No game has lived up to SMAC for me. I feel that was the first game that was 'art' and showed me what games could become. I am glad to hear that others feel the same way. 13 year old me was obsessed with it. This quote helped change my life and made me look at myself in a different way, a revolutionary thing back in those days:
"I sit in my cubicle, here on the motherworld. When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose of it in the cold ground. And in all the million ages to come, I will never breathe, or laugh, or twitch again. So won't you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity? The universe has spared us this moment." -Anonymous, Datalinks (played when the player first constructs the hab dome building).
I always see this quote with this fresco: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--rQuNLP71fA/UdonE8DAuAI/AAAAAAAAC...