Heroes not villains

"We of the fleet like to think of ourselves as heroes. Often, though, the true heroes are those who design and build the warships we take into battle."

[Yes, this is Thrawn speaking]

Share some love for your engineers today, would you?

[They are not villains too].

[In the photo: a not original Thrawn minifig, that probably will break a friendship that lasted two decades. @fra_sprea please, I AM SORRY for this. We still can be friends, right?]

"I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer-born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in the steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace, and propelled by compressible flow. As an engineer, I take a substantial amount of pride in the accomplishments of my profession. [...] which leaves its imprint on our society in countless ways. [...]

So should not the world admire and respect them? Answer: Only occasionally. Many of our fellow citizens are mistrustful of logic and critical of technocrats, and often with reason. Bridges fail, airplanes crash, storage tanks leak, radiation escapes, and automobiles are recalled. Such failures are reported widely, and the search for whom to blame is initiated. [...] We are mistrusted because we are perceived as being slaves to technology, as technocrats who don't care a whit about the environment or safety or human values. And I reject those criticisms.

In my experience, engineers aren't really bad folks. A little too focused, maybe too intense for some, but they are as caring and concerned as other segments of our society. [...]

And in all honestly, I am guilty of a bit of subterfuge. [...] What I really hoped to do was shamelessly use this occasion to remind you of the breadth, and the depth, and the importance of engineering as a whole to human existence, human progress, and human happiness."

Neil A. Armstrong, National Press Club, February 22, 2000.