The ship’s logs show that the late captain of the Navigator, scientist Tames K. Jerk, had manually set the ship to ‘Passive Stance’ two years ago in order to bypass a system with a lone space amoeba and never reverted to ‘Evasive Stance.’ As a result, the crew was caught off guard when the computer routed them through the hostile system.

The UNE’s Science and Technology First Union (STFU), of which Jerk was a member, has long since been an opponent of the self-surveying technology. STFU member Mikhail Kontarsky told Xenonion News:

“This would never have been a problem if the ship was manually piloted. Humans have never made piloting errors before. No human-piloted science ship has ever accidentally ran into a hostile while on ‘Passive Stance’ before. This technology took our jobs, and now it’s taking our lives.”