Caravaggio is damaged, and Percy replaces him with Kate, the crew’s new holographic pal that’s fun to play with, designed by Percy. Would could possibly go wrong? Find out as Kenneth and Eugene look at the Starhunter Redux episode: Kate.

Episode Synopsis

Percy is having a conniption fit.  She wanted to use some hot water during the routine water maintenance period and somehow blames Caravaggio for not anticipating her desire and postponing the maintenance period because she was doing some dirty maintenance elsewhere.

At least, I think that’s what happened.

Marcus, always the enlightened gentleman, explains to Caravaggio that his problem is that he’s male, and women expect men to read their minds.  Percy, alternatively, explains that Caravaggio should be more empathetic, something he apparently cannot do because he doesn’t have breasts – or at the very least because he wasn’t designed by someone with breasts.

About this time, a space mine locks onto and blows a hole in the Trans-Utopian, damaging various bits of the ship.  Engines, attitude adjustment, weapons, and, perhaps most critically, Caravaggio, who is operating well below normal utility.

Percy seizes this opportunity, rather than fix Caravaggio, a critical piece of equipment, in an emergency situation, to replace him with a new AI of her own design, Katherine.

Travis immediately decides to diminish her status by calling her Kate instead, and she’s a bit of a hottie.  Some much so, it looks like Marcus isn’t going to be able to keep his mind off her and on the job.  

Callie even points out that’s a flaw with Kate, ‘cause, you know, it’s ALWAYS the woman’s fault if men do something bad because the woman is sexy.  

Travis, our hero, knows that sexist argument is BS and dismisses this as a case of Callie being jealous of the hottie.  

Meow!  Is everyone on this ship trying to up their game to be as big a sexist pig as Rudolfo this week?  Apparently so.

Still heavily damaged and days away from the nearest station, they collect bits of the mine and discover the bad news.  It’s a classic Martian design, and it no doubt sent data back to the mine’s owner.  They can expect possibly hostile visitors soon.

And then life support goes out, and Kate can’t figure out why.  The crew can’t figure it out, either.  Everything seems to be in working order; it just isn’t working.  Callie is the first to get suspicious that Kate might be behind this, but shockingly, Percy isn’t too far behind on that realization.  She figures it out when Kate is more interested in how long Travis and Callie have been a couple than she is in repairing the life-threatening systems’ failures.

Kate pops up on the bridge to tell Travis that Callie isn’t “right” for him.  Travis is more interested in saving their lives than in talking about Callie.  He finds her priorities to be a bit wonky, but Kate assures him, “I’d do anything I can to save you.”

Travis goes to visit Percy to ask about this new AI, and it’s at this point, she reveals that she tried to restore Caravaggio but couldn’t because he’d been sabotaged.  Percy being Percy, Travis doesn’t even bother asking, “You didn’t think we needed to know about that sooner?!”

Travis returns to the bridge as armed pirate ships are approaching.  Kate is, unfortunately, unable to provide much information about the attackers because not only did Percy choose the worst possible time to be doing a major computer system upgrade, but she also didn’t have the new system finished yet.  Kate cannot interface with technology that is not part of the Trans-Utopian.  

As they go into battle, Kate takes control of the ship, in direct defiance of Travis’ orders, and destroys one of the attacking pirates.  This blows the ship’s weapons out and the other pirate begins the process of boarding the Trans-Utopian.

Percy gets mad at Kate, and Kate shoots her – because, apparently, that’s a thing AIs can do now.

Kate confesses her love for Travis and convinces him to give them a moment alone.  When the others leave the bridge, she locks him in and begins pumping the air out of the rest of the ship.  The others must get breathers, fight off the pirates and get Percy to the sick bay.

Travis explains to Kate that “if you love something, you have to let it go,” and so she does, but doesn’t turn the air on for him.  He fights more pirates, finds a breather, then takes the pirates’ ship.  Stealing their ship’s little black oxygen box.

Confronting Kate on the bridge, Travis tries to insert the little black oxygen box into the Trans-Utopian’s little black oxygen box slot, but Kate is really upset at Travis’ rejection of her, and she shoots him a bunch.

Callie comes in, distracting Kate and giving Travis time to insert the little black oxygen box into the little black oxygen box slot.  Kate can’t turn it off, either, because it’s technology from another ship, making this Chekov’s Technological Little Black Oxygen Box inserted into Chekov’s Technological Little Black Oxygen Box Slot.  

Having done that, Travis calmly walks over to Kate’s off switch and deactivates her.  If only anyone had thought of that earlier.

Caravaggio is back and thinks he’s had a dream of love.  

No, Caravaggio, you’ve had a misogynistic nightmare.