The Voyage of The Pervicacious
The imagination of humanity has a tendency toward the extremes. It's at the extremes that the excitement is found. Fortunately, reality has a tendency toward the mean. The reality for the humanity of the 2080s is about what you'd expect. Life on Earth is rough, but not especially rough compared to eras past. The second space race has come and gone, leaving the masses to figure out the rules of yet another new status quo.
For Rafael Jager, the current status quo sucks. Born to a family shackled by corporate debt, his childhood in middle America was anything but glamorous. Like so many other Americans, his day-to-day life was filled with continual drudgery. His only real path forward involved borrowing money he didn't have, to pay for things he didn't want, in the hopes that one day he'd be able to pay everything off. However, all his life, the celestial void called to him. Above his head, arcing through the heavens, were vehicles to endless possibilities.
The present state of the Solar System is controlled chaos similar to the wild west. It's filled to the brim with space pirates, asteroid miners, and organized crime. Not to mention, the remnants of the great governmental powers of the Earth System. When an opportunity to venture into space presents itself, Rafael decides to take it. An exciting death in space is better than a life of corporate serfdom on Earth. This risk isn't without a possible reward. Per his deal with a mysterious man, Captain Jessie Hoxie, untold riches may await him if his voyage upon The Pervicacious proves to be successful. Only time will tell. Either way, Rafael is in for a grand adventure of a lifetime.