Bug in Ten Forward
- Thread starter Kei Fox
- Start date
I mean it's established that in 90s Trek many of the characters like to bring in "real" food whenever they can. And since in real life you often get fruit flies hatching from the fruit you buy in stores... it's theoretically possible that some sort of fly species (terrestrial or alien) was brought on board with someone's bowl of fruit.
Or it is an important pollinator that escaped from some hydroponics bay or the arboretum.
Or it is an important pollinator that escaped from some hydroponics bay or the arboretum.
Considering how sanctimonious the TNG crew sometimes was about "real" food I wouldn't put it past them...
Maybe that bug is another thing from one of Wesley's failed experiments which has been let loose on the ship. Similar to the Nanites.While watching The Next Generation episode "The Game", I noticed when Wesley Crusher and Robin Lefler were having dinner, a flying bug (common house fly maybe?) landed near Wesley's bowl during the dialogue of "I bet if we work together we could figure it out."
There was a bug in a nice big close-up of Spot's food bowl in another episode too. It bugs me how many more episodes feature flying pests. But if it helps, for all we know, they're actually fleet admirals telling Picard what to do.
But that's all in-universe explanations to prove more than just humans are serving. If actors were letting flies into the studio out of abject boredom, others needed to bring in bug zappers that glow that ugly hue and make annoying noises, some sticky tape bits dangling to really sell a futuristic effect*, and - of course - a bog full of frogs.
* especially if the ship was a giant outhouse
But that's all in-universe explanations to prove more than just humans are serving. If actors were letting flies into the studio out of abject boredom, others needed to bring in bug zappers that glow that ugly hue and make annoying noises, some sticky tape bits dangling to really sell a futuristic effect*, and - of course - a bog full of frogs.
* especially if the ship was a giant outhouse
It's probably a descendant of the fly that flew onto Mike Pence's head. He wanted to do his ancestor proud and make it onto a starship.
In-universe, it appears that pests on starships and starbases do still exist. Cardassian voles are one notable vertebrate that seems to easily infest Cardassian stations. Voyager had some photonic fleas.
That's true, but assuming that's a standard fly...what do they live off in a world where most (if not all) food waste just get recycled back into the replicator?
Lots of kinds of flies. The Enterprise has a lot of potted plants as well as the arboretum and probably some more...juicy...areas. Like, do the cetacean crewmembers use a head or just poop in their pool like regular dolphins while everybody politely pretends not to notice? Ensign Hw'ii*click*uiii! just peed the pool again, guys.
But I digress...My point being, it seems reasonable that in areas like the arboretum, they'll have a variety of insects and microbes maintaining the soil, eating decaying leaves, etc. In modern reptile keeping, hobbyists routinely use bioactive setups with insects keeping things clean. Gardens need pollinators and a cleanup crew and soil critters. Only primitive 20th century humans would turn their nose up at bugs doing their natural ecological jobs.
There are a lot of food sources for bugs on a starship.
But see, if its a housefly or a flesh fly (which I meant by a "standard fly", sorry I wasn't clear, my fault) then it'd be difficult for it to find decaying matter to feed off and breed in. Maybe easier for the housefly, assuming there's decaying plant matter in the Arboretum and/or Mall. Less so in a hydroponics bay, where'd they probably get killed quickly. But flesh flies would be out of luck, unless there's some messy cew members who leave their half-eaten beacon lie around for days.
Does Wesley need a shower? Is he the one who attracted that fly?
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