Marten's problems remind me of the one thing I'm really not fond of in QC: The near-complete lack of conflict. Nearly all of the drama is mellow, and I'm fairly sure we haven't had a 'Bad Guy' (Rather, any negative character,) since the Vespavenger. I have no real problems with melodrama, but all of the conflict we've seen has been a result of the characters being awkward or socially incompetent in some situations.
This is fine, but it all happens in a bizarely unnoticed sci-fi universe. There are just SO MANY insane, implausible things just handwaved by: Artificial Intelligence, convenient and safe space travel, efficient, Pint-sized (pun intended) death lasers, and posdibly (If Hannelore is to be believed) genetic design and cloning of superior humans. James-Bond esque adventures risking the fate of the world are a common occurence, and at least one main character's mother is a supervillian. Limbs can be entirely replaced with cybernetic duplicates (Which apparently function better than the genetic kind), and this leads me to believe that immortality via robot-suit shouldn't be all that far away. Robot hordes are apparently marching for civil rights, and there's an entire dorm room somewhere just chock full of promiscuous lesbians.
Not only is all of this almost irrelevant to the plot, it gives me whiplash every time it's brought up in detail. I have trouble caring about Marten bumbling around with a quirky intern when I keep getting reminded about the insane, far more interesting things happening around it.