Yes, the story engine is the core system. It's primarily what I used for my solo game, as Traveller has enough other systems to fill in the world running. But I think the character engine might be simpler than using something like the Traveller 5 personals system if you truly need some randomness to how NPCs will react.
DragonBard
I'm going to suggest the Motif system, as it has Story, Character, and World emulators that might make it easier to run.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/7970/thought-punks/category/38729/motif-framework
I have used this system for a solo game of Traveller and it worked quite well.
One per universe. Of course I play ttrpgs.
This was available for pre-order through Anderson Entertainment. Those of us who did so already have the full preview PDF and we'll be getting the book first.
I've had to do that so I could install new firmware to enable matter, but after that didn't need to access the manufacturer account anymore.
Already own those. They are quite good and if you like random tables of fun stuff with an excellent Traveller theme, I recommend them.
Blue Planet is getting an update - Blue Planet: Recontact
The Kickstarter closed some time ago, and several beta PDFs have been provided.
Followed the link, only to discover that I already purchased that book...
The facsimile edition is a high quality scan of the 1981 LBBs that has been cleaned up and had errata either directly inserted or marked to indicate the page for the updates.
I'm a registered user of LotW, but not an ARRL member. Pretty sure they sent it to all registered users.