Let's see how SC2 starts to have a point of reference.

1. We just arrived to Sol and the Earth is red.

2. Arrived to the Starbase, got a fetch quest.

3. Completed the fetch quest, were sent to the Moon.

4. Investigated the moon, got confronted with Ilwrath.

5. Killed Ilwrath, got sent to Pluto, Spathi recruitment mission begins, open world.

Not bad, but not that great either.

Let's compare it to the "current story as it goes right now":

1. Leaving Sol without weapons. Since when humans became so naive? Why did captain of Magellan not ask for at least 1 homing nuclear missile? = mistake #1

2. Sent out to break up asteroids and mine other stuffs outside solar system? Whose genius business idea was it? Why do I care to do it? = mistake #2

3. Nobody cared about strange hairless apes with capability to destroy a planet with nukular bombs? Really?.. = mistake #3

Well, what do we have here now? An ultimate failure of a start.

Here's my start.

1. The First inter-solar expedition is sent out to reach and explore Alpha Centauri.

2. Something goes wrong (not even my words ) with the hyperdrive, wormhole gets created and you get sucked into it and spat out near some unknown star system. Hyperdrive pulls through to warp you out of hyperspace into that system and goes kaput.

3. Hull is damaged. Hyperdrive is fubared. Half the crew is lost to physical and mental damage. Battle for survival begins.

4. What's the first thing you do since you're lucky enough to end up in the system with planets? You go explore the planets!! Why? 'Cause there's nothing else you can do about your broken ship! Duh?!

5. Oh, wait, what's there? That's some alien (Tywom) there!! Wowzers! First contact. They offer to fix your stuff in exchange for rescuing their lead scientist that got captured by some life-form on Alpha Centauri 3. They are out of landers or scared shirtless of that life-form (some type of Proctophobia?).

6. You go to the planet just to find out that that "life-form" is a massive cock...roach. Like whale size? You request for a tactical nuke strike from orbiting planet Magellan and it gets delivered in spectacular fashion covering your lander in roaches brain and testicles (who knew they had 15 hundreds of them). Created by the blast crater uncovers some cool minerals that you pick up along the roaches biomass.

7. You got played. There was never a scientist. You learn your lesson and confront Tywom that thought they could fudge about with some hairless apes from Sol 3. They knew you had nukes on board and just wanted you to "take care" of the roach for their scientific purposes, 'cause their expedition ship didn't have enough firepower to do it. They are extremely sorry and offer to fix your stuff for free + the sign of trust and friendship they give you their homeworld coordinates. They also tell you that whoever assembled your hyper-drive, stuck the battery the wrong way and asked why does it say "made in China" on most of its components, 'cause apparently China means Rectal Indentation in Tywomish... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

8. Repaired and refueled you warp into hyperspace to find that the Sol is only 10 light years away and you can reach it in a matter of couple of days (15 seconds of game time). Your journey begins here.