Um... you kind of answered your first objection with your second, Fnord. It's the product of a retired-at-thirty doctor/lawyer type who built himself a light plane before the 'wave hit, then figured what the hell, why not go whole hog? He gets together with the lacal fan club to have more hands to build and crew for when it goes to peices so it won't go all to pieces, they wind up with somewhere around the liveable space of a big delivery van or small camper in each section, and MAJOR geek cred with the Trekkies for having a Starfleet silhouette even if it is only more useful than a standard van conversion. The Beta hull (upper aft section, "warp nacelles" up) has room for a couple of Austin Mini sized shuttlecraft, and the large relative volume devoted to engines combined with light build means the thing can probably do a good rendition of a streak of greased lightning - given dominant Trekkie memes, it's probably one of the ships that spends its time ranging ever further afield to the next star to look for some sign of new life, civilizations, and/or Space Hotties with odd foreheads. That they're back in the region circa SauceCon is coincidental, and actually gives a better justification for a certain plot point now that I think about it.
But, here's the important point - they are not major characters. They show up for one thing, then they're gone again for the most part. The question is not, "do you want to hear all about them," but "are they too much to smile and nod and wave bye-bye to?" To put it in bullet form, they have the following Important Things:
* Female AI, Liza, focused on human interaction
* They were there ca. Valentines 2008 when Wave Convoy-tachi first hit orbit, Liza helped him adapt to life as a machine intelligence. Wave Convoy also helped her simulate and better understand the human experience by integrating the emulation of hunger and eating in her routines, with a holodate in a holopizzeria followed by a (flat) movie in a holotheater, etc. In cyberspace, since whatever ship the Trekkies may be on at that point, it's not built for people 25 feet tall.
* They are back again in 2012 when the SOS-dan calls their Con
The rest of the details don't really matter, because they're only there to provide justification for those events - which means being on a chibi-Prometheus is really not important either way, it's just that the Prometheus is a Trek ship I don't dislike (the other options are a Miranda Refit, Ambassador, or the Romulan Whitewind from the FASA tactical game) with known AI capacity to justify there being one.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
But, here's the important point - they are not major characters. They show up for one thing, then they're gone again for the most part. The question is not, "do you want to hear all about them," but "are they too much to smile and nod and wave bye-bye to?" To put it in bullet form, they have the following Important Things:
* Female AI, Liza, focused on human interaction
* They were there ca. Valentines 2008 when Wave Convoy-tachi first hit orbit, Liza helped him adapt to life as a machine intelligence. Wave Convoy also helped her simulate and better understand the human experience by integrating the emulation of hunger and eating in her routines, with a holodate in a holopizzeria followed by a (flat) movie in a holotheater, etc. In cyberspace, since whatever ship the Trekkies may be on at that point, it's not built for people 25 feet tall.
* They are back again in 2012 when the SOS-dan calls their Con
The rest of the details don't really matter, because they're only there to provide justification for those events - which means being on a chibi-Prometheus is really not important either way, it's just that the Prometheus is a Trek ship I don't dislike (the other options are a Miranda Refit, Ambassador, or the Romulan Whitewind from the FASA tactical game) with known AI capacity to justify there being one.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows