“Everything breaks. You don’t.”

In the wake of the Project Helix Collapse, where starships drift half-dead and infrastructure is a myth, Engineers are the people who make survival possible. You’re the last line of defense between your crew and the void – and probably the reason your ship still breathes at all.

If you’re the kind of person who sees a sparking bulkhead and thinks, I can fix that (with binding foam and a crowbar), this guide is for you.

🔧 Who Is the Engineer?

Engineers in OtherSpace aren’t lab-coat technicians or slick corporate troubleshooters. That era’s gone.

You’re:

• A post-collapse survivor with grease under your nails and too many systems in your head.
• Someone who speaks fluent jank – the language of spliced wires, jury-rigged cooling coils, and systems cobbled from four other systems.
• The person who keeps the lights on. Or reroutes them when they fail.

You might be:

• A ship-rat raised in the crawlspaces of a freighter that never landed.
• A reclaimer who salvages and revives tech from the ruins of Helix-era stations.
• A burnout with a stim problem and a reputation for keeping things alive that shouldn’t be.
• A modder mystic who worships entropy but delays it with duct tape.

⚙️ Core RP Themes

1. Fix It or Die – There’s no backup. If it breaks, you improvise.
2. Past the Red Line – You’re always operating under stress: heat, radiation, time, ghosts.
3. The Soul of the Ship – Machines remember. Sometimes they respond.
4. Grey Morality – You might cannibalize the last medbay to restart the life support.

🧠 Character Concepts

• The Grizzled Ship-Rat – Raised aboard wreckage, knows every bolt like family.
• The Idealistic Reclaimer – Trying to bring back hope one reactor coil at a time.
• The Mad Modder – Duct-tapes grav tech to jump boots and sees what happens.
• The Burnout Techwitch – Hacked their own nervous system just to get five more minutes of uptime.
• The Ghost Whisperer – Thinks the ship talks to them. Sometimes they answer.

🛠️ Tools of the Trade

• Binding Foam & Zip Ties – It’s not fixed, but it’s not failing.
• Portable Scanner – Used to be top of the line. Still mostly works.
• Jury-Rigged Drone – Follows commands. Mostly.
• Electro-Goggles – One cracked lens. Still better than nothing.
• Luck – You’ll need more of it than parts.

⚠️ RP Challenges to Explore

• The ship’s power grid is screaming, and you have to choose between engines or life support.
• You salvage a working jump core from a plague-locked wreck. What could go wrong?
• Someone’s sabotaging your work, and they’re doing it with tools only you know how to use.
• The AI wakes up mid-repair. It remembers you. It’s angry.
• A crew member wants a cybernetic “upgrade” that could fry half your systems.

🤝 Hooks for Other Characters

• You argue constantly with the medic about “acceptable exposure levels.”
• You need the merchant to track down obsolete parts.
• You clean up after the scavenger – or work with them to rebuild.
• You love-hate the spy who keeps reprogramming your lockouts.
• You built the pilot’s crash rig. You both know it probably won’t hold.

✨ Final Thoughts

Engineers don’t get medals. They get scar tissue and callused hands. But when the reactor’s hot and the hull is leaking air, they’re the only reason anyone makes it to the next cycle.

So grab a wrench, check the pressure seals, and brace for failure.
It’s not about perfection. It’s about surviving the next five minutes.