My favorite of the services perfect for those with the self preservation instinct of severely depressed lemmings. The Scouts are according to the book explorers; mappers and mailmen.
They are hard to get into voluntarily though not as hard as the Navy or Marines. The desirable traits are quick thinking and more importantly strength. Erm, well yeah. I am going to go with Scouts being solo. A lot. 2 of their 3 iconic ships are one crew vessels so they need to be able to lug, push, pull and shove stuff around. I think I should have tried to get more sleep because my scouts have an optional enlistment procedure. If you can win an arm wrestle versus a scout you're in. This is to give a sense of a quirky service portraying itself as having a sense of humor.
Survival is a 50/50 proposition with END being the bonus characteristic. Easier to explain in that if you are usually by yourself you probably need to go on short sleep while fighting off diseases as you explore new worlds. And holding your breathe can be real handy on Xboats.
Reenlistment is almost a given which means if you get in and can stay alive you can retire from the Scouts also suggesting they don't care about age.
Material Benefits are Low passage; INT; EDU; Gun; Blade; Scout Ship. If you enlist in the Scouts you like to gamble with your life so low passage is the only way to go <shrug>. Both characteristic bumps are +2 so you will come away from your service knowing a ton of stuff and being able to come up with solutions to problems. Scouts complete against the Army Marksmanship teams and in the Navy and Marine sword duels. Finally we come to the first player ship, the Scout/Courier. Great for adventurers next to useless for traders. I am trying to come up with a ship benefit thingy so all the players who get ship benefits can pool the benefit to get a single party ship. So far I am failing. I am also thinking of replacing the various ships with something else so the GM has a powerful motivator to start the campaign.
The Scouts are generous with separation pay with the best payouts in the services.
Before we get to the tables it is worth noting that Scouts get 2 skills per term not one. I am not buying the official because they don't get commission or promotions explanation but there are plenty of other services that don't either just scouts. I see this as a policy to keep Scouts from going nuttier than they are while zipping around in space by themselves. I also think it is presented as a kind of competition with their peers rather than as a directive.
The Personal Development table offers every characteristic except SOC replacing that with Gun Combat. So the Scouts don't mingle with the right people. It is also the only place to get a combat skill so the Scouts are not a paramilitary organization. Even the Merchant Marine is more bellicose than the Scouts.
The Service Skills table means the Scouts favor Air/Raft; Vacc Suit; Mechanical; Electronics; Navigation and JOT. Air/Raft means Vehicle to me, Grav Vehicle if you are going to be picky I am not. Vacc Suit is pretty important to people in space and going to any kind of world. Mechanical and Electronics make sense for an organization sending a bunch of people off by themselves in starships. Navigation being down on this table makes sense. Every Scout gets Pilot-1 but without Navigation you aren't going any place that doesn't have a course tape available. And JOT I see as the quintessential Scout skill try anything in any situation because they end up in all kinds of situations.
The Advanced Education table has Vehicle; Mechanical; Electronics; JOT; Gunnery and Medical. The first 4 make sense as they did earlier and add emphasis that Scouts are expected to make do on their own. Gunnery is acceptable because they are in small ships that are still worth millions so people probably try and take them. Medical is available to all Scouts because have you seen their Survival roll, just saying.
The 8+ Advanced Education table has Medical; Navigation; Engineering; Computer; Pilot and JOT. Engineering and Pilot complete the making a starship run skill set so are not revealing in their presence although I am thinking of replacing the first Adv Edu Vehicle skill with Engineering so it is available to all Scouts and putting either Blade/Gun or Brawling here. Medical and Navigation were covered above and JOT appears again. So I am not alone in thinking it is the Scout skill.
Mentioned elsewhere every Scout is a trained Pilot. I am a bit perplexed by the Pilot skill in it is the necessary FTL skill but Navigation is how you plot the course between systems. <shrug> We'll get to that when we hit the starship section.
This leaves me with the impression of a frat house rather than a military service or government department. The Scouts have tasks assigned but not jobs or even defined missions. They attract competitive people who can't work 9 to 5 at the same job and have difficulty with a traditional boss-worker environment. At odds with this is the detached duty mentality, once a Scout always a Scout constantly subject to recall. In MTU officials are used to going "Hey you were in the Scouts right? I have this problem". For the general public it means they wouldn't find it odd for a Scout to be just about anywhere asking about stuff. The lack of social mobility also means they are seen as average Joe/Jane and approachable although the reputation for being "odd" can hinder them.
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