Skip to main content

star trek - Management of fruit bowls on the Enterprise D


I have noticed that guest quarters on the Enterprise D have fruit bowls on their tables. A prominent instance is the fruit bowl in Berlinghoff Rasmussen's quarters in "A Matter of Time". The first thing that Rasmussen does when Data takes him to his guest quarters is take a piece of fruit and shove it in his pocket.



Who replicates fruit for these fruit bowls before guests arrive? More generally, who removes unused fruit and tidies quarters after guests leave? Is there a ship hospitality staff, perhaps including Guinan's wait staff in Ten Forward?



Answer



I'm going to go out on a limb here and say "no-one". My guess is that rooms are automatically configured and maintained by the ship itself:




  • The Enterprise has replicators in every set of quarters and access to high-precision transporters.




  • The Enterprise has a powerful semi-intelligent AI.





  • We know from the TNG Technical Manual that guest quarters are configured "at short notice" but can only be reconfigured once someone is staying for a longer term.




  • We know from TNG : Up the Long Ladder that the ship intelligently cleans itself (Riker is confident that it will detect and clean the Bringloidi's dirty sheets and hay, despite these not being part of the ship's usual ephemera):





Worf and Picard EXIT the shot, and Riker walks back to Brenna. She is fastidiously picking up the sodden blankets.


RIKER : That wasn't necessary. The ship will clean itself.



BRENNA : Well, good for the bloody ship!



If I had to theorise about the fruit, I'd imagine that when you configure a guest room for a human visitor, you simply select a few items from a menu (fruit bowl, flowers, etc) and they're transported and then regularly replenished by the computer whenever the room is left empty.


Additionally, in STD we see cleaning droids floating around the place picking up mess, dusting and wiping. They just pop out of the walls and then disappear discreetly when not needed.







Moving down the canon scale, in the TNG novel Q and A (written by respected and prolific Trek author Keith R.A. DeCandido), we learn that Picard's quarters and bed are all maintained by something he refers to as "automated janitorial systems". No major explanation is given for their workings but apparently they not only clean the floors but also make the beds.




Jean-Luc set down his teacup on the end table next to the bed, then reached over to cup Beverly’s cheek with his right hand. “I must say, Beverly, I prefer this method of eating breakfast.”


Reaching over to the tray that sat between them on the bed, Beverly grabbed another croissant and stuck it in his mouth. “You’re just saying that because you don’t have to clean the bed.”



and



They stopped only when the clang of flatware falling to the floor startled both of them. Peering over the side of the bed, Beverly saw that the croissant tray and the jam had upended onto the carpet.


She looked at Jean-Luc and grinned. “Oops.”


“Oops, indeed. Suddenly, I’m rather grateful I don’t have to clean the room myself. Thank heaven for automated janitorial systems.”



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...