The story focuses on Tommy, a garage mechanic living on a Native American reservation in
Oklahoma. At the beginning of the game, Tommy is in a bar owned by his girlfriend, Jen. After an unfortunate bar fight, the bar is lifted up by a gravitational force, as various items are sucked from their stationary positions into a green light above. Tommy, Jen and a tribe elder are transported into shuttlecraft to be transported back to the sphere. After docking, all three, along with countless other captives, are dragged through the upper levels of the sphere and Tommy is freed in an explosion set off by a stranger who, despite being cybernetic like most of the sphere's denizens, appears to be working against it rather than for it.
The Sphere
The Sphere is an organic,
Texas-sized alien ship similar in shape to a
Dyson sphere (though many orders of magnitude smaller). It has a small, concentrated sun at its core, which is used to support itself and all life inside it. The origin of the Sphere is unclear, but its main goal is to maintain itself. It travels the galaxy searching for various alien races to maintain it, like white blood cells in a body. It also uses these races as food to provide much needed extra energy to sustain the Sphere and its sun. The Sphere is fused with cybernetic enhancements, and has the power to manipulate gravity inside of itself. Various walkways allow the occupants to walk on walls and ceilings. Switches that change the direction of gravity are present, causing the floor to become the ceiling. The Sphere also has the ablility to produce portals to other sections at will. This implies that the Sphere is in a constant state of flux, existing in multiple dimensions at once. These portals allow occupants to move much faster around the Sphere and fufill their duties more efficiently.
The Sphere divides the multiple races into a few categories. Workers are employed as slaves for all purposes to maintain the Sphere. They have the least freedom and are underlings to all other catorgories. Workers are the least dangerous but are prone to attacking if confronted by a hostile visitor. Most of the workers want to get off and destroy the Sphere, but have abandoned these hopes long ago. Workers are also prone to experimentation by the scientists. Scientists are intelligent races employed on the Sphere to research technologies that help extend the reach, influence, power, and life of the Sphere. Scientists experiment on other races that are deemed to have potential for experimentation. These experiments result in horrible mutated creatures who are designed to help and succeed the guards. The Sphere's experiments are similar to the
Strogg of the
Quake series, as they do anything to ensure combat efficiency, which results in cruel and inhumane creatures that lurk in the corridors of the Sphere. The guards are strong and efficient races that enforce the Sphere's rules like a police force. The guards are often stronger than the workers but less intelligent than scientists. The guards will mercilessly kill anyone who resists the commands of the Sphere, including Tommy. The guards are given more leeway than the workers as they are more important and influential. The only real motivation of the guard races is to keep a higher authority in the Sphere and keep themselves from dying a painful death in experimentation. Workers who fail to comply with the guards are given as food to the Sphere. Multiple species may be consumed as more energy for the Sphere.
