This is taking on a life of its own.
A passing comment about the lack of uterine replicators in Star Trek led to some speculation, which has begun taking root in my brain. For the time being, at least.
I told Tinsnip last night that Miles would be quaddie who marries a bipedal human and takes her family name when he leaves Quaddiespace. Their daughter’s bipedal, with the embryo cultivated and implanted for a body birth, and when he and his wife sleep with the gravity on, they share a hammock.
As to why I think he fits as a quaddie, it’s not because of the engineering component - although that does add some nice synergy. It’s more that his particular viewpoint and character would translate well to the human-but-outsider status of that group. He’s an enlisted Starfleet officer rather than someone who went through the Academy, he’s someone deeply comfortable in space who enjoys going planetside but doesn’t feel any particular drive to head down there or even thinks of doing so unless someone else suggests it, and there’s the meta-textual aspect of having a well-established backstory in another series altogether. Miles needs to bring his own story with him, and this seemed one of the more dynamic ways to do so.
Also, he’d have what he calls “gecko gloves” that let him climb the walls and ceiling when the gravity’s on and he doesn’t have his zero-G bubble. (As ZiGraves said, “Mere gravity will not stop an engineer with something that needs tinkered with.”)





