The description says it represents citizens of a tech level 4 or less world capable of surviving without advance technology. Hearing (or reading) the career title however brings Conan to mind even though TL 4 is actually on par with WWII so lets see how this goes. It is fairly easy to qualify to join this career and you are helped or hindered by your END. Your survival chance is a moderately high 6+ modified by your STR. There are no commission or promotion rolls leaving only the re-enlistment check of 5+ which is not a guarantee of retirement by any means but still is possible. At the end of your beginning term you get Melee Weapon - 1 (a cascade skill) and mechanics; gun combat; recon; survival and animals all at level 0. This already has more of a survivalist than hulking swordsman feel to it. Mustering out benefits are low and middle passage; weapon x2; a mental boost and a boost to your END. Nothing bothers me about any of those so we can move on to cash which ranges from 0 to 10,000 cr which does bug me a little. A personal dislike of mine is rolling and getting a nothing result during character generation mostly because players are going to fail enough during play to not screw then out of the gate as it were. However this is a minor and personal enough quibble that I doubt I will change it.
On to the skill tables keeping in mind you get 2 per term as there is no chance for formal advancement in the Barbarian career. Personal development offers improvements to the 3 physical stats and INT; athletics and gun combat. Although I usually dislike players having no chance to improve their EDU thereby locking out a entire table unless they already have a high score to begin with I am okay with it here. The kinds of non-formal education things you would learn are covered pretty well by the skills available even without the advanced table I am content. No chance to improve SOC is also non-troubling as I can't see living rough leading to interstellar renown. Specialist skills offered are gun combat; J-O-T; melee combat; recon; animals and tactics. Again I have no trouble with any of these and like the inclusion of J-O-T to represent self reliance. The advance skills are advocate; linguistics; medicine; leadership; tactics and broker. It strikes me that this represents a set of skills necessary to interact with off worlders rather than to live off the land which is why I am okay with a character either having access to them before they start or never getting them as I don't see these as very common on low tech worlds.
I really like this career. The skills available do seem to suggest to me worlds that are not that interested in joining interstellar society but prefer to go it on their own which could easily explain everyone else calling them barbarians. I am a little iffy squaring my new outlook with getting melee combat as a base skill but I do like the rest of it. Melee and gun combat in this case are more likely (to me) to come from hunting than fighting other people. Athletics implies there are few people who don't have a job that involves manual labor. Recon and survival means that most people probably spend a significant amount of time in the wild. Animals shows up twice correctly emphasizing the importance they play in less industrialized societies. Tactics can be learned by anyone as described in Cepheus Engine (CE). Mechanics and J-O-T are nice additions to show a bias toward fixing it yourself rather than just buying it again. The advanced skills are realy well thought out in my opinion seeming to represent a special individual who is used to dealing with off world people and ideas represented by advocate; linguistics and broker. Leadership; medicine and tactics makes me think village elder even though there is no age requirement on the table. There is a thought perhaps it should be EDU 8+ or 4+ terms.
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