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Star Trek really is wasteful
deaftravis05
Member Posts: 4,885 Arc User
You know...
Star Trek really is wasteful of energy.
I know it's a post-scarity culture, but come on, it can't be that easy to feed so many people. Replicators require matter and energy. Replicated food is recycled matter.
So, honestly, why aren't there giant energy collectors near stable stars? I'm not quite talking about dyson spheres, but large energy collectors, solar panels, near stars, collecting energy and making giant batteries?
See, the concept of the ZPM in the Stargate Universe is that it's a massive battery tightly packed with the energy to destroy an entire star system. It's vacuum energy measuring in the yottawattage range. If it can destroy the Sol system, it's the power of a g-star
That's a problem I have with SGA, honestly... 1 ZPM had the energy of a single g-type star and couldn't stand to against a dozen Wraith cruisers that use organic matter to power themselves? But I'm wandering off my point here...
My point is, the Federation has the ability to collect a lot of solar energy from the hundreds, if not thousands of stars within its borders and make massive capacitors to store that energy.
Why aren't there massive floating stations near stars designed to grow organic matter for replicators?
Okay, if I was chief of Starfleet Corps of Engineering, I'd take a construction fleet to a star system with barren planets and start work on a massive feat of engineering. First I'd build the solar collectors and use the self-replicating technology to build an energy net around the star to collect energy to power the technology until it's completed, then transmit this energy to a shipyard I built. I'll bring all the raw matter in the system in close to the shipyard. Using this, I'll replicate the bulk of the ships, then put them over to another shipyard for my engineers to finish the stuff that the replicators couldn't do. My organic fields would grow the technology needed for bioneural parts for my fleet that I'm building. Meanwhile I'd be building huge defence fields of mines and turrets to protect my little shipyard as it replicates Sovereign class battleships quickly.
It's possible. Wouldn't take long to set up and I'd have started work developing Dyson Sphere technology. I'd have a defence field no warship could break through and I'd be building my very own private fleet at extreme low cost at a rapid pace.
It's probably how the Dominion builds ships so quickly. Replicate the bulk of the ship, finish it off with engineers for what the replicators can't do...
My point? At the level of technology shown by the Federation, it is entirely possible to build a massive solar energy collection net close to a star and build up a massive surplus of energy.
Star Trek really is wasteful of energy.
I know it's a post-scarity culture, but come on, it can't be that easy to feed so many people. Replicators require matter and energy. Replicated food is recycled matter.
So, honestly, why aren't there giant energy collectors near stable stars? I'm not quite talking about dyson spheres, but large energy collectors, solar panels, near stars, collecting energy and making giant batteries?
See, the concept of the ZPM in the Stargate Universe is that it's a massive battery tightly packed with the energy to destroy an entire star system. It's vacuum energy measuring in the yottawattage range. If it can destroy the Sol system, it's the power of a g-star
That's a problem I have with SGA, honestly... 1 ZPM had the energy of a single g-type star and couldn't stand to against a dozen Wraith cruisers that use organic matter to power themselves? But I'm wandering off my point here...
My point is, the Federation has the ability to collect a lot of solar energy from the hundreds, if not thousands of stars within its borders and make massive capacitors to store that energy.
Why aren't there massive floating stations near stars designed to grow organic matter for replicators?
Okay, if I was chief of Starfleet Corps of Engineering, I'd take a construction fleet to a star system with barren planets and start work on a massive feat of engineering. First I'd build the solar collectors and use the self-replicating technology to build an energy net around the star to collect energy to power the technology until it's completed, then transmit this energy to a shipyard I built. I'll bring all the raw matter in the system in close to the shipyard. Using this, I'll replicate the bulk of the ships, then put them over to another shipyard for my engineers to finish the stuff that the replicators couldn't do. My organic fields would grow the technology needed for bioneural parts for my fleet that I'm building. Meanwhile I'd be building huge defence fields of mines and turrets to protect my little shipyard as it replicates Sovereign class battleships quickly.
It's possible. Wouldn't take long to set up and I'd have started work developing Dyson Sphere technology. I'd have a defence field no warship could break through and I'd be building my very own private fleet at extreme low cost at a rapid pace.
