So tonight I rewatched TNG's "The Quality of Life." Y'know, the one that introduced the exocomps. And of course that got me thinking about a certain exocomp in particular named Peanut Hamper.
And that in turn got me thinking about something I'd been wondering about off and on ever since Peanut Hamper was first introduced as a character. In that introductory episode she states she has a father (later introduced as "Kevin"), suggesting she is recognized, at least by the exocomps, to be actual Exocomp offspring to them.
Which is all fine and dandy, but LD kind of blurred over the specifics of how that came about. I suppose it's possible that Peanut Hamper is only Kevin's daughter in the adoptive sense, so to give the exocomps their own sense of family...but it's worth noting that in "The Quality of Life," there were only three exocomps active on the Tyrus VIIA station, one of which being lost in the course of the episode, and yet when we revisit that station later on in LD, there's shown to be at least five, counting Peanut Hamper, so more did come into existence at some point in the interlude.
So I'm asking the question--how did the additional exocomps such as Peanut Hamper (who we can infer came after their introductory episode) come into being? Were they simply built on demand by Dr. Farallon and her team like how the originals were created and the exocomps allowed to choose how to be related to each other themselves, or did the exocomps do it all themselves? Would that mean the exocomps found a way to actually reproduce in some fashion? If so, how exactly are they doing it?
After all, the exocomps were built for maintenance and could, in theory, replicate parts for assembly on demand--means enough for building their own members of exocomps if they so wished. But would that mean father-daughter relations like what Peanut Hamper claims is genuine as we humans would define it, or merely metaphorical or adoptive? And how and why do you think that?
Discuss!
