RocketGirl wrote:
Plus, there's
Chekov's Gun to consider:
"One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." Chekhov, letter to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev (pseudonym of A. S. Gruzinsky), 1 November 1889.
If we're handed a genetic plague that wiped out all males,
AND some weird and mysterious bit of info out there called "Forseti" (which
STILL hasn't been explained, dammit!), and then we're given a cat off an exploding ship of our enemies who are in league with the originators of Forseti...well, dammit, that cat's a big honkin' rifle that hasn't been fired.
A biological being taken from the ship of those who may have originated the plague? Screams disease vector/carrier to me, and it probably would have to Chekov, too.
Just sayin'.
To quote another famous, dead European: "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
The fact is that there's no information directly linking the Arroway to the plague, hence linking the two in that way is questionable at best. Of course that isn't to say that it
can't be true, just that there is no actual reason currently to believe that is the case.
Recent revelations (from the conversation between Captain Rob and the Admiral) indicate that the Arroway was not a traditional or even a biological bomb, but was in fact an "information bomb". Which makes sense, why would the young boy (or the cat for that matter) be on board that ship if it was a suicide mission?
So back to the Freud quote, the cat is mostly just a cat. Mostly. She is related to Quetz's personal growth, as Rob suggested when she gave her to Quetz way back when. She could also be seen as a connection between the Icebreakers and "the enemy", even as simply a reminder that they are human too.
Of course that could all be bullshit and the real explination could just be
"awwww, kittens are so cuuuute!" 
KEM
