So I was watching this whole thing from an amused distance since I stopped interacting with the site a few months ago and just go there when I follow a story link or to check a couple of accounts like the double pendulum bot.
Before he decided to make himself the Full Time Main Character™ there were various degrees of competence that it was reasonable to assume the moron had.
Like, I knew going to Mars with a goddamn hypercapitalist was a terrible idea, but I figured it was because he was obviously going to "accidentally" invent new exciting forms of slavery for air and water! !!Fun!!
In Sci-Fi you sometimes encounter folks who have thought out issues like long term colonies and see something pop up which could basically be called the Revolution of the Grandchildren: the first generation KNOWS what this equipment is and why it is critical to maintain, the second generation has it instilled in them as a way of life because it is literally THE WAY OF LIFE, the third generation resents this crufty old hand-me-down ideology and thinks if air scrubbers are so great why don't YOU fix it, old man?
Best case for a colony under that stupid mook it would have ~3 generations with possibility of a slave revolt beforehand, or so I thought.
LITTLE DID I KNOW, he's so fucking stupid he'd end up bumbling around in the air recycling levels and start asking "so what is all this shit, it's so noisy, make it quieter or you're fired!" and end up killing everyone off within a year, tops.