The Engineer: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

In war, equipment is an essential part of victory. From tents and rifles to bases and vehicles, no army can fight on manpower alone. They need technology, and people to maintain it and move it forward. The average soldier actually does not have full knowledge of ''how'' his equipment works, let alone have the knowledge or time to maintain said equipment. Bigger and badder pieces of equipment require even more know-how and maintenance. There are also myriad obstacles and situations which a soldier will not be equipped to handle, like obstacles that impede troop movement, difficult to traverse terrain, and the elements themselves falling on their heads.

* ''The Support Engineer'': This is the Engineer that remains on stand-by for when he is needed, working on equipment maintenance and ready at a moment's notice to jump into the field to help his fellows. Support Engineers don't see as much combat as their other brethren, but they fulfill essential duties in preparation for major offensives, like constructing shelter and destroying obstacles that impede troop movement. This is the most [[Truth in Television|true to life]] interpretation of what an army engineer is.

* ''The Mechanic:'' DO NOT piss off The Mechanic. No other type of Engineer is as essential for the maintenance of troops' ability to attack and move, and no other type of Engineer has a shorter fuse. The Mechanic is the king of the motor pool, every vehicle is one of his babies. Bring a vehicle in a sorry state and prepare for a massive butt chewing at best and a wrench on the side of the head at worst. They have a tendency to spout Technobabble at a moment's notice.

 

{{examples}}

== General ==

 

* Gai from ''[[Getter Robo]]'', in all his incarnations, is the main engineer in charge of maintaining the Getter Machines. He also becomes an [[Ascended Fanboy]] when he ends up in the pilot seat of Go/Neo Getter-3 and Shin Getter-3.

* Franky from ''[[One Piece]]'' is the crews shipwright, responsible for the upkeep of the [[Cool Boat|Thousand Sunny]] (which he designed and built, of course). He's a Combat Engineer by virtue of turning himself into a cyborg.

* ''[[Gundam]]'' series often have at least one engineer to take care of the mecha. Pilots may or may not carry out some maintenance.

* Seiya Uribatake of ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' is the person in charge of maintaining the ship's mecha and gets very angry when one of them gets banged up.

* ''[[Code Geass]]'' features Rakshata on the side of the Black Knights, and Lloyd Asplund for Suzaku.

 

* [[Star Wars|R2-D2]]

* ''In The Army Now'' focused on water-purification military engineers.

* In the 2009 ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'', Montgomery Scott is looking to be as brilliant a chief engineer as in the [[Star Trek: The Original Series|original series]]. The same cannot be said for his position's [[Red Shirt|predecessor]].

 

* ''[[The Cross Time Engineer]]'' is about how a single 20th century engineer thrown back to 13th century Poland manages to introduce heavy industry.

* ''The Engineer Trilogy'' by K.J. Parker features an engineer as the central character. Set in an alternate [[Middle Ages]], engineering pervades the story: design, manufacture the application of machines (particularly war machines) are all tightly interwoven into the plot. Ziani Vaatzes, the titular engineer is a subtly [[The Chessmaster|terrifying genius]] who [[Batman Gambit|applies]] his deep understanding of mechanics to manipulate everything from people to empires to achieve his own ends.

* Harry Harrison's "The Ethical Engineer" - of course a double entendre regarding 1) the behavior of the protagonist, and 2) the things he was engineering.

* Leo Graf in [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s ''Falling Free:'' At first he wonders what he can do, as just an engineer, to save the Quaddies from their plight, but then he realizes that it ''is'' an engineering problem, and that he's just the engineer to solve it.

 

* The multitude of engineering officers in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' universe. They've proven their worth many times over.

** The first and most famous example was of course Scotty from ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]''. Much like Kirk, he's become a legend even within his own universe. The character made such an impression that he's remembered through [[Popcultural Osmosis]] alongside [[Power Trio|The Big Three]] of TOS, and it's impossible to imagine the show without him, even though [[What Could Have Been|he almost wasn't a part of it at all]]. [[Gene Roddenberry]] didn't have any interest in having an engineer on the ship, and [[James Doohan]] (among others) had to convince him otherwise. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqedcvB8MKw In one interview], Doohan claims that 50% of the students attending at least one university's engineering program went into the field because of Scotty.

