Chief Mate

Despite the advanced technology that is ubiquitous on most starships, there’s always a use on board for someone who knows the ship’s various systems well enough to manually push them to achieve levels of performance their manufacturers never intended. A starship’s chief mate knows every circuit and conduit within their starship’s mechanical and electronic systems, and is bold enough to take risks with these levers, valves, and other intricacies that can help their crew escape from or win dire combat scenarios.

Being a chief mate is hardly easy, however, and the role is not for the faint of heart. Accomplishing the off-the-books feats that are so valuable in starship combat often requires a strong and hardy individual to physically haul around equipment, force levers past their built-in safety points, or reconnect systems in ways they weren’t designed for—or else requires someone nimble enough to accomplish the same tasks via finesse without resorting to brute force, as the chief mate slides finicky controls into nonstandard positions or temporarily bypasses a system’s physical safety valves.

The chief mate assists characters in all other roles on the ship, making the other characters’ jobs easier and allowing them to accomplish more in their primary duties since they no longer need to focus on physically manipulating machinery or equipment. A chief mate acts during the same phase as the crew member she wishes to assist that round. Despite the role’s name, a ship can have any number of chief mates (though on a military ship, only one is generally referred to as the chief mate, and all others are considered deck officers).