TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name

As for total automation of “menial services”… I’m not sure how you get around that without the use of a semi-sentient intermediary. Plus maintaining those systems, which would fall under the purview of the most important man in all of Starfleet history.

.....why? why do they need to be sentient? we already have machines capable of doing just about everything we could want them to in terms of menial tasks. The biggest issue is a) they're usually hyper-specific in terms of what tasks they do, and b) universally expensive as fuck. It's just currently cheaper and more "efficient" to have a few humans doing most the tasks. but that's increasingly becoming less so. (I'm thinking of the deep sea mining robots that while awful for the environment are... pretty impressive engineering... and also the commercial floor cleaning robots my grocery store is starting to use.)

As for repairing stuff... replicator technology is way, way under utilized. (seriously.) Like. Seriously. Why starships, space stations... buildings...can't repair themselves I will never know. I mean, think about it. there's already hundreds, probably thousands, of replicators on the D, just an example. in every crew quarters, office, medical or engineering bay... i think the only prominent room that doesn't have one is actually the bridge... and there's one off in Picard's ready room not twenty steps away. You have to assume the notion has occured to every single starfleet engeering wonk every single time some EPS conduit blows out or worf's face gets imprinted in a wall to prove how strong a villian really is. (lets be honest, Geordi probably has a collection of wall-panels framed with Worf's face. I would.)

There's absolutely no reason that replicators can't be integrated into the structure as an array that could just automatically repair it. An array isn't even strictly necessary if you use the transporters.

Considering that the Delta Flyer and the Runabouts had a replicator on it, too, and I'm guessing other shuttles, that would suggest anything too small to have one themselves... would easily be replicated in something like a shuttle bay with an industrial replication pad. Storage, repairs. etc, all happen just by recycling it and printing another.