While many Survivors display great prowess with regard to the repair and maintenance of complex technology, the Mechanic takes these skills to another level. It has been said that in the hands of a skilled Mechanic, every machine is immortal.Most Mechanics are the descendants of prominent scientists,computer programmers, and engineers from the heyday of the human empire, and their technological expertise has been passed down through their family from one generation to the next. In particular, the Mechanic typically possesses considerable proficiency in the areas of computers, robotics, and cybernetics.
This enables the Mechanic to monitor and accurately adjust a colony’s life support network, to equip his or her settlement with artificially intelligent defense systems, to oversee automated agricultural development, to help replace damaged or diseased human tissue with sophisticated prosthetic enhancements, and to restore any other synthesized instruments and apparatuses that are no longer functioning properly.
Of course, in the Novus Æterno universe, not every bionic augmentation is medical in nature, and there exists a thriving black market for weaponized cybernetic technology. Humans from all walks of life, from steadfast Zealot Missionaries to fugitive Renegade Pirates, have been known to patronize the underground workshops of Survivor Mechanics in search of their particular brand of physiological improvement.
Recently, the widespread proliferation of the Cauldron Born sectknown as the Broken has provided new opportunities for human Mechanics. The Broken are incredibly intricate synthetic beings, albeit with severely fractured artificial minds. With the aid of a proper Mechanic, a Broken Cauldron Born might be able to return to a state of near total functionality, but this often comes at a price for the automaton: a shrewd Mechanic may overwrite portions of the Cauldron Born’s core programming during the course of the repairs, in order to constrain the synthetic to an existence consisting of endless servitude at the behest of other humans.
As their knowledge of the Cauldron Born continues to increase at a staggering rate, human Mechanics have also begun to make sizable advances in the field of nanotechnology. This will no doubt prove to be invaluable in their continued survival, and might even allow Survivors to one day become a truly formidable force among the other power players in the Novus Æterno universe.
