Interstellar Cycler Crew

Cyclers are a type of ship responsible for travelling between two locations, and, usually, trading supplies, such as pieces of tech, artwork, cultural artifacts, or just raw materials. Information is another major element of trade, and consist mostly of new technology and scientific discoveries, various forms of entertainement, and general information about the state of things, though the last one is mostly the job of News-Merchants, which are technically a type of cycler. These ships need crews, and while in-system cyclers often take no more than a year to go from place to place, interstellar ships can take decades or centuries between major destinations, and even more to return to a starting point. Thus, they need loyal and dedicated crews.

Crew composition

A cycler crew often consists of less than ten people, as spaceships in general are highly automated, these ones even more so. The roles are most commonly as follows;

Leadership

Similarly to most other larger spaceships, a cycler is usually lead by a captain or a group of people. The most common form, aside from a single captain, is a group of two or three, each with roughly equal say and contributing their own views and takes on a given situation. In addition, there is usually an integrated intellegence of some kind present on a ship. Ultimately, in most scenarios, the command in any given situation is on the captaincy, and the smaller-scale, more specific decisions fall onto the other roles.

Maintenance

The role of maintenance overseeing largely consists of managing the hundreds or thousands of drones and machinery for repairs and general maintenance. It also often involves keeping the crew up to standard and healthy, assuming the captaincy cares. It is a relatively one-sided role, but a vital and large-scale one.

Navigation

Navigators of ships plot routes and plan how to get from A to B best. The captaincy tells the navigation where to go, and the navigation determines how long that will take, what the best route is, where to stop along the way, use gravity wells for slingshots, accounts for FTL imprecisions, and, well, navigates. The actual control of the ship is handled by various computer systems, as is standard. The navigation also sometimes handles smaller systems like mining drones or inter-ship craft.

Resource Management

Resource management entails managing resources. Fuel, oxygen, food, water, air, raw materials, cargo, etc. It also manages refining resources and manufacturing new ones with the ship's facilities, like growing food, splitting water into oxygen and Hydrogen, and refining raw materials into usable stuff for the ship's repairs, new additions, or whatever else. It also usually manages finances, like pay and transactions, though the actual sales are usually handled by the communications department.

Communication

Communications handles a lot of the stuff that occurs between the ship and other factions. Purchasing and selling cargo and supplies, managing habitat approach permissions, negotiating crew contracts, ship cooperation, and the like.

Mode relations

Quite a few members of a cycler's crew end up embracing the Mode mentality, if only from a sense of boredom and desire for something new. As with Modes in general, these augmentations vary between useful and practical, and completely superficial and/or for novelty. The fact that many tradeships are both wealthy and have access to complex technology and augments likely encourages this. While the population amounts of Modes amounts to barely a rounding error compared to the rest of humanity, the amount of Modes in interstellar cycler crews borders on 20%. The Captain and Kyra, for example, are both Modes, and the only members of the Lady Venus' crew. The case of that ship is somewhat an exception, as its captain is essentially the ship anyway. The crew of the Void Traveller, for another example, was about 7 strong, with four Modes on board.

Type

Transportation