If they couldn't remake matter on a subatomic level a replicator would be completely impractical, Mark: it's the subatomic level that defines what the atom IS. If what you suggest is true, a ship would have to be carrying bulk matter of any element they could possibly need, rather than just borrowing protons, neutrons, and electrons from the ship's fusion fuel supply.
But that's exactly what they do, the TM and evidence from the shows suggests that. In the technical manual it's labeled "molecular synthesis" - a replicator needs the exact amount of raw matter to replicate something and if something is recycled via the replicator it goes back into storage. A replicator can theoretically run out of matter and thus the ability to replicate certain objects.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Really? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember immediately operational trocorders being replicated on VOY
(...)
My memory might fail me as I couldn't verify it via google-fu, but I am fairly certain that Data states that replicated "computer chips" will be faulty and/or have a shortened lifespan. But I may be wrong as I can't put my hoof on it right now
I think I remember the line you're thinking of, and I think, it was something to do with discovering that an item wasn't a Starfleet issue piece of equipment, but a Romulan replica. (a plot neccesity point, rather than what can legitimately be inferred about the technology) if I'm thinking about the same scene. Some of the plot-necessary stipulations about stuff, runs counter to the notion of what makes a replicator/transporter viable.
I can understand someone like Ben Sisko claiming to not like replicated food: His father's a chef. He's not only grown up eating meals which have been hand-prepared, but probably also had 'anti-replicated food' sentiments drummed into him at every meal. Even the 'positive' sounding stuff, like "Doesn't that taste better than what you get out of the replicator?" The kid is going to agree so as to keep the parent happy. Him 'not liking' replicated food, is a habitual response, rather than a true dislike. Unless, there truly is some discernable difference (which the premise of the technology, would render impossible) sadly, that's not something we'll ever truly know. Equally, Picard had no issue with drinking replicated tea, so it can't have been so bad
"I fight for the Users!" - Tron
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
^For the record, the TNG Technical Manual specifies a Galaxy-class starship's photon torpedoes as containing 1.5 kilos each of antimatter and matter, which gives a theoretical yield of 64 megatons. Of course, some of that's going to be wasted as neutrinos and the like, and it would be decently easy and probably safer* to use a form of dial-a-yield device (whereby the torpedoes are fueled from the starship's antimatter supply before launch).
I was amused reading that there are supernova types where just the radiation from the neutrinos would basically vaporize Earth (if Earth was close enough). But yeah, 3 kg annihilation is probably not going to do that.
But I think realistically, a starship like the Enterprise exploding in your orbit is really bad news for whoever is currently (or rather, immediately before the explosion) living on the planet. Maybe Starfleet's antimatter containers are designed to even survive the warp core breach (so only a really tiny amount of antimatter is causing the explosion?). Also shows that they have scarcity, if they can build antimatter containers this tough, they should build the entire space ship from it. Obviously it's too expensive to do that.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Of course, there are things of scarcity. The entire "post-scarcity" thing only means that people of Earth (just Earth!) live in a state of not having to worry about shelter, food or safety. This is somewhat expanded throughout the Federation, but there are still unreplicatable materials and particularly starship construction is a) performed traditionally, with wielding the hulls together manually (or via pods) and b) the hull materials cannot be replicated, just as dilithium crystals and other elements needed.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Of course, there are things of scarcity. The entire "post-scarcity" thing only means that people of Earth (just Earth!) live in a state of not having to worry about shelter, food or safety. This is somewhat expanded throughout the Federation, but there are still unreplicatable materials and particularly starship construction is a) performed traditionally, with wielding the hulls together manually (or via pods) and b) the hull materials cannot be replicated, just as dilithium crystals and other elements needed.
Precisely.
However
That scarcity only applies to stuff like starship construction, which the average everyday civilian, need never come into contact with. It's like I was saying over the page, while there likely is a limit to what the everyday civilian can get from a replicator, the chance of them actually hitting that limit, is much less a proposition, than someone in the 21st century running out of food in the larder, and having to get a payday loan to stock up. I don't see anyone, for example, being given a strict 'three meals a day' limit, simply because (by Kek, I'm citing Janeway as a point of reference ) most small items laying around the house, even a pair of boots, could be recycled into a meal. So the availability of 'stuff' in a person's domicile would take care of any 'allocation of matter' rationing which could potentially exist, and the energy requirements, given the seen powersources, I suspect, would be negligable, that as far as food and clothing go, it's an all-day buffet with bottomless refills. And once one gets into the mindset of seeing 'things' as 'masses of matter' which can be rearranged and recycled, then anything potentially considered (by our standards) a 'luxury item', even precious metals, becomes easily available and valueless.
We only get the dil/ec/marks/zen structure in-game, because the structure of the game requires a functional economy
"I fight for the Users!" - Tron
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
> @angrytarg said: > starswordc wrote: » > > But that's exactly what they do, the TM and evidence from the shows suggests that. In the technical manual it's labeled "molecular synthesis" - a replicator needs the exact amount of raw matter to replicate something and if something is recycled via the replicator it goes back into storage. A replicator can theoretically run out of matter and thus the ability to replicate certain objects.
I think you and I are actually saying the same thing. Say you want to replicate 1 liter of water in a glass. If it's as you and I think, that the replicator can rearrange subatomic particles, then it can break down deuterium (one proton, one neutron, one electron) and reshape it into water and silicon dioxide of the same mass.
But Mark proposed that they have to work with whole atoms, meaning the ship would have to be specifically carrying oxygen, hydrogen, and silicon. Sure, in this example they'd have it, but think if instead of water you wanted to replicate something that requires rare transuranics to produce and the logistics pukes hadn't anticipated the need. This really isn't how replicators are presented.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
I think you and I are actually saying the same thing. Say you want to replicate 1 liter of water in a glass. If it's as you and I think, that the replicator can rearrange subatomic particles, then it can break down deuterium (one proton, one neutron, one electron) and reshape it into water and silicon dioxide of the same mass.
But Mark proposed that they have to work with whole atoms, meaning the ship would have to be specifically carrying oxygen, hydrogen, and silicon. Sure, in this example they'd have it, but think if instead of water you wanted to replicate something that requires rare transuranics to produce and the logistics pukes hadn't anticipated the need. This really isn't how replicators are presented.
No, it's as Mark says. A replicator does not work on the subatomic level, only the complete molecules/atoms can be rearranged. In-universe (though not in canon) it is explained as a transporter having a finer resolution and working in "real time" whereas a replicator only stores so much information to limit computer usage that objects are assembled at a lower resolution, thus creating imperfect "copies" and things that require to be exact down to the genetic level (say living tissue) can't be replicated because of that. Mind you, the most common replicator on board are food replicators and the base for foodstuff is essentially the same across the board (according to the TM stored in a compressed state) but is you'd want to replicate something more exotic the raw materials need to be in storage or fed to the replicator before. It cannot alter molecules/atoms.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
We currently transmit power on a global scale every day from multiple locations. It's called broadcasting, and although Marconi got the patent, it was only through the use, (theft,) of Tesla's power transmission patents and the political clout of Edison. Tesla died before his patent was affirmed in court, and only because by so doing the US could avoid paying for use of Marconi's "invention".
The reason broadcast power is not used is because George Westinghouse could not figure out a way to make money by delivering free power to anyone capable of erecting a receiving antenna.
As for signal attenuation: a 1200 watt Ham Radio transmitter can be received halfway around the world at night, though at vastly reduced ranges in daytime due to atmospheric ionization due to the sun.
A very high frequency signal propagates farther with less attenuation than a low frequency signal, which is why we use very high voltage power transmission lines, and why AC is the preferred type of electricity over DC for most uses.
The only difference between a radio transmitter like the one in your wireless device and a power transmitter is the amount of power at the point of origin.
The power density of a radio signal, however, is several orders of magnitude less than the energy density needed to operate, say, a flashlight. That's why nobody's developed a "survival flashlight" for use in the woods that runs off the ambient radio energy generated across the planet - Earth's radio flux is pretty remarkable, but still not energy-dense enough to do work.
