To answer your questions, the Int derived skill points can go into anything, so that's generally where you're going to be getting your social status from.<br/><br/>The hacking skill somehow got dropped from the skill list when I copied it, and the base percentage is [INT+5%]<br/><br/>As for origin, your characters are generally assumed to be natives of autocthonia, though you can choose to be recent arrivals if you wish.  The computer rebelled 20 years ago, but it does arrange occasional alien abductions, and Majestic 12 might still have functional spaecraft.  Your character is assumed to be somewhat exceptional, usually from being "the right stuff"  or having cybernetic enhancements, though I'm leaving the cybernetics for flavor.  Later in the game, you might have the option of getting parts installed in you for characteristic boosts in exchange for sanity.<br/><br/>Many characters will either be astronauts or scientists who have been hanging around Autocthonia for a couple of decades, renegade scum born in the reaches, never having seen sunlight or tasted real food, or proles who somehow escaped the clutches of the computer and were accepted into a renegade community.<br/><br/>As for your skills, one VERY important consideration is that the xp system will determine how well your character can advance based on how high you pump your skills.  Rate of advancement is based on how many different skills you get a successful roll in, and the amount of advance is increased by your skill being at a lower level.  The net result is that a character with 4-5 skills at 100% might gain 5-8 skill points whenever the party stops to train, while a character with 10-12 skills at 40% might gain 16-20 skill points in the same interval.  You can be like Obi Wan, and be a specialized, hyper competent character with little room to grow, Han Solo, a cocky, competent character with potential to learn a few new tricks, or Luke Skywalker, an inexperienced, ready to learn character with remarkable potential, if he keeps himself alive long enough.  In general, the younger your character is, the more you should generalize, while older characters should specialize.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Experience: An adventurer gets 1 improvement roll each time a skill is successfully used in a stressful, adventurous situation at normal difficulty or above before extended downtime.  Place an X by any skill on your character sheet you use successfully in stressful conditions.  Each skill can provide only a single improvement roll, and improvement rolls may only be applied at normal strength to skills that have earned improvement rolls.  Therefore, if a skill is successfully used once, each further success in that skill provides no additional improvement rolls.  Variety is key to successful improvement.  Improvement rolls can be used in skills other than the one they were earned in, to help a character specialize.<br/><br/>To make an improvement roll, an adventurer rolls d100 plus his intelligence.  If a character with a higher rating in the teach skill helps the character, the tens digit of the teacher's teach skill may also be added to the improvement roll.  If the improvement roll is higher than the skill being improved, the skill improves by 1d6 points.  If it is lower, the skill improves by only 1 point.  An improvement roll over 100 increases the skill by 1d10 points. <br/><br/>Improvement rolls may also be invested into characteristics.  It costs a number of improvement rolls equal to the rating of the characteristic to increase a characteristic by 1 point.  Note invested improvement rolls on the experience section of the character sheet.  A character may apply an improvement roll to a skill in which he has not earned an improvement roll, but the roll to do is only 1d10 instead of 1d100, plus the normal modifiers; when training in such a way, the bonuses from teaching count double.<br/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/><br/><br/>Here's my perspective on the role of each profession:<br/><br/><br/>Cosmonauts are adventurers, who perform important exploration tasks, as well as generally being heroes.  Though many of the original American adventurers who came to the station prefer the title Astronaut, the key qualifications for being a cosmonaut are to have no fear of the unknown, and a willingness to take the lead when times get rough.<br/><br/>Doctors are the people responsible for keeping the renegades in one peice, physically, mentally, and spiritually.  The role of a doctor in renegade society resembles that of a shaman, coming up with a diagnosis for the curses that ill the community, and helping the scientists devise a plan to fight the problem.<br/><br/>Hierarchs are the social leaders of the renegade community, often prominent business partners of the original Majestic 12 expeditions.  They often rely on exclusive access to fancy weapons and gear to ensure their status, and know the glorious lineage of the precious treasures that make them valued in society.  A great many hierarchs are actually defectors from the Metropoli, bringing with them great troves of technological treasure to barter.<br/><br/>Machinists are men and women who delve into the deep mysteries of Autocthonia, and work to make the miracles of the machine world work for humanity.  More often than any other profession, they live outside the bounds of their village, and often find ways to leave detailed legacies of their work behind, should the inherent hazards of working in such an isolated environment so close to the machine do them in.  What machinists do is dangerous, but they have a passion which drives them.<br/><br/>Peacekeepers are the law enforcers of renegade society.  They fight the good fight to keep a scattered collection of humanity with sometimes conflicting interests from killing each other, often relying more on force than on wisdom to do the job.  Few peacekeepers are employed in an "official" capacity, but other renegades know them as the guy who can always be relied upon to rough up the guy who's stealing your power cells, or spend a week running through the reaches to zap the machine cultist before he can tell the Metropolis where your village is.<br/><br/>Renegade: Renegades live in the core of renegade society, doing many of the dirty jobs that are needed to keep the renegades alive.  The typical renegade is not honorable, not honest, and not a good person, but will do anything to survive, and can often survive in the metropolis just as easily as in the reaches.<br/><br/>Scientist: To be a scientist in Autocthonia is like being a kid in a candy store owned by the scariest monster you've ever seen.  The entire prospect of the machine world is existentally terrifying, but the discoveries that can be made there are intoxicating.  Scientists in autocthonia are uniquely positioned to understand the secrets of the place without being corrupted by it, and they're often excellent at putting together methods of solving the village's problems with extensive research and pr<br/><br/>Soldier: The warriors of autocthonia fight a nearly constant battle in pitch dark tunnels, often fighting with a great variety of weapons as they try to acheive some semblance of temporary security.  Where peacekeepers are reactive, soldiers are proactive, getting their flamethrowers ready and diving into the ducts to hunt bugs.<br/><br/>