** Indeed, in ''[[Deep Space Nine]]'', the engineers have attained a [[Worthy Adversary]] status amongst the Dominion Vorta officers, one of whom claims that Starfleet Engineers can turn "Rocks into Replicators".

* Walter in ''[[La Femme Nikita]]''.

'''Major Lee Adama''': He was used to working with machines. Command is about people. }}

** Chief Galen Tyrol also exemplifies this, particularly "The Mechanic". He spends most of his appearances fixing one thing or another (usually vipers), is very possessive of the vipers, and has an entire crop of newbies to mentor. The few times he does go into combat mode, its like watching Gordon Freeman.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Space Marines have Techmarines, specially trained by the [[Machine Worship|Adeptus Mechanicus]] to maintain their battle-brothers' equipment. Due to being every bit as tough and skilled as other [[Space Marines]], they're the [[Genius Bruiser]] type.

** The Salamanders, however; belong to the Promethian Cult which value self-reliance and have anvil, hammer and fire as important symbols; and as their Primarch was a blacksmith, they all maintain their equipment by themselves personally. There are still Techmarines within their chapter though, and due to every battle brother in their chapter taking care of their own equipment, they are free to make even more impressive items.

** Meanwhile, the Orks have Mekboyz - who construct insane steampunk death machines [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|that somehow work]] - and no, [[Flanderization|it's not entirely "it works because they believe it does"]], although there is a strong element of that. Their method of repair usually involves [[Percussive Maintenance|pounding on it with a hammer]] and screaming at it.

** Although [[Hufflepuff House|they have little-if-any representation in-game]], in the background material the [[Fantastic Caste System|Earth Caste]] fill this role for the Tau.

 

* Quite obviously, The Engineer, Dell Conagher (and both his father and grandfather, likely to be a family tradition, considering a few images seemed to imply that his father is the engineer from [[Team Fortress Classic]]) from ''[[Team Fortress Classic|Team Fortress]]'' and ''[[Team Fortress 2]]''. He specifically is an example of a Combat Engineer, supplying ammo and equipment to fellow soldiers and constructing [[The Turret Master|turrets]] and [[Transporters and Teleporters|teleporters]].

** The Engineer is better at defense than offense, though he can be played as a "Battle Engie" with the right loadout (specifically, the Gunslinger and the Frontier Justice).

** The Demoman is also an engineer of sorts, as the resident explosives expert.

* Any Engineer unit in any squad-based game, quite common in [[FPS]] games.

* Practically every [[RTS]] ever has at least one unit to build your base/defences or repair things. They may also double as the workers for its [[Command and Conquer Economy]].

** This is especially true to ''Earth 2150''. The ED Gruz and the UCS Mammoth can both carry out tasks like digging trenches and tunnels, building bridges and walls, etc.

** The custom-map-only Engineer unit in ''[[Empire Earth]]'' can repair buildings as well as construct bunkers and (pathetically weak) barbed wire fences.

* The Gnomes and Goblins in the ''[[Warcraft]]'' universe are known for being experts in engineering. Engineering is also an optional job you can train in. You can make [[Rule of Cool|fantasy motorcycles]] that way.

** The Crimson Lance Engineer enemy summons a turret to help them out similar to Roland. It's stated in the [[All There in the Manual|Official Guide]] that Roland was a former Crimson Lance Engineer.

* In ''[[Alpha Protocol]]'', there is an Engineer class which can focus on miscellaneous benefits, including increase in hacking speed, better grenade usage, more ammo/health that can be taken from dead enemies, etc. It may not seem like much, but it adds up.

* Basically all of Cid's incarnations in ''[[Final Fantasy]]'', except for ''I'', ''VIII'', ''XIII'', and the spinoffs. ''IV'', ''VI'', and ''XII'' are probably closest to the trope as written.

** [[Truth in Television]], the flying machine was based on sketches Da Vinci made in his notebooks. [[Rule of Cool|On the other hand, those sketches never actually produced something that really worked...]]

