By "the first time around" you mean playing the game "for the first time", correct? Hmmm....I don't know either.
At first, I worried about missing some characters by turning the emergency receiver off, too. For quite a while I didn't meet anybody except Xavier Shondi on Crius and Maria Gabriel on Bex. But, at one point in the game, the e-mails started pouring in. I think it was after I could afford to buy my Heretic fighter but I'm not sure.
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No one will hear your cry of death in the void of space