Science
You see further than anyone else on the ship, and you’re the only one who can turn a blip into a fact. Every decision the captain makes is downstream of something you said.
What the console does
- The long-range picture. Your radar reaches much further than anyone else’s. Contacts appear on your screen minutes before they matter to the rest of the bridge.
- Scanning. Point at a contact and work through the scan. What comes back is everything that matters: who it belongs to, what class of ship it is, how its shields are doing, and a description written by someone who has met one before.
- The database. A reference library of ships, factions and phenomena. When a scan gives you a name you don’t recognise, this is where the name turns into a warning.
- Reading the terrain. Nebulae, asteroid fields, mines. Some of it hides you, some of it hides them, and some of it will take the bottom off the hull.
Doing it well
Scan it before you need to. A scan takes time you won’t have once the shooting starts. The habit that separates good Science officers from the rest is scanning every contact while it’s still boring.
Report in a shape people can use. “There’s a contact” is noise. “Three ships, Raiders, twelve units out, closing” is a decision. Faction, number, distance, heading — in that order, every time, and the bridge will start moving before you’ve finished the sentence.
Read the descriptions out loud. The database text isn’t flavour — half of it is the story, and some of it is the mission. The crews who notice things are the ones whose Science officer reads the whole entry instead of skimming for the shield number.
Who you’re working with
You and Relay are the ship’s senses — you identify, they talk and reach. Weapons shouldn’t fire until you’ve said what the thing is. Helms wants ranges from you constantly. And Engineering will love you forever if you give them thirty seconds’ warning before a fight.