Wasps, Bees, whatever!

[on:]

How did the Professor recover the career chips from his previous crew (in The Sting) given that the previous ship and its black box are still in the "deadly deadly" space bee hive when Leela & co. arrive?

[Reply #1 on:]

Presumably the DOOP military killed a space wasp, upon investigation they found some career chips in it's stomach, identified them as belonging to the Planet Express crew and mailed them to Farnsworth.

[Reply #2 on:]

hmm. So the space wasp must have EATEN the space bees that had previously eaten the crew. (If you think space bees are scary, you don't want to know what space wasps are like)

[Reply #3 on:]

Hmm...Yah the DOOP one sounds about right...

[Reply #4 on:]

On the commentary, they admit not thinking that one out very well. Upon writing "The Sting" they did research to try and find out if wasps ever cosocialize with bees, so although the ship was trapped in the bees nest, it may have been possible that a wasp had been there as well. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out to be the case.

- Chris

[Reply #5 on:]

I say that either the Professor mixed up his last crew with his second-to-last crew re:manner of death, or Zoidberg mislabeled the envelope.

[Reply #6 on:]

 

Originally posted by Shiny:
I say that either the Professor mixed up his last crew with his second-to-last crew re:manner of death, or Zoidberg mislabeled the envelope.

Yes, Farnsworth is senile and he has mentioned the death of several crew members, plus how Hermes wound up thinking of multiple causes of death Leela needs to sign against in "The series has Landed"  It's also possible that the crew that was killed by Bees had the career chips destroyed, where the wasp chips were in usable condition

[Reply #7 on:]

if I had to come up with an explanation, I'd say that the old Planex ship was flying along, it was attacked by the space bees.  A single bee made it inside and ate the crew (on the envelope it said contents of space wasp's stomach - if there had been more than one it would have been space wasps' - note the position of the apostrophe in wasp's), and in their final agonizing moments of life they sent a distress call.  Doop responded, and managed to kill several of the bees (including the one that ate the crew), and the rest of them managed to escape back to their hive, taking the old planex ship with them.  meanwhile, DOOP analyzed the dead space bees and discovered the chips, which were returned to Farnsworth.  After all, the chips belong to the occupation, not the person.  The chips would be needed for the next people who would take the planex crew position.

And why did it say Space wasp instead of space bee?  because the label was written by some grunt who couldn't tell the difference.

[Reply #8 on:]

Obviously you guys don't know about bees...

OK, my dad was a beekeeper with at one time over 200 hives of the nasty little bastards.  Bee's will defend their hive against any invader.  Bees are not carnivores, so when they kill an invader, they take the carcass outside the hive so it doesn't rot and stink up the place.  Opportunistic carnivores and scavengers, like spiders, wasp and yellow jackets will hang around the bottom of a hive to pick up on these freshly killed morsels.

So, the space bees killed the PE crew, workers bees carried the bodies outside the hive and a space wasp came by.  Seeing the PE crew members as an easy meal, it ate them up.  Then possibly a DOOP soldier killed the wasp, found the chips and returned them to Farnsworth so he could have Hermes notify the next-of-kin.

Does that work?

God, smell the nerdom in that post...

[Reply #9 on:]

I've always thought that DOOP had something do to with that space wasp who ate the previous PE crew.  I agree with Teral's theory. 

[Reply #10 on:]

 

Originally posted by Ralph Snart:
Obviously you guys don't know about bees...when they kill an invader, they take the carcass outside the hive so it doesn't rot and stink up the place...So, the space bees killed the PE crew, workers bees carried the bodies outside the hive and a space wasp came by...[and] ate them up...

I think Ralph has nailed it. 

All glory to the Nerd-King!  We're not worthy! *bows*

Also, the ship was too big for the bees to pry out of the hive, and they could tell it was inanimate, so they just left it there.

None of which reveals how they "flew" in vacuum with buzzing wings, of course, but whatcha gonna do? Alas....

[Reply #11 on:]

 

Originally posted by Shiny:
... All glory to the Nerd-King!

That's every bit as prestigious as being the Captain of the Ship'o Fools.
 

... how they "flew" in vacuum with buzzing wings...

That's one of the very few things that bothered me about "The Sting."
But it was necessary to make the plot work; and it worked well! I for one am willing to forgive little goofs like this if the overall story works.
 

[Reply #12 on:]

Oooo!  Oooo!  Maybe it's in a region of space that has a very thin atmosphere..too thin for humans to survive without protection, but enough to allow bee locomotion...

(The hive obviously had some slight gravity, since our heroes weren't floating around...so perhaps it's enough to hold a slight atmosphere... )

And I meant "Nerd King" in the nicest possible sense.   

[Reply #13 on:]

 

Originally posted by Shiny:

And I meant "Nerd King" in the nicest possible sense.   

And I took it as such...   

[Reply #14 on:]

Originally posted by Shiny:
Oooo!  Oooo!  Maybe it's in a region of space that has a very thin atmosphere..too thin for humans to survive without protection, but enough to allow bee locomotion...

This hadn't occurred to me.
<*Ahem*>

AH-HAH!

Have any of you ever read "The Integral Trees," By Larry Niven?
If so, 'nuff said. If not...

"The Sting" could've taken place in the dense part of a gas-torus around a neutron star - The physics of which are beyond the scope of this pleasant discussion. 

As Fry & Leela were wearing space-suits, said gas-torus need have been neither breathable, nor particularly dense; but there are a few problems with even this theory:

If the gas-torus was even a fraction of an Earth atmosphere, it would be blue, as our sky is, due to the scattering of blue light.

The sky we see there is black.

... The hive obviously had some slight gravity, since our heroes weren't floating around...

Anything inside the aforementioned gas-torus would be in free-fall, and I seriously doubt that eve a space-beehive would be massive enough to have any appreciable gravity.
Gawd!I am such a geek...

... And I meant "Nerd King" in the nicest possible sense. 

I know you were; I was merely making light of it.

I doubt he's taken any, but still; No offense intended Ralph. 

Originally posted by Ralph Snart:
And I took it as such...   

Ah, never mind then... 

[Reply #15 on:]

What everyone said sounds right.
But I never thought about it.

[Reply #16 on:]

Whether or not bees and wasps can work together, who cares? We're not talking about bees and wasps here, we're talking about SPACE bees and SPACE wasps. Big difference.