We're a spacefarer from a doomed planet and we're exploring the galaxy to document unexplored planets on behalf of some sort of spacefarer's association or governing body. The doom of our home planet is nothing especially dramatic: what's happened is that it's under some sort of quarantine, and there's some sort of stigma involved ... it's not made especially clear, but I get the impression that we come from a tribalistic culture which makes our loyalty to the overarching governing body a potential question.
The first part of the game is structured a bit like a resource grinder: we go to planets, explore, pick up stuff, and sell our discoveries for upgrades to our ship. In between expeditions, we also have cutscenes to further establish the story and our place in the cosmos. But then we find ourself stuck on one strange planet, and the game becomes more of a traditional adventure game, albeit one navigated via hypertext, similar to CYOA. Given some of the choices, I imagine there are quite a few potential ways this story could end.
We do manage to pick up a pet at one point ... or possibly we could ignore it and leave it behind. I'm not sure what this adds to the story, though I suspect it's meant to give us something to care about besides ourselves. It would have been nice, I think, if having this pet around added an option or two to the final conflicts.
Taken from beginning to end, it's really a pretty satisfying story. I wasn't expecting it to be, honestly. There's a sort of melancholy pervading the story, only partially due to our having cut all ties to our home world in order to take up this new life as a solitary spacefarer. If it were breakfast, I think it would be congee, lukewarm, with salted white fish. Not the most colourful, but it does fill you up.