I Want a Happy Ship

happy board: A term used in starships to describe a system status board indicating all systems operating correctly.  While status lights use the same blue-crimson or blue-amber-crimson encoding as other bistate or tristate indicators, studies have shown that most sophonts respond quickly and accurately to emotional inputs, and process these particularly well when communicated by primary body language, such as facial expressions.  As such, computerized system status boards are programmed to supplement the blue color indicator for “operational/running” with a smiling or equivalent expression emoticon, hence the term.  See also sad board.

sad board: A term used in starships to describe a system status board indicating at least one system not operating correctly.  For reasons as described under happy board, which see, computerized system status boards are programmed to supplement the crimson color indicator for “fault state/stopped” with a frowning or equivalent expression emoticon, hence the term.

– Blackjacket’s Dictionary, Imperial Navy Press