Navigator

For any striker, the navigator, or soul pilot, is the one essential ingredient. You are part cyborg, carrying within you a secondary nervous system, and part psion. You can join these twin tools to the core of the striker, its apparatus, and in a marvel of modern science, do the impossible: scratch a line between realities, punch faster than light.

Soul Pilot, Native of Space

The navigator’s home is in space, in their extraordinary lives, they transfer from the ship they soul-piloted, to a space station, and then onto a ship again. They’d probably view a planet as some kind of archaic orbiting habitat, and will wonder where the climate control systems are.

The navigator wears a special kind of aegis suit, usually of their own design. Beyond its function to protect the wearer, this suit has jacks that connect into the navigator’s body. These are, in turn, jacked into by the striker’s bell chamber. The main jacks are located in the back of the head and neck, but there are usually auxiliary jacks, whose locations depend on the preferences of the individual navigator, some like a good number of them in their fingers, others prefer a more direct connection to the brain, and there are many other combinations and preferences.

Guardian of The Ship

When strikers get boarded, the first priority is not to secure the bridge, but to secure the bell chamber. If a striker is to be taken over, they won’t trust the navigator that’s currently there, they will have their own. In the event of this kind of hostile takeover, navigators know that they are likely to die, so they devise strategies to repel invaders. This is often in the form of having several self defence methods from personal combat to offensive psychic techniques. They may also rig the bell chamber with various traps, and have various security systems on the door. Some military strikers don’t even have a door on the bell chamber, with the only way in (or out) via a personal teleportation.

The navigator prepares for the strike using a variety of relaxing and focusing techniques, again often of their own making, in a kind of pre-strike ritual. They’ll often take trinkets into the bell chamber with them. These can be symbolic, or evoke a particular feeling, or have some kind of religious significance.

Making a Navigator

The main question for you to answer for your character is how they came to do something as extraordinary as soul- piloting. It is hard to imagine how anyone would end up in this profession by chance, so there was probably some training done somewhere. This might have been in a formal arrangement, say in the military, or it might have been necessity, like having a mentor in a resistance movement.

Quick Build

You can make a monastic quickly by following these suggestions.

Choose Talents

A navigator tends to live in the mind a lot more than many others, but they often have to endure a lot as well, and yet keep their focus. Although navigators are known for piloting strikers, they often get a lot of other vehicle skills, because they are inevitably having to get to, from and between strikers. They are also most often remote pilots for probes and other drones. They are also at home in space and spend a lot of time in aegis suits.

Select the following 10 skills as talents:

Health, Focus, Perception, Resolve, Agility, Insight, Stealth, Investigate, Persuade, Science.

Choose Background

Navy (Navigation Officer) or Commercial Navigator background to optimise your skills around navigation, piloting and a bit of engineering

Apply Ranks Per Level

At each level (including the first), you distribute:

• 4 ranks to the range of skills, and
• 4 ranks to the range of techniques

presented below.

The navigators's primary skill is Psiportation. You should try to have at least half your level as ranks on this skill.

Navigator Skills & Techniques

4 ranks spread to these skills

Health, Focus

Aegis, Cbt-Zero-G, QTM-Tools, Scan-Tools, Vcl-Space, Vcl-Striker

Agility+SKILL, Perception, Resolve, Deceive, Insight, Investigate, Persuade, Antiquities, Science, Society, Stealth+SKILL, Survival

Cbt-Melee, Cbt-Ranged, Cbt-Tactical

Machinery, Materials, Munitions, Neuronetics, Robotics

Clairsentience, Psikinesis, Psiportation

4 ranks spread to these techniques

Calmness (Insight|Resolve*), Clarity-Save (Insight), Track (Investigate), Tenacious-Save (Survival)

Wpn-Blades-Short (Cbt-Melee), Wpn-Fistload (Cbt-Melee), Wpn-Energy (Cbt-Ranged|Cbt-Tactical**), Wpn-Flechettes (Cbt-Ranged), Wpn-Rifles (Cbt-Ranged), Wpn-Spray (Cbt-Ranged), Dodge-Attack (Cbt-Tactical), Dodge-Effect (Cbt-Tactical), Evasion (Cbt-Tactical), First-Strike (Cbt-Tactical), Vital-Harm (Cbt-Tactical)

Bypass (Machinery), Bypass (Materials), Bypass (Neuronetics)

Electrokinesis (Psikinesis), Focus (Psikinesis), Pyrokinesis (Psikinesis), Remote-Seeing (Clairsentience), Shield (Psikinesis), Skr-Avionics (Clairsentience), Skr-Slip-Stream (Psikinesis), Skr-Field-Dodge (Clairsentience), Skr-Fire-Dodge (Clairsentience), Blink (Psiportation), Blur (Psiportation), Phase (Psiportation), Skr-Carapace (Psiportation), Skr-Submariner (Psiportation), Telekinesis (Psikinesis), Thermokinesis (Psikinesis), Thoughtseeing (Clairsentience), Empathic-Projection (Telepathy)

* You can choose one skill to base this technique ** You can choose one skill to base this technique, if you need the technique under another skill, you must take the technique again, based on the new skill.
*** You can choose one aspect when putting your first rank on this skill, you must spend a rank on getting a second aspect.