Kyle Brennan, a test pilot from Earth, appeared in the X-Universe in the year 2912 (Earth time) because the test of a revolutionary jump drive went wrong somehow, stranding him with no idea where he was or how to get home. Eventually, he came into contact with the Argon, a people very similar to himself, and learned that the wars five centuries earlier against Earth terraformers in the stories he had known were one and the same with the Xenon conflict in this universe. As the Xenon/terraformers were preparing an attack on Earth itself in retaliation for their defeat so long ago, Kyle saved his home by destroying the Xenon's superweapon. Unfortunately, it also meant he was trapped in this alien universe.
Due to the many friends he had made in those difficult days in his quest against the Xenon, many helped in efforts to reconstruct the jump drive of the X-Perimental Shuttle, but with no success. He has been living in the X-Universe ever since.
You are Julian Gardna, a criminal with more than a few acts of larceny on your record. You and your friend, Bret Sarra, are captured during an attempt to steal an M5 from an Argon station and sent to a penal colony. In transit, however, you are pulled off the prison transport by the Argon secret service and sent to a rehabilitation facility on Argon Prime.
Five mazuras later, you receive a summons to meet Ban Danna, head of the Argon secret service, aboard the Argon One, the flagship of the Argon Federation. As you have been meeting with him regularly, presumably in the role of a parole officer, you are nonetheless surprised when he offers you, straight up, your own M5 ship! He encourages you to contact one Elena Kho, the VP of a company called TerraCorp, in the sector Home of Light, for a job, to make an honest living doing honest work. You are free to take the ship and leave, but indications are made that it would be in your best interest to take the offered position at the universe's largest engine manufacturer.
There are several items you can add to your ship to make it better suited to particular tasks.
These items you can find and trade anywhere in the X-Universe. They are produced and purchased by every race.
Agricultural products are in some way converted to foodstuffs (or illicit drugs). Each race has a specialty or two in agriculture, but each only consumes a single foodstuff.
Each race has a foodstuff required by almost all factories in their controlled sectors.
There are two drugs which are almost universally illegal in the X-Universe: Spacefuel (distilled liquor from Delexian Wheat) and spaceweed (a narcotic hallucinogen). Get caught in any sector with Spacefuel and you could lose your cargo, reputation, and/or your life. Spaceweed is perfectly legal in Teladi space, but don't get caught by other races with it in your cargo hold. The same goes for the swamp plant, which is what spaceweed is made from. If you can deliver them to pirates, however, they are willing to pay for these goods.
Only the Paranid have a luxury item.
Once you get enough money, you can start purchasing space stations that can do the hard work of making money for you, leaving you time to build your reputation around the galaxy or blast the Xenon to bits. You can purchase almost anything; here's the full list of the stations you can buy.