IPS-N, one of the oldest, and largest mega-corporations in the known galaxy, had recently pulled a fancy new PR stunt.

The "All hands on Deck" program, named again after it's cute little sailing theme. The idea, on paper, might seem quite noble. It was an employment regime, for job-hunters bogged down and held back by elaborate qualifications and background checks.
With IPS-N's program meanwhile, it didn't matter if a job-seeker had criminal records, excessive disabilities, blacklistings, or lack of experience, if they were willing to work, IPS-N could find a task for them to earn a wage for. They even made it clear that, despite being rather close to minimum wage, it was payment that was highly sufficient to live off of. That way, even the most forgotten, mistrusted, and abandoned members of humanity could always find a purpose to serve, a career to build, and income to survive. A very noble idea indeed.

Obviously, there's always a catch. And in the case of the program, the wage and ease of access is both a lure, and a ploy to distract from the downside of these easy jobs: Survivability.
For while the wages were splendid, the conditions, not so much. With no experience, no physical talent, no social fame, these applicants, in the grand scheme of society, had essentially no value.

Which made them, disposable.

As a result, most of the jobs provided to the applicants are some of the most dangerous hazards industrial work can provide, work safety be damned. Maintaining trenches in active warzones, securing vital components from ships mid-way through reactor meltdowns, extendible cannon fodder, making coffees for people who think "rolled up cuffs and lack of socks so that everyone could see their leg hair" is anything close to fashionable, going up a large tower in the middle of a hurricane, stuff that no-one in their right mind would ever willingly do...these applicants, have no better option.

Enter, "The Dirtblock". She used to have an actual name, but the poor thing had gone through so many repairs, disasters, employee/management casualties, and consisted more of rock and asteroid than the actual steel, whatever scraps of the workforce remain just refer to her as, well, as a block of dirt.

She was IPS-N relay station, designed to help co-ordinate ships through the "gravel road", a section of the dispera system that used to be a gaggle of thriving planets, before the star had gone supernova, leaving nothing but rubble and bones. Rubble and bones that would tear any ship and station to pieces...hence why the Dirtblock isn't used very much.

But, she's still IPS-N equipment, so someone's gotta guard it, someone's gotta watch it, and someone's gotta keep her from dissolving entirely. Hence, her latest crew, "The pests", a crew of underpaid, understaffed, and even underlimbed veterans of IPS-N's high casualty rate, whos numbers have been so dwindled over the years, that calling them a Skeleton crew seems...generous.

And yet, even if you somehow got so lost that you'd end up in the nowhere part of the middle of nowhere...you'd still have comfort...

Cause, thank god, we still get radio signals and omninet connection.

"Trapdoor", would not be able to work as well as he could without it.

---

Christ on a bike this has not been my year. Despite wanting to use this time as a kickstart to this art account of mine, University studies have kneed that directly in the crotch, and I've been unable to properly focus on any of the major projects I wanted to. Especially around this time, Christmas time, a time I usually save for very special events. I wanted to write a nice tf story for a piece I recently commissioned, and upload it onto my commissioned art account, but just could not focus on it enough to get it done in time, because it's Christmas now -(as of writing this)-, and I've got nothing appropriate for it. So, I glanced back to some other ideas I could pull to hopefully have something for the day of, and then work on the story some more for a later date like Christmas day or boxing day. And luckily, I did have a good backup idea.

So, I've gotten into Lancer recently. Haven't exactly played a campaign yet -(Despite wanting to)-, but I've been reading up a lot on the lore and mechanics as of late....and yeah, I quite like it. Mech-focused Sci-Fi is something I hold very near and dear to my heart, possibly my biggest love in the entirety of fiction, even more than tf. So, I figured, why not try and convey that for crimby times? Why not, for Christmas, give a little robot toy?

This here, is "Trapdoor", or rather "Woodlouse", whichever callsign feels more fitting for him. It's a rough idea I had for a starter character that'd only have a GMS Everest to work with, and evidently I went....quite hard on the "additional manipulators" trait. Mechs with sub-arms are something I adore, so I indulged that quite a bit with this design. For gimmicks, the right arm is a retractable howitzer cannon, back barrel is a mortar, sub arms each have sub-arms of their own for things only human hands can do like typing on computers or delicate repairs, space setting obviously means he has an EVA system. And, of course: On-board radio to listen to music or machine cult podcasts.

In full campaign, I think this guy would end up being mainly a Lancaster pilot, but I still wanted to try my hand at interpreting a-rather heavily modified-Lancer Everest design. And, very satisfyingly, it came out quite well.

Have a very, very Merry Christmas my fellows, I....really hope I'll be better prepped next year.

IPS-N and the Lancer brand are owned by Massif Press, Miguel Lopez and Tom Parkinson Morgan. I don't think specifying that was needed but just in case.