Seriously Geeky Sundays – Building the World

Greetings friends, welcome once more to another exciting episode of Seriously Geeky Sundays, the ongoing writing challenge engineered by the ultimate tinkerer of words, designer of blog posts… it’s Heather, from the excellent website Just Geeking By, itself truly an engineering miracle!

Today’s piece looks to be a fun one, as we talk about engineers in geekdom! But why, asketh ye? Let us find out, shall we, from the words of Heather herself…

This week is Engineers Week, dedicated to the field of engineering and inspiring people to become involved in the field. We’re joining in the celebrations by dedicating this week to everything engineering in fictional worlds.

Question 1 – Who is your favourite fictional engineer?

My top vote for World’s Best Engineer is Isaac Clarke, from 2008’s Dead Space and its sequels.

Isaac is, at the opening of Dead Space, a regular space engineer, dispatched with a small crew to investigate why a mining ship, the USG Ishimura, has gone dark during its mission. Turns out, shock horror, that the ship is damaged, the crew have been massacred and their corpses reanimated as freaky alien mutant creatures called necromorphs.

Does Isaac accept his fate, and let these nasties tear him apart? No way, he uses a combination of conventional weaponry and engineering tools, including the legendary plasma cutter, to rip them to pieces instead, dismemberment being the only way to kill them. Not only does he carve a bloody trail through the alien threat, he also gets various parts of the Ishimura fixed along the way, using his mad engineering skills!

Question 2 – While most engineers like to use their skills for good, some of them don’t; which “mad scientist” engineer caught your attention?

For anyone who grew up in the 1990s playing Sega consoles, there’s only one true mad scientist: Dr. Robotnik!

He’s egg-shaped, has a killer tache and uses all manner of crazy powerful weapons to try and kill that bloody Sonic, including an army of animal-themed robots which are powered by little animals he trapped inside, what a maniac!

Then there’s the devices he pilots himself, providing all manner of mad boss fights! He’s definitely a bit on the “mad” side, that’s for sure!

Question 3 – In fandoms, engineering expands into new (and usually weird) fields; what one would you like to learn?

Space travel all the way!

Imagine taking off into the void of space, off on some great adventure to the unknown, making friends with aliens, maybe having the odd space battle and taking the ship down to amazing, unusual worlds to explore. To be a ship engineer, I imagine, would be very interesting, not to mention well paid. Unless you’re Parker and Brett from Alien, in which case maybe I’d give that gig a miss…

Question 4 – More importantly; who’s teaching the class?

The one, natural choice to teach a class on spaceship engineering and interstellar travel: Tali from the Mass Effect trilogy. She’s super mechanically minded, has traveled the outer reaches as part of a nomadic fleet and can hold her own in a rumble, why would you settle for any less?

Question 5 – Famous engineers are often depicted in fandoms, which has been your favourite portrayal?

I did enjoy the recent portrayal of Don West, from Netflix’s Lost in Space, as performed by Ignacio Serricchio. Though rather roguish, and involved in a fair few… less than legal affair aboard the Resolute before the passengers had to abandon ship, when the chips are down and lives are on the line, he always steps up and does the right thing, even at risk of his own life.

He also rescued a chicken in the first episode, and has looked after it since, what a guy!

Question 6 – Which fictional engineers would you like to see team up for a mega engineering project?

Let’s begin by teaming up the roster from this article so far: Isaac Clarke, Dr. Robotnik and Don West.

Who else could play? Maybe Dr. Frankenstein (I know he made a person, but he still made all that kit to being him to life, okay?), whoever threw those rollercoasters up so quickly in Theme Park, oh hey Tony Stark, he’s a top-notch engineer, though he wouldn’t play well with everybody else…

Just one of these geniuses could build a wondrous invention, imagine having all of them!

And that’s it for this week! All of the bolts are tightened, the seams welded and the wheels attached, let’s get outta here! As ever, please check out all of the other excellent writers using the #SeriouslyGeekySundays hashtag, they’re all amazing and well worth a read!

See you all next time, squad!