On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 11:46 AM, Grimmund <grimmund@gmail.com> wrote:
If I was rigging this, I would vent the ship to vaccum when leaving,
and just shut off life support to any of the cold sleep births.  I
mean, if you're gonna murder people, be efficient about it.  Why
bother wiping their memories if you're just gonna croak 'em?

Dark Matter - or at least the pilot - was obviously produced on the cheap. The ship's corridors look to be cleaned-up and differently-painted areas of the same industrial complex that stands in for the subsistence colony, chosen by the production crew for it's expansive space (allowing camera mobility without taking down walls) and low rental cost. And the characters do seem to be something like walking cliches. Of course, Whedon didn't write it . . . :P

As to the plot device of the lost memory/records, I suspect action by the android/ship's AI. She seems quite snarky and independent-minded. The human commander tells her to give the ship one command after another, but each time the android closes her eyes to do these in her head, she's instructed, "No! Show me!" [on the physical controls]. When given permission moments later to take evasive action against incoming missiles, the android asks with a TINY lift of one corner of her mouth, "Shall I show you?" The human commander replies, "Just do it!"

Perhaps the android became tired of crewing a ship for a bunch of homocidal maniacs. When a hull breach sent everyone to the survival pods, she decided to attempt a re-set of their personalities by wiping their memories.


--
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein
"A word to the wise ain't necessary -- it's the stupid ones that need the advice." - Bill Cosby
"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester