Object

Sickbay Disposable Hot Chocolate Cups (Rogue Refreshment Slot)

A small tumble of disposable refreshment cups—single-serving paper/plastic cups containing hot chocolate—freshly dispensed from the Sickbay waiting-room refreshment slot. During a malfunction of the dispenser (the 'rogue food slot'), the cups are ejected/handled by a nurse and become incidental anchors in the scene (two cups in the nurse's hands at the moment of electrocution), scattering across the floor and prompting Beverly Crusher to intervene. Functionally these items are the same: disposable cups from the sickbay refreshment dispenser used to hold hot chocolate and implicated in the slot malfunction sequence.

2 appearances

Purpose

To hold and dispense single-serving beverages provided by the sickbay refreshment dispenser for staff, patients, and visitors.

Significance

Acts as an incidental hazard that crystallizes a larger problem: the Enterprise's internal systems are compromised. The spewing cups force human intervention (Beverly's override), marking a shift from passive diagnostics to active, authority-driven containment and escalating the scene's stakes.

Appearances in the Narrative

When this object appears and how it's used

2 moments

S3E1 · Evolution

Override: Beverly Shuts Rogue Refreshment Slot

Disposable cups are the small, domestic debris produced by the dispenser; they scatter across the linoleum and create trip and spill hazards that dramatize the breach's immediate, human consequences.

Before: Actively being dispensed and falling across the waiting-room floor, clattering and accumulating.

After: Litter the floor—stopped only when the slot is deactivated—left as evidence and a practical obstacle to movement and care.

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S3E1 · Evolution

Sickbay Electrocution — Beverly's Emergency

Two steaming cups of hot chocolate are the immediate reason the nurse reaches into the slot; they function as incidental props that anchor the mundane before it flips to crisis. Their presence frames the gesture that triggers the electrocution and makes the injury disturbingly ordinary.

Before: Freshly dispensed, warm and steaming, being retrieved by the nurse from the food slot.

After: Disturbed by the sudden collapse — likely spilled, displaced, or left in the slot area; now evidence of the interrupted domestic moment and potential contamination/spill hazard.

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