Plot Outline:

• You [Zach] wake up from cryosleep and are made aware by the bureaucratic nightmare of a governing body that all your memories and personal information which were stored in a separate payload have been lost due to a “technical accident” (The temp was fired.)
• You are re-briefed on why you were put into cryosleep, and told that your home world was being evacuated due to loss of habitability. (Whatever that might mean.)
• But they let you know that thankfully they have a solution for this influx of unemployed working age space immigrants and plan to offer “civil servant” positions as easy and accessible entry jobs.
• You are assigned to be a “Blank”, which is the title associated mostly with the scrap collection taskforce who have lost their memories, and are “pretty much forced” to take out a loan on a junker ship and pay for rent so that you can stay on the space station and survive the rest of your life in this new grunge space age mixture between a cyberpunk junkyard and ramshackle civilization that is trying to build itself up after an emergency evacuation to a more habitable star system.
• Meanwhile: You have no idea who you are, and at first the protagonist could care less about their past.
• As you go out to collect space debris to turn into the CDI (Cosmic Debris Initiative.) You begin to occasionally find memory fragments that can be loaded into your ship and sold or traded to the Memory librarian. There are also 4 other main shopkeepers that you will be interacting with. That all have their own individual minor stories and quest lines.
  • MEMORY FRAGMENT QUESTLINE
    • You have been briefed that memory files may be spread out across certain zones due to the main payload body being potentially damaged by space junk as it continues to float along on its path to wherever it may be now.
    • If you see a memory fragment you are expected to try to retrieve it. You can trade in a set of 5 memory fragments for a small cash bonus and a few points toward getting a salary increase.
    • Tiki Girl (defective) also tells you that you can technically view the memory fragments through her console, which you can choose to do.
• At 5 memory shards turned in
  • +1 plot
  • +1 bonus
  • +1 toward salary increase
• At 10 memory shards
  • +1 bonus
  • +1 toward salary increase
• At 15 memory shards
  • +1 plot
  • +1 bonus
  • +1 toward salary increase
• At 20 memory shards
  • +1 bonus
  • +1 toward salary increase
• At 25 memory shards
  • +1 plot
  • +1 bonus
  • +1 toward salary increase
• At 30 memory shards
  • Red string of fate (Macguffin)
  • Ending
  • +1 bonus
  • +salary increase
• The mechanic Shopkeep can eventually help you upgrade your ship which will enable you to travel further into the universe (you must be fully upgraded to reach the official game end condition.)
  • MECHANICAL UPGRADE QUESTLINE
    • The main overview of this questline is that the mechanic themselves is a metaphorical ship of theseus. Parts likes being a mechanic, but feels inadequate in their profession. They want upgrades to become more efficient, and their self-doubt means they’re willing to sacrifice an unnecessary amount of themselves to achieve something that only feeds their self doubts. The player can either feed in to this for their own benefit or help them realize that their passion for the work is what makes them good at it.
• Quest 1: Any attempts to talk to the mechanic fail, their head prints messages too slowly to maintain any conversation. You can find a head upgrade that will allow for them to communicate faster. They are grateful and promise a small reward for your gift.
• Quest 2: The mechanic starts getting frustrated at their limitations. They believe they aren’t efficient enough and request you go and find more upgrades to themselves. This quest could probably have multiple mini-quests. It becomes clear as the mini-quests progress that the mechanic is no longer looking for upgrades to make their life good, but to make it solely more efficient. They’re erasing parts of themselves for an unattainable goal of perfection.
• Quest 3 A: The player refuses to assist the mechanic any further, and by picking the correct dialogue options can convince them to let it go. This quest requires the player to find special scrap (perhaps in a wormhole) that reminds the mechanic of their passion. The mechanic reverts, becoming less efficient but being far happier with themselves.
• Quest 3 B: The player continues to upgrade the mechanic, soon the robot no longer acts as they once did. They’re cold now, solely worried about upgrading ships as efficiently as possible. It's clear they’ve lost who they are.
• The pirate Shopkeep will be part of a larger space pirate syndicate which will threaten you as you collect scrap of value, you can sacrifice some of your high value scrap to deter them/throw them off your tail. (You can buy back the pirated items from the pirate shopkeep.)
  • PIRATE SYNDICATE QUESTLINE
    • This questline is heavily related to her relationship with Adanna’s syndicate leader father who is currently on “business”, codeword for probably in jail. The father has a good relationship with their kid, but she has mixed feelings toward her Dad because she loves him and secretly thinks he’s really cool, but due to how he has to raise her considering his occupation she has learned to only really rely on herself and generally does not rely on faith/trust in others. The player will help the pirate learn to trust people again/cope with the flawed father.
• Quest 1: Retrieve an item that the pirate (Adanna) lost. The item is of great importance to them, and likely ties in to their parents. It could be evidence to free them, a map to treasure, or anything that the parent would consider important. The player finds out about it by accident, eavesdropping on a call the pirate is making with the people who they hired. The pirate is initially hostile when the player returns the item, but begrudgingly thanks them.