SC2: Old-School rears its ugly opposite-of-head

So, I'm playing Star Control II, mining my own planets, when the game decides to slowly end on me, in a way that means my numerous saves are now useless.  It wasn't an immediate "this is what happens because you didn't do this" cue card like you'd usually see in modern stuff, but a slow, plodding event that I couldn't figure out, and thought that I had partially remedied.  When I finally find out what's going on, I'm well into hours of game time that I could have been...  I dunno...  playing a different game, playing the same game a few saves back, piling up wet grass clippings into the shape of a soggy pyramid....  whatever.

Maybe if I stuck with it I would figure out a way to undo everything in some sort of science-fictiony  way, or at least gather intelligence about stuff now that I don't have to worry so much about former obstacles but...  I doubt they'd be simultaneously so kind as to allow that sort of out, and so cruel as to do what they did and expect me to keep playing.  Thank you SC2, for invalidating my time with you. 

Not that I'm giving up necessarily; I started again.  It's just...  not all old-school is good-school.

Added the very next day:

And now, my second time through, more allies get wiped out.  This feels like a puzzle that will take a very long time to complete, with many do-overs.  I'm happy so many people manage to love this game, but despite my feeling that I'm playing a classic every time I start it up, I think this game's a bit too cruel for my tastes.  The only
way I learn I've made a bad decision is when a given ally's cities are smoldering debris, long after I've moved on and think everything is fine.  Is it my fault that they're up front about being allies with me to the evil guys who will kill them if they hear such news?  Apparently so.

Maybe it's me, maybe it's the game, but I'm beyond caring any more.  I salute anyone with enough time on their hands to either build up the intelligence needed to figure everything out the first time through, or time to ram into catastrophic losing conditions and start over and over until things run smoothly.  I remember my actions having consequences in Fallout, but I remember the world not falling apart because I didn't pick the right words in a dialog tree.  Maybe bits of it did, but...

feh.

And the goofy thing is, I still want to play it.  But I think I'm going to leave this abusive relationship for now and go back to Xeen.