Working Your Way Through the Stars

And the Bastionland Podcast Returns

This Week’s post looks at the many responsibilities of a starship crew.

Life as Crew

Ships large enough to travel between the stars are a big investment, so most interstellar travellers get around as part of a captain’s crew. A standard sized ship has a crew nearing one-thousand souls.

Below the captain, crew are split into three broad tiers.

• Officers - Each with a sprawling responsibility, reporting directly to the captain. An average ship has six.

• Heads - Specialists and senior crew who lead subteams and train new crewmembers, reporting to an officer. An average ship has seventy-two.

• Hands - General crew doing the bulk of the actual work. An average ship has eight-hundred.

Officers commonly form a close circle with their most trusted Heads, and maybe a few Hands, referred to as their Table. As well as eating together they often undertake shared ventures during shore leave.

Assigning Roles Each Officer is appointed to their station directly by the Captain. Officers then freely assign roles to their Heads.

Codes and Conventions A crew is held together by a sprawl of rules, traditions, and superstitions that follow spacefarers across the living stars. Naturally, each ship puts their own spin on things, but it has led to a somewhat recognised set of positions that a ship will aim to fill.

These are the six most common Officer Stations each followed by the twelve most common Head Roles found beneath them and their area of responsibility. Overlapping responsibilities are opportunities for buckpassing, landgrabbing, and creditstealing.

Below all this, even the Hands are broken into tiers and titles, but the ship’s Auster is already on my back for wasting time.

High Merchant - Responsible for the ship’s financial success.

• Broker - Trade negotiations

• Fragholder - Liquid funds

• Purser - Improving profits

• Assayer - Goods valuation

• Marketeer - Market forces

• Appraiser - Item valuation

• Exchanger - Internal transactions

• Remitter - Transactions in

• Bailiff - Transactions out

• Comptroller - Financial efficiency

• Auster - Resource efficiency

• Vaulthead - Frag storage

Archmarshal in Arms - Responsible for the ship’s military and security concerns.

• Armourer - Small arms

• Gunwarden - Naval guns

• Castellan - Deckbound combat

• Sergeant - External combat

• Drillchief - Readiness training

• Vanguard - Dangerous recon

• Surveillant - Internal security

• Voidhound - Enemy intelligence

• Highguard - Captain’s security

• Dropmajor - Mission entry

• Retriever - Mission extraction

• Hood - Interrogation/execution

Commander-at-the-Helm - Responsible for the ship’s travel and operation.

• Astrogator - Route planning

• Pilot - Orbital flight

• Driver - Interplanetary flight

• Underwatch - Interstellar flight

• Overbosun - Ship’s boats

• Router - External Pings

• Addressor - Internal Pings

• Wavesayer - Wave comms

• Lookout - Operate scanners

• Anomaler - Cosmic phenomena

• Envoy - Comms content

• Anchorer - Docking and release

Mate of Papers - Responsible for the records and data that allow for well-informed decisions.

• Ledgereeve - Event records

• Librarian - Data management

• Upperclerk - Data processing

• Auditor - Error correction

• Chronologue - Strict time records

• Storetallier - Inventory records

• Cosmographer - Accurate maps

• Codex- Codes and laws

• Notarian - Binding contracts

• Adjustor - Data reconciliation

• Rollcaller - Crew records

• Papbearer - Information relay

Peoples Executive - Responsible for crew effectivity and stability.

• Constable - Crew discipline

• Handherd - Crew morale

• Allegiant - Crew loyalty

• Surgeon - Crew health

• Chef-de-Ship - Meal preparation

• Chaplain - Spiritual needs

• Troubleshooter - Problem people

• Interface - Machine relations

• Mediator - Intradepartmental relations

• Liaison - Interdepartmental relations

• Medallier - Reward distribution

• Lashy - Punishment distribution

Technical Prime - Responsible for the good running of the ship and equipment on board.

• Quartermate - Equipment distribution

• Dorgard - Internal structure

• Hulgard - External structure

• Furnishfitter - Fixture deployment

• Rigleech - Fixture maintenance

• Swabwash - Ship hygiene

• Smulter - Waste processing

• Pipeliner - Pipes and wires

• Provost - Scientific research

• Machinist - Machine quality

• Trimtender - Ship aesthetics

• Liverer - Crew aesthetics

The keen-eyed amongst you might think that the existence of 72 of these means that they would define your character in Intergalactic Bastionland, but you’d be wrong.

They’re the opposite of a failed career, which is something for which you have expertise but no employment. Instead, this is a job that you currently work in that you may have little or no aptitude for at all, so any connection to a character’s skill is purely coincidental.

---

Elsewhere

• What a Horrible Knight is a starter scenario for Mythic Bastionland now available through PlusOneExp.

• Islands of Weirdhope is a fantastic looking standalone-expansion to Eco Mofos, one of the coolest Into the Odd-based games I’ve seen.

• The Bastionland Podcast returns with Luke Stratton as my first guest. There are another five episodes inbound every Tuesday for the next five weeks.

---

Coming Soon

Over on Patreon I talk about the structure of working in space.

Starship crew refer to the reliably repetitive pattern of ship life as a rotating wheel with three handles.

Transit, Dock, Layover, Transit, Dock, Layover, and so on forever.

Expect the full post here and on the blog next week.

Thanks for reading Bastionland Presser! Subscribe for free to receive new posts straight into your inbox.