RIG

The RIG, short for Resource Integration Gear, was the worn equipment that kept spacefaring workers and soldiers alive in the harsh conditions of the 26th century. Engineers of the Concordance Extraction Corporation, such as Isaac Clarke, wore an engineer RIG as a matter of routine, and the suit was woven into nearly every aspect of life aboard mining vessels and military ships alike. It sealed its wearer against vacuum and thin atmospheres, served as a personal identity for security systems, and connected its wearer to others through a communication channel known as the RIGlink.

A worker's second skin#

The RIG was standard issue for anyone who worked beyond a breathable atmosphere. CEC engineers wore an engineer RIG as part of their daily routine, and the suit was as much a tool of the trade as the mining equipment they carried. On a world with hostile surface conditions, the RIG was the difference between survival and death. On Aegis VII, where the atmosphere was thin and the surface swept by high winds and dust storms, an engineer RIG was advised before anyone went outside, and prolonged work in the open was considered inadvisable without sufficient protection. The suit sealed its wearer against such conditions and against the vacuum of space itself.

Identity and access#

A RIG was bound to the person who wore it, and that identity was read by the security systems of ships and stations. Scanners at restricted doors checked a wearer's RIG before granting passage, which made the suit a kind of personal credential. This had a grim consequence during the Necromorph outbreaks: a dead crew member's RIG could be recovered and used to pass through doors that had been sealed to everyone else. Aboard the USG Ishimura, the crew of the USG Kellion needed Captain Benjamin Mathius' RIG to access the Bridge's computer, and Isaac Clarke retrieved it from the captain's reanimated corpse. On Titan Station, the watchman Howard Phillips' RIG was needed to pass the security scans guarding the corridors of the Solar Array, where the station intelligence ANTI detected each RIG that approached.

The RIGlink#

The RIG also provided the RIGlink, a personal communication channel that let crews speak to one another across a ship or station. Officers issued orders and survivors coordinated their movements through it, and on the USM Valor the warship received its instructions from the Ishimura through RIGlink messages. The same channel could carry the influence of the Markers. Aboard the Valor, the security officer Zach Hammond began to hear the voice of the dead crewman Aiden Chen over the RIGlink and became convinced the man was still alive, an early sign of the Marker Dementia that claimed so many. On the USG O'Bannon, the engineer Alejandro Borges reported the loss of the engine room to his captain over the RIGlink even as the Necromorphs overran it around him.

Soldiers and survivors#

Military personnel wore heavier versions of the gear. The armories of the USM Valor held lockers stocked with Advanced Soldier RIGs alongside the Marines' rifles, and these suits carried built-in Stasis modules. When Marines of the Valor were killed and reanimated, the Stasis modules in their suits gave the resulting Necromorphs unusual speed, and they came to be called Twitchers. For survivors caught in the outbreaks, the RIG was the one constant that allowed them to keep moving through ruined ships and stations, sealing them against the cold and the vacuum as they fought their way through the wreckage of the Ishimura, the Valor, and the Sprawl.