The only two things that had come to mind for me were Bobby Darin's "Clementine" and "Quark" from the early eighties, one has lyrics that are no longer mainstream acceptable and the other I don't remember well enough to quote. Regardless let us have a look, a belter mines the asteroid belts for minerals or salvage. Which is why you should read the rules before getting too attached to a concept. Much like the Barbarian turned out to be more of a survivalist I had never considered the salvage aspect of being a belter. In Fermi's Universe (FU) I set out the idea that there had been lots of aliens in the past and that the all somewhat mysteriously disappeared and left it at that. Having read the description of belter I now am thinking that the were litterbugs and there is a ton of crap drifting around in systems waiting to be found. None of that changes any rules Per se but does offer a piece of filler fluff for the setting which is good. Having a career that does this also means it is reasonable (to me) that on the whole archaeology is probably closer to the 1850's kind than the more modern idea being more find stuff and take it rather than study it in place.
Wow it is ridiculously easy to qualify for the belter career needing only a 4+ with Intelligence (INT) being the controlling characteristic. Survival doesn't have the best chance even if you have the maximum bonus from your Dexterity (DEX) so lots of people die or get critically injured doing this job. With no formal ranking that only leave your re-enlistment at a 5+ meaning retirement is possible but not likely. At the end of your first term you get Zero-G -1 and Comms, Demolitions, Gun Combat, Gunnery, Prospecting and Piloting at rank 0. We can pause here to spew hatred at the English language for its ungodly rules on punctuation and whether numbers should be words or numerals. This list of "everyman" skills is even more pleasing to me than the barbarian one including every one I conceive as necessary to do the job. I am also intrigued that the base skill is Zero G rather than Prospecting which I agree with completely. Moving on to the mustering out table your character can receive all three types of passage, a weapon (and possibly skill in its use), a boost to a mental characteristic and finally ship shares. The only one needing comment is the ship shares because I stated in a prior post I am not a fan of them. The problem is what to replace them with? I waffled for a while on this before deciding to change it to rank 1 in any skill of the player's choice allowing for skills not otherwise available. A ship would be a huge award so it's replacement should be as well in my line of thought. To be confusing though you can't use this award to increase a skill you have only to add another skill at rank 1 as I am offering it as a way to say a character devoted considerable free time to learn something above and beyond what normal characters do with their free time during generation. The money table ranges from 1,000 to 50,000 with 5,000 being awarded three times giving me (the GM) an idea of a standard find should be worth.
Keep in mind on the skill tables that a belter will get two rolls for each term as there is no advancement in the career. The personal development table offers the three physical characteristics, Zero G, Melee Combat and Gambling. I dislike having no chance for mental improvement however I also can't plausibly offer any replacements so it will go unchanged. The specialist table has Zero G, Computer, Electronics, Prospecting, Sciences and Vehicle which I am content with. Finally the advanced education table has Advocate, Engineering, Medicine, Navigation, Comms and Tactics and again I am satisfied with the table. On the whole I am satisfied with the career but I am dubious with the lack of two skills those being Mechanical and Jack of Trades. The problem is the skill tables presented give a wide range of skills so you can be a jack of all trades without the skill. As for Mechanical the only skill I could see replacing is Vehicle but that one makes sense as well so I don't like doing that. I will leave the skill tables alone after all.
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