There are other significant differences between radio-frequency photons and the electrons that "make up" electricity, of course, but that's one of the reasons we don't convert the one into the other - it just wouldn't pay off.
You are also badly misunderstanding how voltage, current, and frequency work in electrical power. Voltage and frequency are different properties with different functions. Frequency is set the same across countries: the United States standardizes on a 60 Hz cycle while nearly every other country uses 50 Hz... Including Australia, which has to get power across huge areas of land almost entirely devoid of people (the entire country has 25 million people in an area the size of the continental United States). Voltage, however, is the property usually equated to water pressure, and that's the property that is ramped way the hell up to transmit power over long distances.
Current, meanwhile, is actual flow rate of electricity, which is dependent on the actual power needs of the devices in a given circuit.
Source: I am an electrician.
Protip: it's also not always true that higher frequency will make radio signals go further, either. The US Navy uses Extremely Low Frequency (ELF, 3 Hz to 30 Hz, with wavelengths of tens of thousands of kilometers) to communicate with submerged submarines, because they can penetrate deep water.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
You are also badly misunderstanding how voltage, current, and frequency work in electrical power. Voltage and frequency are different properties with different functions. Frequency is set the same across countries: the United States standardizes on a 60 Hz cycle while nearly every other country uses 50 Hz... Including Australia, which has to get power across huge areas of land almost entirely devoid of people (the entire country has 25 million people in an area the size of the continental United States). Voltage, however, is the property usually equated to water pressure, and that's the property that is ramped way the hell up to transmit power over long distances.
Current, meanwhile, is actual flow rate of electricity, which is dependent on the actual power needs of the devices in a given circuit.
Source: I am an electrician.
What he said. Personally, I'm a former programmer, autodidact physicist, and lifelong reader, so...
The reason broadcast power is not used is because George Westinghouse could not figure out a way to make money by delivering free power to anyone capable of erecting a receiving antenna.
Yeah. What the expert said above and what the armature said above and what I say here.
If it was possible then everybody would be doing it. Oddly enough most of the world dosn't give a flying sod what the US patent office thinks and would build as many free electricity transmitters as it's humanly possible to cram into every square metre of their land. The reason they don't is because the idea is not possible, not because it's not commercially viable.
If magic existed then everybody would be using it weather some inventor in the US could make money out of it or not.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
I am aware of the problems of broadcast electricity, but it is not impossible. There is only one reason Tesla's idea didn't take off, and that is because Tesla was devising a way to give electricity away for free: nobody wanted to invest in something which would never pay off.
And it's a good thing too, knowing what we now know about the long term effects of EM radiation. Having a power station and transmitter at a great distance would certainly be impractical for much more than LED's, and having one on everyone's block would be disasterous: free electricity and cancer for everyone!
No, brian, the reason Tesla couldn't finish the Wardenclyffe Tower was because he couldn't get backing. Had he finished it, it would have been another source of debt for him when it didn't work the way he'd hoped. If the idea was practical, someone else would have picked it up and run with it - as was done with the idea of radio remote control, which Tesla demonstrated in 1895. (The Navy Department didn't think it was worth pursuing, so he abandoned it.)
Before the famous Tower failure he spent time on a prototype in Colorado, and came back to New York convinced his project would work, which it does within limits. However, he was competing against Westinghouse and Eddison who were already selling electricity via wires with metered distribution and a clear path to profit. Broadcast electricity is impossible to meter, and thus impossible to sell at a profit. Tesla was working on a means to distribute electricity that would be generated by government run power plants in direct competition with the for profit enterprises.
Another thing overlooked in this discussion is that electricity moves in two ways: DC which is the direct flow of electrons, and AC which is a waveform moving through an electrically conductive medium. In AC power transmission the higher the voltage the greater the distance it can travel, and the medium really doesn't matter except as regards its conductivity. Electricity is not just an orderly flow of electrons from point A to point B, it is a field effect.
For an example of this simply google flourescent lights under high voltage lines. This is an example of the field effect created by transmission at frequencies optimized for transmission through steel wires. Other frequencies are better for transmission through other materials, such as ELF for water or VHF for atmospheric transmission.
Is it a practical system? Not if you want to make money selling electricity. Why would a for-profit entity even consider a type of power transmission which would be impossible to meter or otherwise regulate its use? (It is also very inefficient as multiple paths to ground such as trees, houses, hills, and rainfall affect the path of current flow.) There are also technical issues, known in Tesla's time, including the need for a great many towers to service relatively small areas and the many independent power houses such a system would require. (This is also why Eddison's DC system failed commercially.) And there are issues we know about today through long term use of VHF/UHF and microwave transmission, including disruption of DNA and the carcinogenic effects of long term exposure to EM radiation.
As for credentials, I'm a master electrician licensed in Louisiana with over forty years of experience and education in my field. My grandfather trained at Eddison General Electric in the 1930's and worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority until he was drafted, and after the war founded an electrical contracting company. My father and uncle were also master electricians, as are two of my four siblings. I grew up with electrical theory.
Your thinking is mired in a scarcity model, Rezeon. In a world where planet-hopping is done casually, space habitats are common, the Moon is so heavily colonized that you can see the outlines of cities on its surface from ESD, and several star systems are within commuting distance of Earth, what's all this nonsense about "limited space" on Earth herself?
You are kind of missing the point on my comment about land being a limited resource. Sure you can find land on other planets, but that doesn't change that the amount of landmass on any given planet is finite. If you want to live on Earth you are limited to the amount of available landmass that the Earth has. Due to this not everyone can get the prime real estate that they want. There has to be some method to facilitate the exchange of land ownership or the system breaks down.
As for interstellar travel being common for civilians in Star Trek... You would assume so, but the shows do a poor job of conveying it. Everything about the colony worlds in Star Trek is portrayed totally wrong for the setting... The populations are to low and the worlds to underdeveloped. They are heavily reliant on support from the home worlds, and yet we never see any of this widespread commerce in action. It almost feels like the colonies are where they dump the undesirables so they will be out of sight and out of mind. I can't recall the last time a Federation colony was treated in a respectful manner.
----
It really would make better story telling sense if replicators required a stockpile of base elemental material to create their constructs.
A transporter works by mapping the target, breaking it down, transmitting it, and reassembling it based on the map. Replicators basically take a pre-mapped template and assemble a new object from scratch. That material should come from somewhere, it is also internally consistent with how transporters function.
If you have replicators work in this fashion then it adds built in limits on what can be made. Much like transmutation in Full Metal Alchemist, you can only make objects that are made from the elements you have stockpiled. This would explain why stuff like Latinum can't be replicated, its composition would be made of rare elements, which means that starships wouldn't have any stockpiles of it to work with.
As a ships stockpiles are depleted they would have to institute rationing until they can be replenished. Thus facilitating the need for bussard collectors and occasional mining.
A simple easy to understand solution that gives the writers clear limits to work within, as opposed to just making it up as you go.
But I think realistically, a starship like the Enterprise exploding in your orbit is really bad news for whoever is currently (or rather, immediately before the explosion) living on the planet. Maybe Starfleet's antimatter containers are designed to even survive the warp core breach (so only a really tiny amount of antimatter is causing the explosion?). Also shows that they have scarcity, if they can build antimatter containers this tough, they should build the entire space ship from it. Obviously it's too expensive to do that.
Well Scotty was pretty certain the Enterprise's self destruct would be more than enough to destroy V'Ger in the first movie. It also easily explains why most destroyed ships in Star Trek are vaporized instantly. Of course the pesky Romulans with their singularity cores don't quite fit with this... guess it must be the plasma torpedoes going off that makes their ships explode.
