Technical Support

 

Technicians are a loosely defined group who lie somewhere on a spectrum between engineers and mechanics. While the categories are non-exclusive, and there is undeniably overlap, engineers in science and science fiction are most often shown as designers, prototypers, architects of new systems and with oversight of large teams. Mechanics by contrast tend to be shown at the blunt end of technical innovations, dealing with the grease, the nuts and bolts and demonstrating practical skills, but often with little overall vision of where a project is going, or need (or desire) to innovate. Technicians in science fiction occupy the middle ground. They are seldom the heroes or inventors, but are often the skilled problem solvers who make the dreams of innovators work, save the hero’s bacon and keep vessels in flight. Here I take a look at the vital role of technicians in science and science fiction.

Much early science fiction focussed on heroes or inventors. Authors such as Verne and Wells wrote about scientists, entrepreneurs and adventurers, but the technical support required to build or run the great devices they envisioned was largely overlooked. Where hands-on mechanics or technicians did appear they were typically treated as equivalent to servants or as nameless subordinates. Indeed, actual servants were often pressed into technical roles, as was the case for military batman Albert Digby in Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future, butler Alfred in the Batman comic series, or butler ?? in the Kings of Space novel series by W E Johns.

 

The Space Age in Screen and Sound

 

The increasing importance of detailed technical competence in everyday life, in military encounters and in every aspect of transport through the twentieth century, perhaps contributed to a gradual recognition of the importance of technicians in science fiction.

 

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (TV, ??) was set aboard a privately-run, advanced nuclear submarine which combined oceanic research pursuits with acting as a platform for America’s nuclear deterrent. In many episodes, the SSRN Seaview deals with military men, scientists and inventors, often experimenting unwisely with new technologies or deluded by their own biases. In “The Condemned”, the crew of Seaview are helping Admiral Bentley Falk test his new deep-diving bathysphere and the atmosphere mixture that will let it reach unprecidented depths with crew aboard. However as the test subjects are pushed into taking greater risks and lives are in danger, it gradually becomes clear that Falk does not have the technical expertise he claims. Indeed, Falk has claimed credit for the vast amount of work done by his chief scientific advisor Archer. The admiral’s claim that having the vision to demand something be made is more important than having the technical expertise to design, construct, test and repair the equipment needed to achieve it is shown to be hollow, and by the end of the episode the credit has been fairly reassigned. The technician Archer saves the lives of those involved in the test and Falk is discredited.

 

The willingness of the Seaview crew to support Archer and discredit Admiral Falk is interesting in itself, given their fairly strict military background. Although working for a civilian research institute, Seaview’s admiral, captain, officers and crew all have distinguished US Navy backgrounds. However, more so than most Navy vessels, Seaview’s remit places it in situations in which technical problem solving is essential to the crew’s survival. Some of this falls back on the scientific training of Seaview’s Admiral Nelson, but much of it (and much of the implementation) is the responsibility of the crew’s technical specialists, including Chief Sharkey, Kowalski and Patterson, whose recurring roles become more prominent and vocal as the series goes on (while initial episodes focussed on the two officer leads). While these crew people have multiple responsibilities, including diving, security and bridge watches, they come into their own when devising and implementing technical solutions or monitoring complex equipment.

Also from a submariner background, although now displaced to space, is Chief Petty Officer Hicks, who serves as a Flight Engineer for the second crewed space flight (the first having met with ill fortune) in the science fiction radio drama Orbiter X (written by ?? for BBC radio, ??). In this narrative, the Commonwealth Space Organisation crews are pitted against the amoral and scientistic Unity organisation. The traditionally low ranking of technicians in social and military hierarchies comes into play here. While the other crew of Orbiter Two (both air force offers) insist that Hicks puts aside rank to address them by first name, the Unitists treat Hicks as lesser, and rate his intelligence as low. As an unregarded but able technician however, his actions are ultimately pivotal in destroying the Unity threat.

 

Hickey’s role is actually a close mirror to a character in a more famous radio drama of the same era. Journey Into Space was written by Charles Chilton for BBC radio and broadcast in three lengthy serials between 1953 and ??. The role of radio technician aboard the experimental spaceship Luna (and subsequently other ships) is taken by Lemuel Barnett, a young man from London’s East End. The relatively uneducated Lemmy serves the narrative role as an audience identification character, with plot and background points often explained to him (and hence to listeners). However he is not only skilled in using the radio but also in its maintenance, taking it apart and rebuilding it when required. In the course of the series, he is also shown to be skilled in other technical applications, and also courageous, with an innate good sense. While he remains something of a comic character, he is also valued and an integral part of the crew across multiple missions.