It's probably how the Dominion builds ships so quickly. Replicate the bulk of the ship, finish it off with engineers for what the replicators can't do...
My point? At the level of technology shown by the Federation, it is entirely possible to build a massive solar energy collection net close to a star and build up a massive surplus of energy.
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Awe snap...
If matter-antimatter cores power warp engines, which require absurd amounts of power, then I think a couple on Earth could power a few million food replicators.
The plan of harvesting solar energy with huge structures and flotillas of capacitors seems very wasteful.
Man, everyone and everywhere would rather use solar/wind/whatever green type if it were that cheap and practical.
Gross part
Then once the food passes through their bodies you can recycle all of it into anything you want, even the same food.
By the way, this is why DS9: "Progress" is complete bullsh*t. They permanently wreck a life-bearing moon to power a mere few hundred thousand homes, which you can do with a real-life fission reactor. And in Star Trek dealing with the waste would be child's play: just beam it off-planet and don't bother to turn it back into coherent matter, or reprocess it with a replicator. Failing that, a simple fusion reactor.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Well, the Bajorans are implied to be a little technologically backwards thanks to years of their society being devastated by Cardassian occupation.
The more advanced a civilization becomes, the more energy each household needs. Replicating an elaborate meal for one meal would likely require the same amount of energy that the average American household uses up in a month or more. So a real-life fission reactor will not power a few hundred thousand homes in the 24th Century.
I doubt no efforts are made to tap the masses of stars in the federations sphere of influence.
so you're suggesting they are simply not able to do this, yet... due to technological limitations set because they haven't felt like it yet?
and yes, I was bothered by the Bajor moon being converted... because the Federation considers the Bajoran Sector a critical point. Why they didn't have a Fleet stationed there is beyond me... you got a wormhole... great now I've got another gear to grind... anyways, why didn't the Federation put massive solar collectors in the Bajoran system. It's how they create anti-matter which takes a lot of energy.
p.s. they said that the warp cores are in the gigawattage range (for galaxy class starships)
My character Tsin'xing
I would imagine that most Federation worlds have something similar; it should be a fairly easy project to set up, even for a colony planet.
it is, but is not the closer to the sun, the more energy you get?
Fine, forget the fission reactor. But for crying out loud, according to one TNG episode the power generation capacity of a Galaxy-class starship is well into Type I civilization territory. The idea that you'd need to wreck a life-bearing moon to power a decent-size city represents a ridiculous waste of resources.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Yeah, the writers kinda... didn't think that one through... how to make Bajorans give up their lands...
They could had done it on a plain that needs to be flooded because the Cardassians drained the river before... and they need to restore the river, but now there's farmers there.
You'd still get the impact, because the Cardassians were there a long time.
Not really its more heat & radatition you get not energy like alpha beta and gamma rays or as in the form of electricity and other types of Rays as well
Even if you had massive solar collectors charging batterys , you then need large batterys to move the energy to where you need it and the shipping to move these battrys around
Replicators simply assemble bio matter, reform the matrix like a transporter buffer in a combined form , However in order to make a steak you need the ingrediants to make a steak taste like a steak
you wont make a good steak with a pile of potatos or recycled waste it doesn't work that way
Replicators need the required raw materials to assemble the finished material be it a stembolt or a plate of lobster
you arnt making a plate of lobster out of a pile of metallic ore
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I don't think that's how it works. biomatter is biomatter. as long as you have the necessary amount of elements required to make the requested materials, it doesn't matter what the source is.
It matters for taste maybe not for nutritition
Its explained in better detail in a few of the tech manuals and hints droped in some episodes
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Hubris, perhaps, though with a good reason. They had a mobile DS9 there, and with it a phenomenal amount of photon torpedoes. Ben Sisko even has a "come at me, bro" moment citing to the Gowron and the opposing Klingon fleet that he has 5,000 photon torpedoes at his beck and call. Both Gowron & Martok hesitate. ("The Way of the Warrior") To his and the Federation's credit, DS9 put up a huge fight with a lot of Klingon ships falling.
I suspect if Martok didn't goad Gowron in it, he wouldn't had attacked ds9.
and yes, i do recall people saying replicated matter doesn't taste great
That's in the TNG technical manual, actually. The antimatter manufacturing techtech at Starfleet bases is solar-powered.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
My character Tsin'xing
A difficult to handle one, but a potent one on a per volume basis. Naturally, having only minor running costs in order to produce this fuel source is something desire able.
