A really well done game, with lots of polish and a great story throughout! The process of putting in the cores is a bit slow to start with, and I almost gave up before the first upgrades happened, thinking that it would all be a manual process. Once they came through though, I found it very satisfying - my main criticism would be that the 'fun' unlocks came a bit late and I didn't have many cores left to try them out with.
All that said, I think this could be one of the best I've seen so far in terms of overall story, polish and take on the theme! Nice work!