 

The same is true of Lemmy’s grandson, Chipper Barnett, in the loosely connected sequel radio series Space Force, written by Chilton in ??. While Space Force never had the popularity of Journey Into Space, the character roles are very similar, and Chipper steps into Lemmy’s shoes, and his technical abilities.

 

Technicians in Text

 

The science fiction literature of the 1950s and 60s, and particularly the children’s literature, also recognised the increasingly important role of technicians. Many, as in the case of the Tom Swift, Jr. books, which focus on an inventor boy genius, give technicians regular but still supporting roles. Swift’s inventions in this vision of optimistic technical futurism are realised and often operated by a team of recurring technician characters who work for his engineering firm. None take centre stage, but they often have critical roles in saving Swift or otherwise resolving a situation. However other novels of the period promote technicians further, to the status of main rather than auxiliary protagonist.

 

Placing technicians in the centre stage is the Joe Kenmore trilogy by Murray Leinster (juvenile novels Space Platform; Space Tug; City on the Moon). Kenmore begins the series as a teenage machine tool expert, delivering a set of precision gyroscopes from his family firm for installation in the soon-to-be-launched space platform. While he develops into a hero space pilot role over the course of the three novels, his heroism begins with devising a process to rebalance the damaged gyroscopes.

 

Importantly, the other recurring main characters in the series, Chief Bender, Haney and Mike Scandia, are also technical workers, recruited from the space platform project. Each of the four men is a shop-floor mechanic or electrician, rather than a military officer, academy or university graduate, and indeed their hands-on technical skills are critical throughout the series in resolving issues encountered during the early stages of human space exploration. This includes devising and implementing to save their own lives as well as those of others stranded in space by technical malfunctions. On several occasions, these technicians save the lives of military missions who might more conventionally be the lead characters in a human spaceflight narrative in science fiction. Indeed the whole trilogy of books could be interpreted as commentary on who is selected for space - whether the traditional, photogenic, white, male, military-trained pilots and officers are necessarily the best people to explore the new frontier of space.

Another series of novels aimed at young readers and from the same early phase ot the space age is the Chris Godfrey of UNEXA series by Hugh Walters. The early stories focus on a trio of photogenic and highly trained young pilots and science apprentices who are the first into space and to reach the Moon. However the fourth novel of the series, Outpost on the Moon (1960, also known as Moon Base One) introduced a young teenager, Tony Hale, who is initially sent into space for his health. Feeling useless and daunted during his preparation, he begins to hang around with the mechanics supporting the mission. When things go wrong on the Moon and the lives of all four astronauts are in trouble, only young Tony proves to have the skills required to repair broken equipment and get them all to safety.

Tony’s heroic role in Outpost on the Moon is recognised in a speech from Chris at the end of the story:

 

“Neither Serge, nor Morrey, nor I, though we are hoping to become scientists, had the knowledge to make the repair. Only Tony here,” he said, leading the uncomfortable boy forward, “had the ability to do the job. Without him, we should not be standing here now.”

The applause was ear-splitting, and Tony shuffled about awkwardly. Morrey and Serge each planted a hand on the boy’s shoulder and grinned.

“So you see,” Chris went on a few moments later, “in space travel a good mechanic is as valuable as a good scientist. Just as we can’t all work with our heads, so we can’t all work with our hands.”

 

Tony becomes one of the central group of protagonists in subsequent stories and takes centre stage in several of them. One of these is Terror By Satellite (1964). Here, Tony Hale is assigned as a technician on an orbital space station, and finds that its commander has gone insane and is threatening Earth below. Not only is he the only one in a position to rally opposition to the commander, but he also the only one with the technical knowledge needed to stop the devastation he is causing. Tony does so, despite knowing that his plan will cost his own life.

 

Military Technicians

 

Science fiction in military settings also frequently involves technicians, whose primary role is often to interpret or implement novel technology for their lead-character officers. Often these are unnamed, and treated as expendable by the plot, but occasionally some rise above this status to develop their own personality. In classic 1970s Doctor Who, for example, the Doctor acted as scientific advisor for the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT), but was not always in a position to implement his own plans. The serial “The Daemons” features UNIT technician Sergeant Osgood who constructs and runs a crucial piece of equipment to breach an alien heat barrier around the village of Devils End. Osgood is shown as something of a comic character, his face blackened by equipment malfunctions and his demeanour bewildered by what he is being asked to do. However he nonetheless shows technical skill and succeeds in his task. The character is also credited with inspiring the character of Petronella Osgood who acts as a UNIT support scientist in more recent series of Doctor Who.

 

Doctor Who has also featured a range of other technician characters - although rarely described in that manner. In addition to the UNIT staff, endless unnamed technical support personnel are seen in organisations such as the Kaleds (e.g. “Genesis of the Daleks”), the Time Lords (e.g. “The Five Doctors”), and the mohole drilling project (“Inferno”), as well as in the staff of various dictators, warlords, star ships or space stations. Often these are treated in the narrative as disposable cannon fodder, although occasionally they rise to the status of named characters, as for example in the case of Gia Kelly who is vital in suppressing the Ice Warrior threat in “The Seeds of Death”, technicians Steffi Erlich and Roman Groom in “Waters of Mars”, electrical technicians Janley and Resno in “Power of the Daleks” or medical technician Tasambeker Brown in “Revelation of the Daleks”.

 

A similar technical support role to Sergeant Osgood was initially played by Rodney McKay in the Stargate franchise. McKay has a PhD and is himself a physical scientist, but first appears in Stargate SG-1 in the role of an acerbic and spiky civilian technical contractor. His recurring role thereafter is that of a technician in support of the Stargate SG-1 team, before he takes on the lead scientist role in the spin-off series Stargate: Atlantis, managing a team of technical staff as they try to reach an understanding of ancient technology. Amongst these are other scientists, serving in technical roles such as Czech scientist Radek Zelenka - again Radek is on the borderline between research scientist (by training) and technician (by seniority and duty allocation) but is most often seen in the latter role, working on equipment, making repairs and applying his knowledge to interpreting new devices.

 

A less fully-characterised but nonetheless interesting technician with a military background in science fiction can be found in Walter M Miller’s ?? novel A Canticle for Leibowitz. This saga follows the recovery of humanity after an atomic war (known afterwards as the Flame Deluge) destroys our current world. The last flickers of the old civilisation’s knowledge are collected and protected by a monastic order founded by Leibowitz (eventually canonised as Saint Leibowitz), who was a military weapons technician before the war and the subsequent “Simplification” in which all scientists, engineers and others with similar training were hunted and lynched. The first two sections of the novel (itself a fix-up of three earlier novellas) are set in dark age and medieval analogue cultures. However, the final section describes a technological civilisation arising almost two millennia after its predecessor, and focuses in part on Joshua, a monk in the order of Leibowitz who is also a laboratory technician and struggles to balance the two:

“Crossing the highway to the old abbey was like crossing an eon. Here in the new aluminum and glass buildings, he was a technician at a workbench where events were only phenomena to be observed with regard for their How, not questioning their Why. On this side of the road, the falling of Lucifer was only an inference derived by coid arithmetic from the chatter of radiation counters, from the sudden swing of a seismograph pen. But in the old abbey, he ceased to be a technician; over there he was a monk of Christ, a booklegger and memorizer in the community of Leibowitz. Over there, the question would be: ‘‘Why, Lord, why?’’”

 

Armageddon

Shipboard Engineers

 

In science fiction set in a more advanced stage of space exploration, the role of technicians tends to be ongoing and often overlapping with that of engineers or scientists.

 

The Star Trek universe provides many examples here. The role of engineer on Federation starships encompasses maintenance, problem solving, new construction to order and supporting scientific investigation as well as designing, running and overseeing the ship’s systems. The engineering division (as well as science division) of Starfleet thus incorporates many individuals who might be described as electrical or mechanical technicians in other contexts. Technicians thus appear in subsidiary or supporting roles in several entries of the Star Trek franchise, with a notable example being Miles O’Brian who was first seen as a recurring transporter technician in Star Trek: The Next Generation, before transferring to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as chief engineer both for the titular space station and later the starship USS Defiant, which was based there. Recent iterations of the series such as Star Trek Discovery have given increased prominence and characterisation to minor characters in junior engineering roles (in Discovery’s case including Adira Tal, for example).

 

However those in technical roles in Star Trek came to prominence with the concept of Lower Decks. The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Lower Decks” was a break with tradition in that its narrative was seen from the point of view of junior officers and support staff, including a nurse and a junior engineer, who had none of the background knowledge, planning roles or leadership responsibilities of the senior crew. The engineer, Taurik, was a Vulcan crewmember who irritated his commander, chief engineer La Forge, with his enthusiasm, and who was expected to carry out technical tasks (such as mocking up a battle-damaged shuttlecraft) without explanation or questioning the use of it. This places him in a classic technician role: using detailed and skilled knowledge to complete tasks assigned by others, with relatively little input or influence on its application. Taurik was nonetheless keen to innovate, proposing changes to the Enterprise’s systems at a time when La Forge was otherwise occupied.

 

The shift in viewpoint was repeated in episodes of other variants of the Star Trek universe, and explored at length with the animated television series Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020-2024). This series is overtly comic, unlike most other Star Trek serials, and focuses explicitly on a group of four very junior officers aboard a support (rather than frontline, discovery or exploration) starship the USS Cerritos. The lead characters are two ensigns in command training, a medical technician Tendi and a junior engineer Rutherford. While the characters gradually become more senior and recognised over the course of the series, a recurring theme in the series is how often the junior crew are expected to follow instructions without much information on events filtering down through the command structure to their lowly rank. The series also throws light on the importance of those in technical roles to ensuring both the day to day running of a ship and the solving of problems when these arise. It is also a series that celebrates obscure technical knowledge and enjoyment of that (i.e. nerds and geeks). Rutherford and Tendi in particular are shown deriving joy from technical work in their own time, including building a fully armed and powered, miniature model of the Cerritos, and spending time in the depths of the ship tracking down niggling technical annoyances or just listening to the equipment operate when all is going well.

Star Trek’s Federation Starfleet is a large, professional organisation. By contrast, the television series Firefly is set in a less utopian future, in which there is a sharp divide between the established core worlds and the frontier planets. The latter are the province of rugged individualists such as the independent traders and fugitives aboard the Firefly-class spaceship Serenity. The equivalent to Starfleet’s highly trained engineers is Kaywinnet Lee Frye, a self-taught mechanic who has to improvise and adapt equipment to nurse her engines to their next destination. Kaylee’s role as technician/mechanic on Serenity is at the extreme end of the ship-maintenance technician paradigm common in small-scale commercial space utilisation science fiction, such as the asteroid mining stories of Poul Anderson. Where a space craft has a crew of just two or three, at least one of those must have some knowledge of making running repairs, although in most stories these fall short of the level of expertise associated with technicians.

A recent example of starship crew explicitly described as technicians can be found in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (novel, 2014). This features the Wayfarer, a small commercial ship comparable in crew size to Firefly’s Serenity, which specialises in boring hyperspace tunnels between locations in order to allow for fast passage between solar systems. However unlike Serenity’s lone mechanic Kaylee, the Wayfarer’s technical team consists of both a mechanical technician, Kizzy, and an electrical technician, Jenks. Kizzy is primarily responsible for maintaining the ship’s engines and other large scale systems, while Jenks’ focus is on the AI and computer systems. However the pair work together routinely and will cross-task in an emergency. Both are essential to the running of the vessel and Jenks in particular is given his own emotional arc. The importance of technicians to this society is clear and recognised, and neither Jenks nor Kizzy is treated as any lower in status than the rest of the crew. The second novel in the series, A Closed and Common Orbit (??), also recognises the importance of technical knowledge, this time set on a planet, ??, where one of the protagonists, Pepper, was raised as a slave cleaning and fixing electronic equipment, and now runs a small business sourcing, repairing and servicing technology before selling it on to others.

 

Of course, such positive recognition is by no means universal. A less positive but nonetheless somewhat nuanced view of technicians can be found in the television comedy series Red Dwarf (??). This follows two characters, Lister and Rimmer, revived from stasis and recreated as a hologram respectively, three million years after a radiation leak wiped out the rest of their crew. The pair are, notoriously, the lowest ranked personnel on the ship, Third and Second Technician in charge of maintaining vending machines. They rarely show any significant technical aptitude, being more on the mechanic end of the spectrum. The series nonetheless makes the point that such foundational and basic work is essential to the operation of the ship. Indeed an early episode explores the idea that removing Lister (the bottom-most rung of the ship’s ladder) may have had a knock-on effect on others that ultimately resulted in the failure of the ship’s drive plate and the fate of the crew in its entirety [Note: a similar concept can be found in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (radio, ??) where a species’ attempt to rid itself of ‘useless’ middlemen results in their extinction as a result of an undone task.].

 

Technical Requirements

 

As we’ve seen, the role of technicians has been recognised in science fiction since its early days. However that recognition has not always been universally positive. The relatively low status of those in technical roles was a recurring theme throughout the twentieth century and has only recently been challenged by counter examples in which technical expertise is recognised and valued as highly as command or military expertise. More recent examples of technicians in SF, such as Jenks and Pepper in the novels of Becky Chambers, have tended towards showing more rounded and nuanced characters, although early examples such as the Joe Kenmore novels of Murray Leinster do exist.

 

The extreme gendering of technicians has also been a recurring theme. While early examples such as Lemmy and Hicks in Journey Into Space and Orbiter X were married or had long term girlfriends, technicians have often been shown to occupy the same relationship-challenged nerdy ground as research scientists. Examples such as McKay in Stargate or Rimmer in Red Dwarf are notoriously awkward around women, while Firefly’s engineer Kaylee is met with confusion when she wants to embrace feminine activities such as dressing up or partying. Female technicians are not unknown in SF - notable examples include Doctor Who characters such as Gia Kelly or Tasambeker Brown, and Star Trek: Lower Decks’ D’vana Tendi, as well as Pepper in A Closed and Common Orbit. However they are clearly the exception rather than the rule.

 

Regardless of their stereotypes, technicians are vital members of any healthy research organisation. They serve a vital role in realising the ambitions of research scientists and solving practical problems in a research environment. Their roles vary from day-to-day lab assistants to software development or running mechanical and electronic workshops, and (in science fiction) extend to keeping the complex closed environments of starships stable and secure. The ever increasing complexity of experiments means that large research organisations such as CERN, ESO and the LIGO-VIRGO gravitational wave detectors are heavily dependent on technical staff, many of whom are innovating constantly in order to enable the scientific staff to achieve their experimental goals.

 

In the UK higher education, the importance of technician roles has been recognised by the technician commitment - https://www.techniciancommitment.org.uk/ - by which UK Research and Innovation (the government research funding agency, UKRI) and most research universities have signed up to ensure recognition of technical contributions, as well as promotion and career support for those in technical roles. This is just one of a number of organisations which now (https://www.technicians.org.uk/about/) emphasise the importance of these roles.

 

With stereotypes regarding gender and class beginning to break down, there is perhaps another stereotype that science fiction might address: that of “technician versus performer”. This suggestion that technical precision and expertise is mutually exclusive with artistic or inventive creativity is recognised as a trope in fiction narratives, but has damaging implications. In a science fiction environment, this trope was addressed directly by Rodney McKay in Stargate Atlantis episode “Redemption”. He described being asked by his piano teacher to quit since he had technical expertise but no talent for artistic expression, and compares his role as a technician to Stargate SG-1’s Samantha Carter as performer. However McKay himself provides a counter-example to this trope. He is both a precise and gifted technical worker and able to improvise, innovate and perform when this is required of him. Similarly science fiction examples such as Joe Kenmore in Murray Leinster’s series and others have shown that technical expertise (in Kenmore’s case to repair damaged gyros) and adventurous creativity (as in his various space rescue missions) are far from exclusive. Similarly the crews of Star Fleet, and particularly ST: Lower Decks, routinely combine precision and detail with problem solving of the most artistic and creative order.

 

Science fiction has not always recognised or valued the contribution of technicians. More nameless techs have been killed or subjugated than have ever been recognised with characters of their own. However science fiction examples from the 1950s through to the current day have argued the importance of such individuals and their valuable role in maintaining technological societies. Increasingly, science fiction is addressing these situations and spending time focusing on more junior characters, often those in technical roles. Normalising such positions in popular culture can only help in raising the profile of the valuable work of technicians in the sciences, industry and computing. A recognition that technical precision and skills can actually foster creativity rather than conflict with it is an important lesson from science fiction that can be more widely applied in the interactions between scientific innovation and technical expertise - and, in future - may well be.

 

“Technical Support”, Elizabeth Stanway, Cosmic Stories blog. February 2025.