Honeybee wrote:It could have grown self-aware over time and reconfigured itself for maximum productivity long after its creators were gone. [/quote0
I always thought that the builders were long dead - either killed by their own creation or just extinct and the station became intelligent and outlived its creators. Harvesting a random humanoid now and again was probably a very efficient way of boosting its processing speed and to an immortal artificial intelligence, probably seemed inconsequential to the station.
I like thinking this, too. Kinda like "The Doomsday Machine" of TOS -- we never really know, but a civilization's creation could've backfired on them.