** In Tiberium Sun, the engineer in fact became the lynchpin of the cheapest tactic in the game. In what essentially becomes a great all-or-nothing game of chicken, if one puts 100% of their resources into making engineers and storms the other base before they have enough time to prepare defenses it is possible to convert the entire enemy base to your own, thus winning instantly and within minutes of starting. Conventional attacks in this early-game phase do not work at all due to buildings having sufficient hitpoints. On the flip side, this can be countered by pouring all your resources into defense, which leaves a deficiency in technology...

** In Renegade's multiplayer, Engineers are indispensable: they can help defend and maintain the base, repair vehicles, and are an essential component in any APC raid on an enemy base. Just ''try'' playing a game without making use of them at all.

* In ''[[Dawn of War]] 2'', the unit type you start with in multiplayer can repair. That is it for going into the trope for them, as they are otherwise just supposed to fight; aside from the Eldar Guardians and Imperial Guardsmen who can build cover. The [[Space Marine]] Techmarine and Ork Mekboy commanders are definite ''Combat Engineers'' though, being capable of getting some impressive ranged weapons, creating turrets and some interesting tech abilities.

* The Worker in ''[[Fat Princess]]''. Not only are they absolutely ''essential'' for harvesting resources and upgrading structures, general consensus actually has them as the game's best combat unit. A team composed of upgraded Workers and [[The Medic|Priests]] supporting them is pretty much an unstoppable juggernaut.

* Lucca from ''[[Chrono Trigger]].'' She invents a teleporting machine and a device to control time portals, she built a prototype battle robot, and she can repair more advanced robots that exist over a thousand years after her time!

** In fact, nearly any protagonist of a tower-defense game could be considered an Engineer of sorts.

* Andy from [[Advance Wars]]. His [[Limit Break|CO Power]] heals and buffs all his troops.

* PROTAGONIST engineer from ''[[Doom|Doom 3's]]'' expansion pack

* In [[Knights of the Old Republic]], T3-M4. And Bao-dur in the sequel. Bao-Dur in the second [[Knights of the Old Republic]] is a Tech Specialist (a class unique to him). His hit points aren't great, but he gets insane bonuses to his technical stats, making him very useful for slicing, droid repair, and most anything that isn't brawling or bluff. {{spoiler|It's almost not worth it to cross-class him.}}

* Party member [[Wrench Wench|Tali]] from ''[[Mass Effect]]'' is acknowledged to be a mechanical and programming/hacking genius, even landing the job of Chief Engineer on the ship in the second game. [[Player Character|Shepard's]] class can also be engineer, giving you numerous technical skills, though you still mostly use them to blow stuff up. There are 2 main indicators which show just how brilliant Tali is at her job:

** The first, Tali is one of the best engineers from her species. Her race, the quarians, are considered the most expert of all the species in the game at engineering. It's their biggest [[Planet of Hats|hat]], which they need it to cover the baldness of their rickety, jury-rigged antique space vessels.

 

== Western Animation ==

 

 

== Web Comics ==

* Every major character in ''[[Girl Genius]]''.

** Apart from the mad ''social'' scientist, of course.

*** He has a [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100917 built in pulse cannon], so presumably has at least some practical engineering skills since sparks tend not to be keen on allowing other sparks to operate on them.

* Sev'vil of [[Juathuur]]... but not for juathuurs, who don't use any form of technology.

 

== Real Life ==

* Obviously [[Truth in Television]]. No major military operation since the dawn of time has advanced without the help of engineers, even if the term didn't even ''exist'' at that time. Any operation where terrain needs to be modified, fortifications built or machines and equipment used, engineers have made their mark.

** In fact, until relatively recently, ''all'' engineers were military engineers. The term "civil engineer" was coined in the late 18th century and originally referred to any engineer who wasn't associated with the military.

** Many have commented that the Roman Legion's greatest weapon was the ''shovel''.

* The EOD aspects of this trope are currently being automated in the form of the [[Pack Bot]], of iRobot (creators of the Roomba) fame. The robots save so many soldiers' lives that they're treated as squadmates and have been on occasion ''mourned'' by their squad when destroyed by bombs. Apparently, there's nothing so terribly heartbreaking as seeing a hulking soldier crying over shreds of a robot, asking if it can be repaired.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Video Game Characters]]

[[Category:The Squad]]