The Exodus of humanity from a dead Earth would not be a spotless transition. Aside from the massive environmental toll it would take on their new star system, making the trip at all was dangerous. Usually a team of highly skilled pilots supported by highly intelligent NAVI (Navigational AI) would ensure that the 11 year trip to the Ross 128 star system went as smoothly as possible. That was the case until the final human Caravan suffered a massive air leak near the star system due to a stray piece of undetected space detritus. Out of the 55 crew members only an intern was close enough to reach the emergency airlock and control panel before the ship. In order to stabilize the new weight of the ship due to the loss of internal air pressure and the destruction of the hull, the intern was forced to jettison off as many of the ship components as possible, including making the difficult decision to shed the memory payload and the data cache for all the human cargo who remained in cryosleep in the belly of the ship which was thankfully preserved.

The intern carefully facilitated the final days of the trip into the habitable zone of the star system and arrived at the Mir II “Turf” which serves as the intergalactic immigration hub. They were forced to explain the tragic situation to the higher ups. The II intern was let go on accounts of misconduct. The IIH formerly known as “The Bureaucracy” would be having none of that heroic rule breaking nonsense. Do you even KNOW how much paperwork that would be?

Which brings us to now. How are they supposed to deal with all of their problems at once? This failed Emigration was the last thing they needed on their plate. They already had to deal with the space debris crisis, the black market that was sprouting up, people breaking interstellar laws, the oncoming eldritch threat and now they had to find jobs for people who had absolutely no forms of identification? That’s a glorified DMV’s nightmare.

Naturally the only solution was to kill two birds with one stone, and procrastinate on all the other immediate issues. The IIH sets up a new initiative and wakes the new human immigrants from their cryosleep. According to the CDI (Cosmic Debris Initiative): Every working age individual is offered a “civic servant” opportunity and through that, affordable housing and a ship. The job? Simple. Clean up the very space debris that led to the destruction of the ship and the loss of their memory and identification data.

But it’s not like our protagonist [temp name Zach] really has much of a choice to say otherwise. It’s not like he knows anything about himself. How would he even do a job interview? “What are your special skills?” “I don’t know I lost my memories.” “What’s your address?” “Don’t have one yet.” “Social security number?” “Also gone…” It would be a complete effort in futility. So he begrudgingly accepts the position and his trashy apartment in the dark levels of the space station, and meets his new ship [name] and his NAVI who he affectionately? calls “Tiki Girl.” or T.G. (Teegie).

He is made aware that his goal should be to collect enough trash to meet his daily portion of cleaning as per the CDI’s demands, and sell it either back to the CDI for recycling purposes or he is allowed  to find other clients who will purchase specific scrap types for higher prices. He just has to make sure to pay off his ship loan and ensure that rent gets met every evening. He gets a bad vibe that the Bureaucracy is completely incompetent and is annoyed but couldn’t care less as long as it doesn’t directly affect him.

Zach and Teegie begin their continuous day to day loop of traveling to different sectors on the star map, collecting scrap, fighting off space pirates, and doing some crafty “resource management” in order to get the highest payout on their scrap. Meanwhile they meet a dynamic cast of characters (clients) on their escapades including but not limited to the child leader of a crime syndicate, an ancient alien who studies otherworldly artifacts, a half-human memory librarian who motivates him to find his own memories, a robot mechanic named Parts who can upgrade their dinky little ship, and the very charming? face of the black market. Zach has the opportunity to take on individualized mercenary jobs from them as well as keeping up with his usual collection duties.

But often the stories that come with these jobs and the tasks that require them are extremely physically and emotionally intensive. Zach must decide who he wants to become through the decisions he makes within each questline and learn about his past through memory fragments he finds scattered across the star system. As he retrieves memory fragments and completes quests for people, life and color begins to seep back into their new grungy world as its inhabitants regain their abilities to forge meaningful bonds outside of just trying to survive, and Zach’s own calloused demeanor shifts into a more cautiously optimistic one.

However, things are never that simple. Remember that eldritch issue that the Bureaucracy was worried about? The IIH is still procrastinating on it, but the problem is far from going away. Displeased with all the “junk” in the universe, a dead god is going on a “cleaning spree” and purging entire worlds from existence. And, as the old adage goes, to do a good clean you have to accept that there will be a bit of mess. In this case that mess is portals to other dimensions opening up within the Ross 128 star system. And things are leaking out.

Zach and Teegie see the portals and the higher value scrap surrounding their entrances and realize that they could potentially pose a very high value business opportunity. After some deliberation, they can choose to enter one of these worlds and realize that not only are the portal worlds crumbling around them, but that their own world might be next to go.

They realize that they must keep going through these portals in order to find more clues by snagging items of high value and interest, doing what they can to learn if and how they can resolve the whole issue of their world potentially being destroyed at any moment. However, with each portal they enter, the exposure to the other worlds seems to risk doing some serious damage to Tiki Girl, so every experience fishing out scrap is time sensitive and must be limited.

After they have entered and completed all of the worlds they will learn from the ancient occult alien shopkeep that there is an “end of the universe” and if they want a chance at stopping the universe from being destroyed they must travel there and seek counsel with the eldritch god who holds the life of their world in its hands and try to convince the deity that their world is worth saving, that it’s not just full of disposable junk anymore. If they fail their world resets from the beginning of the story and the player has to find out how to add value to the world of Zach and T.G. and their lives before they realize what is going on and confront the eldritch god again. If they are successful the deity will preserve their world… giving them a chance to prove their worth as the last surviving intelligent world in the universe.