My grandfather died when I was 3, he was a Tolkien dwarf of a man with a heart so full it gave out early. He raised his kids on Monty Python, The Greatful Dead, and Alanis Morissette. He brought home people like a child brings home stray animals, no motive other than offering them the care and love they need. I’m now ten times the age I was when he passed, closer now to the age he was when he did, and still I’m occasionally talking to a stranger in a city far from home only for them to recognize me as Lee’s grandkid. There’s a certain weighty pride to being the ilk of a man turned legend solely for giving people a hot meal and a roof to sleep under when they needed it.

Totally not the answer you were here for, but you could likely upgrade your setup by reaching out to your local school district and asking if you can loot their e-waste. They’ll want to keep any storage because it may contain sensitive data, but all the rest of the hardware is free for the pickings. My son’s pc, my server, and my two projectors all came from an e-waste crate at the local school district office.

Ok, so instead of staffing a ship with 1000 duplicates of one guy who volunteers to go out and risk his life, they could add some extra storage to the transport buffer and require weekly backups of all crew. Then if redshirt #3 dies planet side they just spin him back up and tell him what went wrong. They have video game style save points on every ship and they’re using them to save on gas.

My biggest grievance is that the threat of death exists when, between replicators and transporter errors, they could populate their ships with unending clone armies to explore without ever risking anything.

I have a hard time getting a read on Heinlein because he also wrote Stranger in a Strange Land which is as left as Starship Troopers is right.

Eh, they both have their place. I can’t get behind Jedi being emotionally stunted or the federation not using it’s tech to the fullest.

My one exception is pre-Disney Mandolorians. Nothing is sexier than freefalling from orbit on the back of a 6 legged robot dragon with nothing but your platemail and a vague goal of scaring the shit out of locals.

My insurance won’t cover it so I have to take Novemugust…

I have tentative plans to make my own smart lock by way of electric motor and commercial deadbolts with an RF scanner and a back up battery for emergency. It won’t be amazingly secure in a tech way, but I figure the combination of novelty and DIY should make it reliable.

That said, I gotta be that guy and remind everyone that all locks are security theatre and are not going to protect your house from the persistent or prepared. Your best defense is a combination of foresight and social engineering.

Are you me? Seriously I was going to to post this same thing. I’ll upvote for traction.