Why so many people on Dara?

When the Vuduri decided to mount a mission on Dara in Rome's Revolution, they packed up a very large spaceship called the Algol and sent 83 men and women to Tabit to establish a starbase.

Did they really need that many people? Here is the breakdown of the Skyler Base personnel:

Commander == 1
Tug Crewman == 6
Pilots/Navigators == 6
Data Archivists == 2
Stellar Cartographers == 4
Enviro Engineers == 8
Computer Wranglers == 2
Energy Engineers == 6
Riggers == 10
Supply Masters == 2
Analysts == 7
Comm. Engineers == 6
Mission Planning == 4
Admin == 10
Molecular Engineers == 4
Medic == 1
Nurse == 1
Misc == 3
Final Count == 83

Did they really need all those people? The simple answer is no. The Vuduri are just so timid, they needed to make sure they had enough Vuduri minds to create an Overmind powerful enough to make decisions. After all, it only takes three Vuduri to create an Overmind but it isn't worth much. More than 80 people was enough to allow them to relinquish command decisions to an entity without a body.