Nitpicking Star Trek: DS9 – Mood Labels

Doctor Bashir and Chief O’Brien are in one of the cargo bays playing darts for the first time. Behind Dr. Bashir is container with a bright pink label. After a camera cut to the dart board, the label is gray. One more cut and the label is back to pink. Why? How?

The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation (located on the Promenade) manufactured “mood items” like the Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses and other products imbued with artificial intelligence and emotion, known as Genuine People Personalities (GPPs). While some of these items were helpful, like certain versions of doors or “personal massage units,” many were dysfunctional due to flaws in their programming. 

• Genuine People Personalities (GPPs): The corporation’s signature invention was the GPP, which gave products like robots, doors, and even drinks dispensers intelligence and emotions.
• Examples: Other products with GPPs included the Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser, the Happy Vertical People Transporter, and the Marvin the Paranoid Android.
• Flawed products: These products often had a neurotic streak, with their fundamental flaws being hidden by superficial design flaws, leading to irritating or unhelpful experiences. 

The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation began putting Mood Labels on their products for the consumer’s benefit as knowing what mood your purchase was in was before you removed it from the shipping container was considered good marketing.

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