In fact, there could be large industrial type ships and stations with huge solar powered Anti matter manufacturing facilities.
At the very least, i think, we can take for granted that not every planet and colony is saturated with fusion power alone.
That would be weird. And wasteful.
The reason solar power has not really come through today is that storing the gained energy is a hell of a task.
Batteries and accumulators actually suck a lot.
Solar power rises and falls with the ability to store (and subsequently transport) the energy cost efficiently. I would think that star trek has that angle covered.
Similarly, Matter-energy conversion could not, and would not be a 1-1 ratio, you would lose matter/energy every time you did it, it would be possible but inefficient and thus use up a lot of power and need a new supply of matter or energy rather regularly. The amount of Energy to convert energy to matter or vice versa would simply be massive by today's standards and the energy to convert matter back into energy(recycling) would take up more energy than you would gain as per thermodynamics.
In real life, with Anti-matter being scarce and inefficient to produce, would require quite a lot of fusion power plants to maintain them, and they couldn't be used in every home, perhaps purchased by corporations and the rich with massive power bills.
In essence, to approach Star Trek levels of Energy use, you would need massive mining operations on the moon and on gas giants/asteroids for fuel for Fusion reactions in newly built Fusion reactors, tons of which would be needed to power this technology. Solar Energy is also very inefficient especially when taking into account energy loss in energy cells, the energy necessary to maintain the facilities and transports and the cost of producing the cells in the first place. Even with massive solar arrays you couldn't produce near the energy you get from Fusion power plants. So in reality you would essentially have today's world but with Star Trek level of technology.
I try to avoid overthinking that when watching star trek, but the Law of Thermodynamics simply makes how star trek treats Energy completely unrealistic. The universe itself is bleeding off energy, you don't ever get as efficient as Star Trek. Especially not with Anti-matter.
Honestly, there's more energy efficient ways to make batteries.
And like i said, that's completely unrealistic. Anti-matter is the most inefficient form of power in the universe itself.
Which is why in canon it is simply handwaved, since really energy operates on different laws in ST than it does in our universe.
To be fair, at the time ST came up with using anti-matter for power, only the early studies were being done on it and the facts on it had not yet come out. By the time they had, it was already entrenched in ST lore. Besides, Easy Energy was necessary for the "No money utopia" of star trek which is impossible otherwise.
true. I think current theory is vacuum energy?
Vacuum Energy is definitely one of the ambitious long term goals, though i'm pretty sure no one even knows if it's possible to make use of, but right now scientists are really trying to finish working out Fusion Reactors, since that will be a game changer for the entire planet (of course, once finished it will require us to permanently return to the moon and set up mining operations for Helium-3).
Star Trek TNG notes that antimatter production is a loss of energy - but they need antimatter for the power/time value for warp propulsion over its value as an energy store. Super-science has helped, but it's still an energy-loss proposition.
If there was a natural antimatter source, they'd be all over that in a heartbeat, but they make their own because of the advantage its 'kick' gives for warp propulsion.
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1. ST never power anyting with antimatter, it is just that they are efficient energy storage. TNG Tech manual state solar power is still at large. Not to mention normal fusion.
2. ST admitted that there would be a loss of energy
3. Any sci-fi with FTl is going to need a lot of energy, whether warp or hyperspace or what not.
PLEASE try watch the show more carful before you comment anything.
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Fusion power is not enough power to produce the amounts of Anti-matter used in the shows, and Matter-antimatter reactions are used to power several major ships systems and even some colonies, as mentioned in several episodes, maybe YOU need to watch the showS more carefully.
The fact of the matter is Solar Power/Fusion does not create a "Post-Scarcity" society, and Matter/Energy converters also ignore thermodynamics in star trek. The heavy use of matter/antimatter reactors and energy/matter converters is beyond insane but it was necessary for plot not realism.
Also, as per thermodynamics, if you have enough power to produce enough anti-matter to create a warp-field, you can bypass anti-matter altogether and just use that powersource for warp fields, saving energy in huge amounts.
Also, try to be a little less rude/presumptuous in your replies next time