuclear war ensued and the "harvest" was destroyed. Splinter groups formed and left to find the trail of others who had started human colonies for the same purpose. Their goal was to catch a human planet in it's infant stage of civilization, and independently develop them and expose the aliens, overthrowing them trying to gather other human planets to flee in an opposite direction than being forced to kamikaze the enemies of the 6f people. It was they who were responsible for the six finger race going into a deep cryogenic sleep, as 6f were not expecting humans to be savvy and rebellious. They had wanted humans to begin developing on their own, and realize their ability to self govern, while subtly advancing right under the nose of the overseer.

The second faction of aliens shows up and that is where the civil war began between alien factions. Then the ancient enemy shows up a few times, the first I believe was a form of a scout ship of some kind (a biological mass resembling an eye), and there's a rush to signal the parent race and mobilize, but there is never an answer. So three competing factions (two alien and one human) compete to mobilize humanity, but no help or enemy ever shows up (at least they had not when I finished what I thought was the last book).

I thought I remember the word "bloodline" but no findings so far.

Answer 1

This sounds like the Area 51 series by Robert Doherty. The first book was published in 1997 so it matches your time frame.

This is a sprawling series with 13 books so far so it covers a lot of ground. However a core theme in the book is the alien race called the Airlia who have been breeding humans as you describe:

Many millennia ago, humans, including us, were seeded on fifteen worlds by an alien race, the Airlia.

We believe we evolved, but the reality is we were bred as cannon fodder for the Airlia's interstellar war against the Swarm, a viral race whose only mission appears to be the obliteration of sentient life wherever encountered.

On some worlds humans realized the truth about their origins, uncovered their hidden alien overlords and rebelled. On one world they succeeded, but in the process destroyed their planet. They sent teams to the other worlds to foment uprisings. Our Earth is one. Earth15 is also one of those worlds.

One of those teams, Bren and her mate Markus, have been leading revolution on Earth15 off and on for thousands of years, slowly eroding the power of the Airlia who rule as gods. But today she encounters Arcturus, a man who claims the impossible: he was on the planet before the Airlia. If this blasphemy is true, what other truths need to be uncovered about the history and origin of mankind and our place among the stars? Who are we?

The Airlia are described as having red hair and six fingers, so that matches as well. In the book Excalibur there is a description:

Artad was Airlia, standing almost seven feet tall and looking almost exactly like the Horus statue that had once guarded the entrance between the paws of the Great Sphinx. Red hair, red elongated eyes, six fingers, disproportional body.

And in The Grail:

An alien hand grasped the side of the tube, six fingers pulling. A tall Airlia with long flowing red hair appeared, and long legs slid over the side of the tube, touching the ground. Artad stood as Ts'ang Chieh brought forward the robe, wrapping it around Artad's shoulders.