Sometimes you’re trying to justify things existing in your world, and you come up with a single explanation that covers a bunch of results and it is elegant and feels satisfying.
Sometimes you’re trying to justify things existing in your world, and you come up with a single explanation that covers a bunch of results and it is elegant and feels satisfying.
Why bother shipping all those raw materials, chemicals and minerals across the space between planets when you can just use various engineered bacteria to grow them in vats on location?
This also justifies the inclusion of various tubes, flasks and vials full of colorful goo that does stuff, a vital element of all science fiction.