Self-Cleaning Starships
- Thread starter Bry_Sinclair
- Start date
That's Power Play.
I bet Spiner used to leave all kinds of make-up on his console, I recall in one of the gag-reels he wiped the whole thing with a sleeve before starting a take.
Not much in a modern janitors closet would make sense on a starship.
Mop and bucket, requires big sink, nasty mop, and assorted chemicals- what is universally safe for each species? Most floors don't look mop or waxable. I'm doubting buffing occurred ever.
Not to say you can't just walk up to a replicator and order a sponge and spray bottle, or degreaser and dispose of it just as fast after use.
I'm guessing they didn't use carpets so much as padding. Carpets are absurd, absorb dirt, falls beneath. Rip it up, nasty all under.
I'm guessing every surface on most ships is non-porous, no grooves, easy to wipe. Bolean plumbing likely wasn't the only sanitary advance they brought.
If you make it hard for anything to stick, repelled even, its likely easy for electromagnet forces (or other) to repell objects to the side and down the halls.
I'm gonna take a wild guess in noting without doors opening, or small tunnels existing in each room, which doesn't seem to be the case, whatever is cleaning the ship
1) Is a machine that is replicated and immediately after dereplicated (what's the word for unreplicated?)
2) Floats, given most replicators are up higher, not on the floor.
3) Compact, can scan, is very quiet, gives toddlers nightmares at night if seen flying by the bed, never ending amusement for cats trying to catch it.
4) Most likely a levitating ball with a adjustable corner to it. Sensors aren't obvious, but does have a small suck hole, and can use it's adjustable angled profusion for sucking between places, vacuuming corners, etc.
5) Voyager didn't have the energy to waste on this during Hell Year. If it wasn't replicator dependent, Voyager should of been a decrepit but clean ship.
6) You gotta tell the replicator somehow not to clean the dirt out of your potted plants of suck slightly stagnant water out of aquariums. I'm sure O'Briens wife, the botanist, had issues. Science labs likely had to be manually cleaned.
Ironically, dirtiest spot on ship likely would be in medical. Don't want your samples messed with.
Worst cones to worst, some lower enlisted is put to work.
A ball with a sucking attachment wouldn't be able to pick up books, sort a mess, clean a messy room. You toss a table, table stays tossed. These things have no inherent defensive or offensive value against anyone who recognizes what it it, can't shoot laser out like Jedi practice balls.
Bigger machinery would pop out of that larger replicator where Worf got that giant Teddy out of.
I'm sure some Captain Archer era gels could be replicated as needed. Something looking like a fire extinguisher that kills or freezes crap likely kept here or there. Perhaps a emergency replicator or two on backup power for making stuff, including patch kits, face masks to filter the air, fire suits of sorts.
Most anything you need can be made for janitorial use out of those two kinds of replicators. I'm guessing a much bigger machine could be "teleported" from memory to the teleporter room if you had big debris or jagged broken walls. Resources dropped back on it, reabsorbed hack into the system. All sorts of machines could be stored in the memory of a ship for cleaning- hence why voyager wasn't messing with it.
Just some light thinking, of course I can't point to any on screen canon, why would Star Trek focus on a exploration of all it's janitorial systems? Just really think it gotta look something like above for every class of cleaning, why you never see droids walking around, how they get into private rooms, etc. A replicator based cleaning system makes the most sense.
If you see someone cleaning on a ship with replicators, they likely are being disciplined with some captain kirk era tech, or your thinking they are cleaning when in fact they are doing something completely unrelated, like scanning a floor, etc.
I still think spray bottles and wash cloths exist, used often. Doubt they let you get through Starfleet without scrubbing a lot of silly stupid stuff that can easily be cleaned using a replicator bot.
Mop and bucket, requires big sink, nasty mop, and assorted chemicals- what is universally safe for each species? Most floors don't look mop or waxable. I'm doubting buffing occurred ever.
Not to say you can't just walk up to a replicator and order a sponge and spray bottle, or degreaser and dispose of it just as fast after use.
I'm guessing they didn't use carpets so much as padding. Carpets are absurd, absorb dirt, falls beneath. Rip it up, nasty all under.
I'm guessing every surface on most ships is non-porous, no grooves, easy to wipe. Bolean plumbing likely wasn't the only sanitary advance they brought.
If you make it hard for anything to stick, repelled even, its likely easy for electromagnet forces (or other) to repell objects to the side and down the halls.
