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wreck survey by mongreldog

wreck survey

mongreldog

As any unoccupied starship without a security system is more or less fair game in this day and age, salvage can be big business. However, it's not always a good idea to just go blundering in to grab every dead old wreck that's been left orbiting a desolate moon. You might think that dilapidated algae-processing vessel could be worth a few bucks, but that is not always the case. After all, abandoned starships have usually been abandoned for a reason. Often, anything valuable from the ship itself has been stripped out by its previous owners before it was left floating and empty. And often, the cost of recovering, towing, restoring and recommissioning a dead starship far outstrips its later sale or use value.

The trouble is, a quick glance at one of these lumbering space-hulks is not enough to tell whether it's worth recovering or not. When a ship is found drifting, and its data stores have been wiped, removed or destroyed, and anything explaining its designation or previous purpose is impossible from discern from a distance, the action taken by any self-respecting deep space haulier or salvage operation is to send in some people to check it out.

That is what David (left) and Collin (right) have been hired to do. Self-employed wreck-and-ruin surveyors, they explore old starships and planetary sites, taking photographs and making a note of anything that could help to indicate to their clients whether the wreck in question is worth recovering. This vessel is clearly an old factory ship, and not only is its life support, gravity and emergency lighting system still installed and functional--with the help of a portable power unit to replace the energy from the vessel's absent central reactor--but there seems to be a fair amount of automated fabrication machinery here that could be stripped out and sold on.

Of course, even though this old factory ship has the uncommon luxury of a working oxygen and heating system, and even though the lights are on, and even though both up and down are in the places that one expects, wreck surveying is a dangerous business. Creaky structures, broken or non-functional lifts--and the frequent need to scale walls and machinery to get a good position to take a photo--all contribute to the very real risks of the job. Here, a typically cheery and helpful David helps Collin up to a precarious platform. The dangers of this work mean that you need to have a working partner you can trust, and, as a result, Collin is very glad to have someone like David around.

Submission Information

Views:
456
Comments:
3
Favorites:
9
Rating:
General
Category:
Visual / Digital

Comments

  • Link

    gasp a Human! The horror!

    You'd think in the future they'd use drones to check out ships, but I guess people are cheaper :/

    • Link

      sadly the case; the focus on drones and robots only serves to obscure the truth of all the exploited human labour underpinning the production of that technology. nothing's cheaper than the labour of people who are considered not to matter :I

  • Link

    Hopefully the pay is worth the risk!