Tinker

"Are you aware of the Tinker classification?"

"Covers anyone with powers that give them an advanced grasp of science. Lets them make technology years ahead of its time. Ray guns, ice blasters, mechanized suits of armor, advanced computers."<ref>https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/gestation-1-6/</ref>

Tinkers are parahumans who "create devices or alter existing devices well beyond usual restrictions of education, knowledge, resources, and/or physics [...] a typical tinker can artificially assume any number of other classifications, depending on specialty." The term was initially created by the PRT ground-patrol and response teams in New York as a means of quickly identifying threats and adopting strategies.<ref name="PRT Quest">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Swjz8BZZNE4bq6lTkHanTK4sJ-K_xVlFudxA16mYjH4/edit#heading=h.1x68bg9w7rc5</ref>

Powers

According to the PRT, Tinkers are capes who "can create devices or alter existing devices well beyond usual restrictions of education, knowledge, resources, and/or physics."<ref name="PRT Quest" />

What really drives tinkers, in a lot of cases, is the inspiration aspect. We don't really see this, because we mostly see tinkers who are doing their thing with what they've already built.

But tinkers vary a great deal in how they get their ideas. How fast, how many, how varied. In many cases, tinkers can find their way to new ideas by studying powers or studying the work of other tinkers. Bakuda develops time and space warping bombs (the slow grenade, the feature-warping thing she almost put up Grue's nose) by scanning and studying stuff that was affected by Clockblocker and Vista's powers. Armsmaster does much the same, with the time stop halberd (Clockblocker) and EMP pulse (Battery). In Dragon's case, well, she has access to a wealth of confiscated and 'submitted for internal review' PRT stuff.

From the shard's perspective, this drives competition and puts one tinker against another. Stealing another tinker's stuff to study both hurts the tinker and is a fast route to upping the quality of your own stuff. On a similar level, a tinker that's getting in fights is going to find ideas coming hard and fast (Bakuda), compared to a tinker that just hangs out in their workshop and actively avoids confrontation (Leet).

Then you get someone like Trainwreck, who doesn't have access to outside ideas. He's a case 53 tinker who needed to build himself a body. That example power 'crude tinkering' I noted before? That's his. He can work with scrap and develop something that works pretty damn well. His gear is fairly limited, but he can build it fast and he can build it with parts from a rusted old car.

Tinkers are very hard to slap a rating on, but as with anything, they're judged based on the threat they pose to the PRT/community. Bakuda went from threatening to blow up a building with strategically placed explosives (Tinker 6) to getting access to powers to study while working under Lung and alongside Oni Lee, then showing what she was truly capable of when Lung was arrested and she tried to build the ÜberEMP.<ref>https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/wormverse-ideas-recs-and-fic-discussion-thread-40.311933/page-459#post-15849046</ref>

Strategies

Tinkers are less dangerous when removed from their gear, but should not be assumed

to be harmless. A typical tinker can artificially assume any number of other classifications, depending on specialty. Specialty should be appended to the

classification in every case possible. (ie. phasing specialty or electricity specialty)<ref name="PRT Quest" />

References

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References

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