If You Can't Warp Spacetime, What Are You Doing on the Starship Enterprise?

It has become known that you would like to occupy some portion of the U.S.S. Enterprise. As you know, room is limited.

For the sake of fairness, and efficiency, care must be taken to avoid any misuse of the starship, the purpose of which is obvious: to travel through space. It has been noted that you will not contribute to the Enterprise directly in that way, as you are not capable of propelling the starship. You have admitted that you cannot warp spacetime, ergo you cannot bring the starship to near-light speed unless supported by the warp engine, which is fortunately in working order and able to handle that job all on its own.

Of course, there are other purposes one may fulfill while on board a starship. Since you are not warping spacetime, then it would be polite to assume that you are doing one of these other important tasks.

Perhaps you are calculating the path that the Enteprise will travel from this side of the Alpha Quadrant to the other. Giant numbers with spectacular precision are passing through your memory. You in turn compute these giant numbers into vectors for the ship to follow.

Or you may be storing the raw material for the replicators. It sits inside you until you receive a signal to turn it into a bottle of wine, a Sega Dreamcast, or something else entirely – whatever is asked of you (a noble pursuit).

If you are doing none of these things, then there must be something that I am forgetting. There are so many things to process and contain and manufacture on board a starship, I must be overlooking your function. It isn't easy for such a massive object to move across these great distances. Certainly you are doing something to help it along.

To reiterate: room is limited.

As room is so limited, there is no way that you are simply on board. You can't just be using the ship and all its many features. As if you are some kind of maintenance-heavy ballast. Organic decoration. History's most demanding packing peanut.

Do you calculate? Do you store? This message is meant respectfully, as well as urgently, to ask clarification of your role on the starship, in the hope that the answer is something more than traveling on it.

Your attention is necessary, and it has been appreciated.