I'm gonna take a wild guess in noting without doors opening, or small tunnels existing in each room, which doesn't seem to be the case, whatever is cleaning the ship
1) Is a machine that is replicated and immediately after dereplicated (what's the word for unreplicated?)
2) Floats, given most replicators are up higher, not on the floor.
3) Compact, can scan, is very quiet, gives toddlers nightmares at night if seen flying by the bed, never ending amusement for cats trying to catch it.
4) Most likely a levitating ball with a adjustable corner to it. Sensors aren't obvious, but does have a small suck hole, and can use it's adjustable angled profusion for sucking between places, vacuuming corners, etc.
5) Voyager didn't have the energy to waste on this during Hell Year. If it wasn't replicator dependent, Voyager should of been a decrepit but clean ship.
6) You gotta tell the replicator somehow not to clean the dirt out of your potted plants of suck slightly stagnant water out of aquariums. I'm sure O'Briens wife, the botanist, had issues. Science labs likely had to be manually cleaned.
Ironically, dirtiest spot on ship likely would be in medical. Don't want your samples messed with.
Worst cones to worst, some lower enlisted is put to work.
A ball with a sucking attachment wouldn't be able to pick up books, sort a mess, clean a messy room. You toss a table, table stays tossed. These things have no inherent defensive or offensive value against anyone who recognizes what it it, can't shoot laser out like Jedi practice balls.
Bigger machinery would pop out of that larger replicator where Worf got that giant Teddy out of.
I'm sure some Captain Archer era gels could be replicated as needed. Something looking like a fire extinguisher that kills or freezes crap likely kept here or there. Perhaps a emergency replicator or two on backup power for making stuff, including patch kits, face masks to filter the air, fire suits of sorts.
Most anything you need can be made for janitorial use out of those two kinds of replicators. I'm guessing a much bigger machine could be "teleported" from memory to the teleporter room if you had big debris or jagged broken walls. Resources dropped back on it, reabsorbed hack into the system. All sorts of machines could be stored in the memory of a ship for cleaning- hence why voyager wasn't messing with it.
Just some light thinking, of course I can't point to any on screen canon, why would Star Trek focus on a exploration of all it's janitorial systems? Just really think it gotta look something like above for every class of cleaning, why you never see droids walking around, how they get into private rooms, etc. A replicator based cleaning system makes the most sense.
If you see someone cleaning on a ship with replicators, they likely are being disciplined with some captain kirk era tech, or your thinking they are cleaning when in fact they are doing something completely unrelated, like scanning a floor, etc.
I still think spray bottles and wash cloths exist, used often. Doubt they let you get through Starfleet without scrubbing a lot of silly stupid stuff that can easily be cleaned using a replicator bot.
I wonder if the ship's internal forcefields might be used (At least in TNG onwards) it hugs all sides of the corridor and/or rooms/ so it it is left permeable to large pieces of material but not to dust or other particulate matter then it could all be moved into one place and then transported into the ship's matter tanks.
Also if it done manually for some areas then would some kind of lower power energy tool, (like a phaser set to wide beam as we see in Way of the Warrior) which can be run along walls, floors and ceilings and vapourise all of the more common detritus that accumulates over time?
Combine that with materials that may well be treated to repel messes (as someone said earlier, like 24th century scotchguard) and the life support systems set up to take out all non-gaseous matter in the air then its pretty simple for a ship to be self cleaning. Although some things may need human interaction to complete for one reason or another.
Also if it done manually for some areas then would some kind of lower power energy tool, (like a phaser set to wide beam as we see in Way of the Warrior) which can be run along walls, floors and ceilings and vapourise all of the more common detritus that accumulates over time?
Combine that with materials that may well be treated to repel messes (as someone said earlier, like 24th century scotchguard) and the life support systems set up to take out all non-gaseous matter in the air then its pretty simple for a ship to be self cleaning. Although some things may need human interaction to complete for one reason or another.
Daily teleporter wipe on the inside? Outside is much easier to guess, even current-era ships have exterior self-cleaning systems - the Nimitz-class can spray itself down with water. While I don't think Starfleet would condone such an egregious waste of dihydrogen monoxide, they probably have an exterior cleaning system. Either involving the teleporter system or force field shenanigans.
I agree some sorta small pre-programmed robot set to go out at set times, the night time of the ship. Always liked the idea of those little bots that Andromeda and Farscape had all over the ship.
Also didn't the larger ships like the Enterprise - D have general crew to do the the every day tasks like cleaning and basic maintenance? They had barbers, bar tenders, and waiters Civilian crew whom did everyday jobs, or specialists whom worked with Starfleet on specific missions.
