Character Snapshot: Chief Engineer Vilpol

Having served for over forty years in engine rooms, Chief Engineer Vilpol has seen it all. And don’t you forget it.

Though he started his career on waterborne craft, the growth of space exploitation carried many skilled engineers from their surface professions into space, and Chief Engineer Vilpol was part of that initial wave.

His first spaceborne posting was on the dWMS Königin der Wunderfluss, a Zweireiner-Class Freighter that ran the original Fenris-Falke run for four years, interrupted by six months service on the DWS Bauleiter as it did its working-up before heading to Yutani as part of the support squadron in the First Contact War. He then spent six months in retirement on Yutani after retiring from Königin (having stated he’d had it with the suits back on Fenris).

After six months of tooling around his new home, Vilpol signed on with Blue Star Shipping’s Polar Glory, a Provider-Class Container Ship. He always said he went out for the money, but after a few beers he’d admit that sometimes it only felt home when the floor vibrated with the thrum of engines. A further six years of service with Blue Star carried Vilpol across almost twice as many ships, each time interspersed with few more months of “retirement”.  By 12.1 AS, he found himself serving as chief engineer aboard Sołdek, a Lürssen-Class Mobile Shipyard.

Since signing on with Blue Star Shipping, Chief Engineer Vilpol has written several books, and consulted on several more. The first book, titled “I Told You So: An Engineer’s Life” chronicles many of the early years of space shipping, and more than a few instances where corporations had attempted to cut corners in the pursuit of profits. When asked about the incidents, Vilpol has stated that he had merely heard about several of them through his service on Königin, with the exception of the instance of a management executive ordering purified water to be pumped into a fusion engine fuel injector. “He asked me my opinion and I gave it. He didn’t like it.”

J&W Speyer House is proud to state that we have retained Chief Engineer Vilpol as a consultant on our upcoming book series, tentatively titled the “Ship Crew Manual” series. With over forty years service on a variety of classes and conditions, and little mercy for corporate sales tactics, we feel that Chief Engineer Vilpol will help offer everyone a realistic guide on keeping their ship in working order.