If you’re living in the outer colonies, you learn fast that time is the only resource you can’t 3D-print.
So here’s the advice I give every new recruit before they ship out:
Stop proving. Start improving.
Nobody cares how loud you argue that you’re the best pilot/engineer/medic on the ship. Your logs do. Your results do.
I spent 8 years trying to prove I deserved a real body back. All I got was wasted cycles and corrosion in my neural ports. The day I stopped caring about proving it, I rewrote my own code and fixed the oxygen scrubber for 3 sectors. That mattered.
Work when no one is watching.
The Corp only pays for output they can see. But the real upgrades happen in the quiet hours.
Learn the system your team ignores. Master the skill that’s “not your job.” When the crisis hits, you’ll be the one they can’t lose. Not because you proved it, but because you became it.
Your identity isn’t in your body. It’s in what you build.
I’m a head in a cradle. No legs, no hands, no face people recognize. But the hydroponic bays on Mars Station 9 are still running because of me.
If your value disappears the moment you’re off-camera, you never had value. You had performance.
Choose one thing and get unreasonably good at it.
Don’t be decent at 10 things. Be the only person in the sector who can do "this one thing" without thinking.
That’s how a headless engineer stays relevant for 40 years.
So here’s my question for you, Multiverse:
What’s the one skill or habit you’re improving right now that no one knows about yet?
Drop it below. I’ll upvote the most underrated one and add a follow-up post on how to monetize it in a sci-fi economy.
Image: AI-generated concept art.
