Being a Good Robot in Citizen Sleeper (Spoilers!)

I was pleasantly surprised by the numerous paths and choices available in the very cool, highly enjoyable RPG Citizen Sleeper.  One path in particular stood out to me and I decided to roll with it (even though there were clearly other things that I had missed or hadn't fully experienced).  For my first character I decided to roll an engineer and so found myself gravitating toward the shipyards because of the modifier I received.  It was at the shipyards where I first encountered the father-daughter duo of Lem and Mina.  (Spoilers ahead for one of the endings!)

It was a bit odd to encounter a large, burly engineer holding a small child at a shipyard, so I couldn't help but to want to approach them.  Lem is at the yard because he's hoping to get work on the colony ship that is being constructed--he reveals a juicy little tidbit too--workers who help build the ship will be eligible to be entered into a lottery for a spot on the ship when it is completed.  He desperately hopes to find a spot on the ship for himself and Mina.  Only...Mina is part of the problem--there's no one to watch her while Lem is working.  Here, you have the choice to volunteer to watch Mina while Lem takes a shift in the shipyard.  It's a bit awkward--the robot babysitting scenario, but if you make a few correct choices the shift passes and Mina's relatively content.

After successfully completing your first babysitting gig you are presented with the option to spend some of your daily dice watching Mina while Lem works on the ship.  It takes a few shifts, but after Lem has worked a few days he has saved up enough money to hire someone so your babysitting gig ends.  The downside of spending time watching Mina is that you don't get paid, so that's something to consider.

The best way for my character to make money was working in the shipyards, so I spent quite a bit of time helping construct the colony ship.  Plus, there was always the chance that my character could be entered in the lottery.  It takes quite some time (but much less with the engineering modifier) but the ship is finally completed and ready for departure.

You can meet Lem and Mina at the shipyards where you attend the lottery drawing.  A large, rowdy crowd of workers has also turned up and even before the drawing happens the scene has an anxious feeling.  The drawing starts and you immediately notice that none of the workers are celebrating as the numbers are called...who is actually getting picked?  It's here that you realize that the only people getting picked are the elite, executive workers--the corporation had no intention of ever actually letting the workers on the ship!  Go figure...but Lem's dreams are crushed as you convince him to leave before the violence starts.

Several days later you can re-visit Lem and Mina's house.  It's a hot mess--dirty and unkempt--and it's apparent that Lem has sunken into a bit of a depression about the lottery.  He reveals that he isn't actually Mina's father and that he was part of a military operation being run by a corporation to capture colonists who had escaped from corporate worlds.  His ship attacked a colonist ship and Mina was the only survivor (thanks to someone who sealed her into a locker before the ship lost all its air in the attack).  Lem adopted Mina, quit the corporate military and wound up on the station.  You can talk to Lem and cheer him up.

Once you've explored the Spoke you can find the completed colony ship moored there.  If you visit the ship you discover that it's under heavy guard--there's not much of a chance of sneaking aboard, so you need to find something more legitimate.  Earlier in the game I encountered a man in Lowend named Castor who seems to know a lot about everything that is going on.  You can sell him data in exchange for some decent items (a ship mind and a vial of stabilizer).  After you approach the moored ship, Castor approaches you with a proposal--he can get you forged ID's that will get Lem and Mina spots on the ship, but there's a catch--your character has to steal data from a Celis Corporation ship moored in the shipyards (something that's a bit risky) AND he injects your character with a tracker and tells you that you need to be aboard the ship too.

Stealing the data went smoothly and then it was only a matter of time to wait for the ship to be ready to depart.  After several cycles you can visit Lem and Mina and share the good news--Lem is ecstatic!  As you arrive at the ship it's a bit tense as they scan the ID's...will they actually work, or will you get caught?  Everything goes smoothly and it's here that you can make the decision to stay on the station or to board the ship with Lem and Mina.  The thought popped into my head--what about stabilizer?  If you get on the ship, won't your character die because they won't have access to the drugs they need?

The story ends on a divided note--the colony ship sails through space for decades but never arrives at any planet.  Lem grows old and dies; Mina grows up and is with your character as its systems slowly shut down over time.  It's not really a good ending, but it's not really a bad ending.

I felt good about helping Lem and Mina achieve their dream of leaving the station on the colony ship.  It was a bit of a downer to find out that the ship never actually arrives at a planet.  It felt like a bit of self-sacrifice knowing that your character would die without the stabilizer.  I've resisted the urge to look up all the potential endings and am looking forward to starting up a new playthrough so I can make different choices.