Imperial Ranks & Jobs Part 1

Atmospheric Technician. They exist in that hazy space of 'Not quite a college career choice' and 'Trade School need apply.'

Duties of an Atmospheric Tech include:

* Checking the Atmosphere Scrubbers

* Checking Seals, Leaks, Plugs, and more.

* Making sure breathable atmosphere stays where it should be. The helium breathers do not need to be huffing O2.

* EVA activities for doing work outside of the station.

* Making sure Airlocks do their job. Both internal and external

* Managing Decontamination procedures

* Managing Atmosphere cycling

* Managing Atmosphere loading and unloading

This job sucks. You're on call all day every day on your station or ship. Oh, what's that, it's your day off and the Karithad seals blew? Well, fuck you, go suit up and spend fifteen hours in sweltering gear fixing the seals and putting the ammonia back where it belongs. So now you get to smell like sweat and piss all day when you're done. And does anybody thank you? No.

Cybernetics Technician, or Cybertech. These folks are a combination of doctor and roboticists and it's their job to keep your limbs functioning. In practice, they also serve as something of a therapist in much the same way bartenders do. The good ones at least. The bad ones are more like dentists asking you questions while there's a drill in your mouth. You have to be conscious during most repairs so they can check how it's working immediately, but you can't move, so there's not much to do except talk. They also have a practical understanding of neurology. Much of their work involves malfunctioning or damaged nerve endings.

Ansiblist - ftl communication exists, but due to the weird relativistic effects, you can't both engage with ftl and lead a normal life. Ansiblists keep an eye on their Ansibles and let the slowpokes(that's everyone else) know about anything important.

Instinctor - basically, a combination therapist and neurosurgeon, they repair and maintain their clients' brains in a variety of ways ranging from pleasant conversations about feelings to replacing the malfunctioning segment with an entirely new one grown as a replacement.

Translator - Even within a single species, translation is more an art than a science. Translators spend their days translating hypothetical phrases with all sorts of different emphasis, nuances, and cultural references to work in professional, poetic, familiar, religious, or other contexts. They also maintain and teach the neural nets that go into Universal Translators. UT's are rarely appreciated as much as they should be, but they're often the most worldly person on a ship.

Some stuff can be pretty automated. For example, you shouldn't need to course correct a whole lot after launching when flying between solar systems with FTL travel but that doesn't mean it doesn't need to be supervised. There are regularly scheduled maintenance procedures to keep the parts running for centuries on end but somebody has to be supervising at all times just in case. There are graveyard shifts that usually go to relative rookies in whatever field they're monitoring or as mild punishments.

Droid operator - Those with neural implants (either a regular mind-computer interface or the more specialized Link) can take direct mental control of machinery like construction droids or automated cargo loading arms. Through this system, a single human or alien can plug themselves into a computer system and run an entire factory floor single-handedly.

Cultural integrator - The myriad number of different races and subcultures present in the Confederacy means that a lot of its member species have trouble adapting. Cultural integrators essentially act as intermediaries for various races to teach them how to integrate into the wider galactic society. For example, Maktons often require quite a lot of reminding by integrators that they cannot challenge a human to a fight to the death for shortchanging them.

Spaceship crew: this one goes without saying. Anything from nuclear reactor management to just being buff and able to move around heavy crates.

Here are some more unique ones:

Station dockhand: it's expensive to fly people through space, but unloading needs lots of labor. The solution is to have station workers whose job is to help unload ships. Most ship crew gets their start this way.

Slave management: somebody needs to make sure the slaves aren't slacking. The military will beat them if they are.

Labor allocation: everybody wants to be an engineer to starship crewman, but not many people can be. You select who gets an office job, and who gets an awesome job.

AI psychologist. While it may seem extraordinary to us, it is something that people generally regard as a common job which isn't that exotic. The person's job is to generally travel from AI to AI, spending anywhere between a few hours to a couple of weeks just carrying casual conversations with the AI while making sure the AI is performing its own upkeep, is being treated well, and is feeling well. The reason that it's considered common work, is that it's not terribly difficult, and because of the number of AI in the world, there are a lot of people with this work. If the psychologist figures something is wrong with the AI beyond the need for socializing, actual AI engineers would be called in to help fix the AI. The psychologists' job ends at diagnosis and minor conversational therapy.