Ironseed

In the 38th century, Earth has long since been destroyed, to utter its name is a blasphemy. Humanity resides on Mars, ruled by a technocracy consisting of five priests calling themselves the Pentateuch. They began to purge the planet of their political rivals, but this backfired. An underground movement began, with a plan to free humanity from the Pentateuch. A virus was to be released throughout the planet, and the underground would flee on a ship called the Ironseed. Unfortunately, thanks to a computer error, what was supposed to be a thousand days turned into a thousand years, and now you're lost, far from home. Worse still, you are awakened from your slumber, after an alien attack.

Ironseed is a RPG strategy game along the lines of Star Control 2. You are the captain of the titular spaceship, but you are not really a figure in-game. Instead, you get to choose which ship you would like the Ironseed to be, along with its 6 staff officers, consisting of Psychometry, Engineering, Science, Security, Astrogation and Medical. You have to upgrade your ship in order to deal with the various hostile aliens across the galaxy. Your crew is also a concern, as the bodies of all quarter of a million people that made up the rebellion were left behind so that light speed could be achieved. Now they're all brains encased in goo. Their mental stability and research is a delicate balance that must be tended to carefully. You can also talk to them via a keyword system.

Once you chose your starting ship, the whole galaxy is your oyster. Each planet is unique and is made of various elements. With mining drones, you can then use those elements to build components, weapons, shields and upgrades. Every feature your ship starts with can be upgraded later. As your staff become more and more experienced you can build better and better equipment. Various alien artefacts found across the galaxy can be used to discover new equipment, or just to increase the experience of your staff.

One of Ironseed's then unique features was that any planet could develop an alien civilization, which you could communicate and trade with, as their fortunes grew and fell. But these minor races are just that, minor. Ten major races occupy the galaxy, some hostile, some friendly. Over the course of the game, you need to revive an ancient alliance to take out a new threat, the very same aliens that attacked you, and present a growing threat to the galaxy.