Recently, I’ve been enjoying the TV series For All Mankind on Apple TV. Without giving too much away, it is an alternate history of the US space program from 1969 onwards, and the way they blend real and fictional stories, characters and news footage is very cleverly and effectively done. The characters are engrossing, and the sequences set on the surface of the moon are breath-takingly beautiful. But what I am enjoying the most is the portrayal of competent engineers and scientists doing their jobs, solving problems, and accomplishing great things.
So, with that in mind, I thought I’d dedicate this month’s column to celebrating the great engineers of science fiction.
First off, we have Marvel’s Tony Stark, the millionaire playboy who also happens to be a genius with technology. He designs and builds many iterations of his Iron Man armoured suit, as well as the revolutionary Arc Reactor that powers it. Working with Doctor Bruce Banner, he then creates a pair of artificial intelligences that evolve into Ultron and Vision. And if all that wasn’t enough, in Avengers: Endgame, he even manages to solve the equations that make time travel possible. The man has arrogance and swagger to spare, but he also has the ingenuity to back it up.
Next up, there’s Doctor Emmett Brown from the Back To The Future movies, the man who built a working time machine out of a Delorean, and then another one out of a nineteenth century steam locomotive! The Doc might be a bit eccentric and his inventions the cause of much trouble for his long-suffering pal, Marty, but this Jules Verne-inspired scientist knew how to put together a good-looking time machine!
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At number three, I’m going to include Mark Watney from the book and movie, The Martian. Yes, he was technically a botanist, but when Watney finds himself marooned on Mars, he uses his knowledge of mathematics, mechanics, and chemistry to come up with innovative solutions to the challenges of surviving alone in such a hostile environment, from creating water to stripping down and reconfiguring his landing craft, Watney really does “Science the sh*t” out of his situation.
Coming a little more down to Earth, we have the character of Q from the James Bond movies. Q (short for Quartermaster) designs and builds the gadgets and vehicles that regularly save 007 from a sticky end. Whether fitting an ejector seat to an Aston Martin or converting a Lotus Esprit into a submarine, Q had an uncanny knack for anticipating the needs of Bond’s missions. Although perhaps it’s a good job he never equipped 007 with the bagpipe flamethrower we glimpsed in the background of his lab during The World Is Not Enough.
Nobody who grew up watching TV in the 1980s will be at all surprised that MacGyver makes our list. Played by Richard Dean Anderson, Angus MacGyver was a secret agent who relied on his scientific know-how and engineering ingenuity. Using only his trusty Swiss Army Knife, MacGyver was able to improvise a life-saving solution to almost any problem. So resourceful was he that the phrase, “to MacGyver” something has now entered common parlance as a synonym for finding workarounds to technical problems.
One of the most famous engineers of the 1960s was known only as ‘Brains’. In Thunderbirds, Brains was the genius mechanical and aerospace engineer behind International Rescue’s fleet of vehicles, and the base at Tracy island. He also once built a chess-playing robot called Braman.
And lastly, we come to possibly the greatest fictional engineer of all time. Yes, I’m talking about Lt. Montgomery “Scotty” Scott from Star Trek. Whenever Captain Kirk needed a little more power to the engines, Scotty was there, caught between the needs of the mission and the realities of the ship’s capabilities. In the episode ‘Relics’ he says he, “never wanted to be anything else but an engineer,” and it is his passion for solving technical challenges, as well as the love and protectiveness he shows towards the U.S.S. Enterprise (not to mention the fact that he is also the only man in a red shirt not to die on an away mission!) that make him our number one.
Who would you have chosen? Let us know in the comments box below.
Gareth L. Powell writes science fiction about extraordinary characters wrestling with the question of what it means to be human. He has won and been shortlisted for several major awards, including the BSFA, Locus, British Fantasy, and Seiun, and his Embers of War novels are currently being adapted for TV.
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