Timeline for Why can't Star Trek Replicator Technology and Transporter technology be combined to replace vital systems parts to the ship, say a new warp core?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
20 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 15, 2014 at 22:50 | comment | added | Greenstone Walker | There was a comment in one of the technical manual books to the effect of: "If you can use a replicator to make a space ship then you probably are at a tech level where you don't need spaceships any more." | |
| Dec 15, 2014 at 21:04 | answer | added | Cano64 | timeline score: 3 | |
| Apr 5, 2013 at 19:57 | comment | added | Darth Egregious | The self-replicating mines thing in DS9 was stupid. It takes the suspension of disbelief too far. | |
| Mar 28, 2013 at 18:31 | answer | added | nibra | timeline score: 2 | |
| Mar 28, 2013 at 10:30 | comment | added | Izkata | @CamelBlues In DS9, when the mined the wormhole. Their invention was a collaboration between O'Brien, Rom, and Dax. | |
| Mar 28, 2013 at 6:13 | answer | added | ApproachingDarknessFish | timeline score: 2 | |
| Mar 28, 2013 at 5:52 | comment | added | Goodbye Stack Exchange | @KyleJones - True, but in a later episode of DS9, a replicator was subverted into functioning as a short-range transporter. So replicators ended up being more like low-resolution transporters than the food synthesizers in 60's Trek. | |
| Mar 28, 2013 at 4:45 | answer | added | Kyle Jones | timeline score: 10 | |
| Mar 28, 2013 at 4:03 | comment | added | Kyle Jones | In the original TNG writers bible, authored by the Great Bird himself, food replicators were described thusly: Food and drink aboard the Enterprise is instantaneously synthesized by an in-ship transporter system that takes the necessary raw materials from storage and rearranges them into whatever the individual has ordered, delivering them via the wall-slots. From this we can deduce that replicators don't create objects from energy, but rather assemble them from atoms and molecules and deliver them using something akin to the transporter system used to disassemble and deliver people. | |
| Mar 27, 2013 at 21:46 | comment | added | flq | Tyson has a point there - energy consumption probably goes with the volume of the object - now think how many Earl Greys fit into a single warp core. Also, how big of an object can actually be transported with transporter tech? | |
| Mar 27, 2013 at 17:55 | comment | added | Thaddeus Howze | I will tackle this problem when I get a moment, it is a fair question and the reason its not done is more complicated than it initially might seem. | |
| Mar 27, 2013 at 17:52 | comment | added | Tyson of the Northwest | I would imagine a hydrogen atom Hydrogen would be cheap to replicate, power wise, but, helium would be about twice as expensive, carbon would be somewhere in the range of 6+ times as expensive, silicon 16+ times, etc as the atomic complexity increases. Then multiply that out over the mass of the object. In that case a meal (a mix of H,C,N,O,P,Na,etc) would be cheap, but the same volume of say a platinum,tungsten,tellurium alloy would be way more expensive | |
| Mar 27, 2013 at 17:46 | comment | added | Tyson of the Northwest | Also, don't forget the power requirements for replication. Chances are that many of the parts of the warp core and other systems are replicated, but as complexity and mass increase chances are power requirements would as well, possibly to the tune of ^3 or more. | |
| Mar 27, 2013 at 15:46 | comment | added | user13381 | Good answers, but tech should not be ignored in this case. The genie's already out of the bottle, so why not simply limit its application to some types of simpler forms of repair so at least it's not completely ignored? | |
| Mar 27, 2013 at 13:58 | comment | added | CamelBlues | Source on self-replicating mines? Also, see this answer (which is about closely-related transporter technology) that discusses the difficulties of transporting weapons: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/28490/… | |
| Mar 26, 2013 at 23:49 | comment | added | user11683 | For pretty much the same reason that the computer--which can simultaneously emulate several persons' intellect and personality for mere entertainment purposes--is not used to solve problems: it is bad for story telling to have a genie that will grant arbitrary wishes (unless improperly phrased wishes are dangerous). Artificial limits--limitations? On wishes?--prevent solving every problem by "use the genie" or viewers asking "why didn't they use the genie?". IMO, it was a mistake to link replicator and transporter technology--too much opportunity for inconsistency. | |
| Mar 26, 2013 at 23:08 | comment | added | Izkata | While I don't feel like tracking it down right now, there was an early episode of Voyager that discussed their limited supplies, and what could and could not be replicated (such as the gel packs). | |
| Mar 26, 2013 at 22:51 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackSciFi/status/316683765189574656 | ||
| Mar 26, 2013 at 20:53 | comment | added | John O | The premise is that only items made of mundane materials can be created. A warp core contains exotic sorts of matter and/or matter shaped at the nanoscale which cannot be replicated. However, nothing prevents them from using it to repair other parts of the ship (hallways, bulkheads, carpeting, even air that was unintentionally decompressed). It's doubtful that they carry a bunch of spare parts around, after all. Of course, being Star Trek, when it's inconvenient to bad writing, all bets are off. | |
| Mar 26, 2013 at 20:34 | history | asked | user13381 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |