Background By the early 24th century, humanity has colonised the
Solar System, and the Earth is plagued with various issues, such as
civil unrest, food shortages, and
climate change. The player character, who is desperate to leave Earth and relocate to other colonies, signed an exploitative contract with Lynx Corporation to become one of its shipbreakers, who are responsible for salvaging abandoned spacecraft in search of useful materials. After signing the contracts, the player character becomes the official property of Lynx. When they die at the worksite, Lynx, which also owns the character's
DNA sequence, can reconstitute the player and return them to work.
Plot The player character, designated Shipbreaker #9346-52 (addressed variously by others simply as "52", "Rookie", or "Cutter"), is assigned to the Lynx Corporation salvage yard at Morrigan Station in orbit around Earth, to
work off the $1.2 billion debt accumulated from signing up for the program. They are introduced to the other workers on their crew: Lou Steiner, Kaito Kovetchin, DeeDee Curazon, and the foreman, Joseph Weaver, who is the main point of interaction. As the player progresses through their contracts, Weaver takes a liking to the new shipbreaker, and eventually offers them his old ship, named
Beulah for his mother, to fix up for themselves, using parts retrieved from salvaged ships. At the same time, Lou introduces them to the private E-mail server of an illegal
unionization movement made up of disaffected Lynx employees pushing for better working conditions, in particular protesting against the "EverWork" program that allows Lynx to reconstitute shipbreakers to continue working when they are killed on the job. In order to combat the growing union sentiment, Lynx sends administrators to oversee the shipbreaker crews. The administrator sent to Weaver's crew, Hal Rhodes, pushes them forward without any regard for proper training or safety, and regularly berates the crew for not reaching their quotas. The naive Kaito becomes a particular target for Rhodes' ire, causing Lou to stand up to Rhodes in his defense. Lou continues to agitate for unionization, while Weaver attempts to reason with Rhodes. Matters reach a head when Kaito reveals the union movement's secret E-mail server to Rhodes, who discovers a message from Lou condemning his methods. Rhodes immediately fires her and removes privileges from the remaining shipbreakers, including taking Weaver's ship from the player character. Rhodes' petty cruelty ultimately leads Weaver and his crew to agree with Lou's standpoint and push for
industrial action, deliberately sabotaging the work in order to damage Lynx's profits. When Kaito threatens to deposit an overloading ship's reactor into a furnace, Rhodes deletes Kaito's EverWork profile, meaning he will not be reconstituted if he is killed, and threatens to go after the crew's families for their debts. The reactor explodes and destroys Kaito's salvage yard, much to the horror of both the crew and Rhodes, believing Kaito was killed in the blast; however, he is revealed to have survived, having lost contact due to a malfunction in his suit helmet's microphone. Since all communications during salvage shifts are recorded per Lynx policy, Weaver leaks Rhodes' tirades during the incident to the media, resulting in protests and a massive drop in Lynx's corporate stock. The Stellar Commission condemns Lynx's EverWork program as a human rights violation, and Lynx is forced to reimburse their workers for most of their debts and agree to recognize the workers' union. Rhodes is demoted back to his old job in salvage processing, Weaver retires and returns to Earth, Lou is rehired, and DeeDee becomes the temporary foreman. If the player has finished salvaging parts for the ship and is out of debt, they can choose to legally terminate their Lynx contract and leave Morrigan Station in the
Beulah, setting out for
Jupiter. ==Development and release==