Traveller slang

[Condottiere]

digital nomad - upgraded from murder hobo

 

[MThompson016]

Front ender: Starship crew that are not engineering types, bridge crew.

This is a good one. It's a close relation to US nuclear boats of cone-ers and nukes, that is non-nuclear trained personnel and nuclear trained personnel. Often prefaced by an obscenity.

Others that would work, and some are based on my long ago time on Trident boats :
Domes for turret weapons, and the associated crew
Mads or Mad Scientists for particle weapons crew, especially for meson guns
Trained Monkeys for torpedo (heavy missile) crew
Knuckle Draggers gets applied to any mechanically heavy spacer, as they're seen as doing more work with their hands
Skirts for weapons electronics spacers, as they can 'keep their clothing clean' instead of the dirty work on the mechanical side

 

[Condottiere]

apes - marines
rock apes - marines stationed on a planetoid
monkey wrenchers - mechanics

 

[TamsinP]

rock apes - marines stationed on a planetoid

I strongly advise that you do not make that suggestion in the vicinity of a Royal Marine, as you'd be equating them with members of the RAF Regiment.

 

[Condottiere]

console monkeys - bridge crew

 

[FreeTrav]

Fireballs - Imperial Marine drop troops who have made at least one successful insertion via drop. This is 'in-group' slang; it is accepted from other (non-drop) Imperial Marines, tolerated from other Imperial armed forces personnel, and is borderline 'fighting words' from civilians.

 

[Enoki]

Self-propelled shielding, or shields. Infantry, particularly marines in assault units. Implies they're there to soak up all the fire so the rest of the attacking troops can take the objective without being hit by fire.