Honestly anti-matter torpedoes should be pretty scalable in terms of firepower. Starfleet should have no problem making ones big enough to destroy entire planets.
the cardassians certainly didn't...*cough*dreadnought*cough*
of course, that was only strong enough to destroy a moon, not a planet - but anything strong enough to destroy a moon is going to irreparably devastate a planet
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
I regret having neglected this thread for so long. What the heck is going on here??? There are like half dozen different things (some forum rule breaking), since I was last here, being discussed other than the thread topic.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Replicators didn't exist in TOS. Has anyone heard if they are used in Discovery?
Synthesizer was the term Kirk used when instructing his mess crew chief to prepare a turkey dinner that looked like real turkey, indicating to me that most of his crew would be familiar enough with the original for that to matter. So farm-raised meat was still a thing in TOS. Perhaps it was a luxury food, limited to holiday meals with synthesized food being more common daily cusine.
I have the sneaking suspicion that our new hero will be a vegan, having spent a lot of time with Vulcans.
I regret having neglected this thread for so long. What the heck is going on here??? There are like half dozen different things (some forum rule breaking), since I was last here, being discussed other than the thread the topic.
Welcome to forums.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Point of order: They wanted to restore Dr. Pulaski from her last known good save- er, pardon me, her transporter buffer pattern, but she didn't have one. She'd been refusing to use the transporter. They had to go to her room, find a sample of DNA (and apparently had never heard of epithelial cells, so they had to hope she'd pulled a follicle right out of her scalp with her hairbrush, because by the 24th century we still haven't figured out a better way to do our hair), and use that to construct a transporter pattern with her original, uncorrupted DNA.
Same basic concept, but I didn't want someone claiming the example was invalid because it happened a little differently in the episode. They tried to do it exactly the way it was described here, and it was implied that it would have worked with just about anyone else.
yeah, building a new person from one small bit of DNA would be a good example of pure deus ex machina and why that power was retconned out by later episodes
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Of course it can, it assembles each pattern down to the quark and the patterns are incredibly detailed. Hell, when Pulaski was hyper-aged one episode, they went into the transporter buffer where the last few patterns were still in memory, found the one from her last beam-up, and DE-AGED HER by applying the pattern to her! Essentially, they freaking RESTORED A WOMAN FROM BACKUP! How can you tell me that replicators can't make food or computer circuits right or turn one element into another? They didn't even store the pattern on purpose, they just looked back in the "recent" folder in the transporter buffer and found that they fortunately had a copy. An entire living human being! Restored from a transporter pattern!
Needless to say, they never brought that up again because anybody who wasn't killed instantly could be restored the same way and that would make sickbay and doctors by and large redundant. But if the transporter can do that, it can make pretty much anything if you have the right pattern in data storage or a sample to scan. Any piece of anti-replicator canon is pretty much thoroughly contradicted.
No it can't. Sorry, but I'm not making this up, a replicator is not the same thing as a transporter, the source material says so. It's not my choice
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
Well, considering while the us was obsessing over a boxing match, congress pretty much makes warrant-less searches ok, now.
So, another step to the Borg done.
Maybe we should shut down this thread anyway, at least once we're close to the end of September so we can create a fresh "Discovery" topic. So what I'm saying is maybe @baddmoonrizin could - assuming nobody flames which required immediate action - simply put an expiration date on this one. Discovery will air September 24th in the US, so the speculations this thread was about would come to an end anyway.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Comments
But that's exactly what they do, the TM and evidence from the shows suggests that. In the technical manual it's labeled "molecular synthesis" - a replicator needs the exact amount of raw matter to replicate something and if something is recycled via the replicator it goes back into storage. A replicator can theoretically run out of matter and thus the ability to replicate certain objects.
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I can understand someone like Ben Sisko claiming to not like replicated food: His father's a chef. He's not only grown up eating meals which have been hand-prepared, but probably also had 'anti-replicated food' sentiments drummed into him at every meal. Even the 'positive' sounding stuff, like "Doesn't that taste better than what you get out of the replicator?" The kid is going to agree so as to keep the parent happy. Him 'not liking' replicated food, is a habitual response, rather than a true dislike. Unless, there truly is some discernable difference (which the premise of the technology, would render impossible) sadly, that's not something we'll ever truly know. Equally, Picard had no issue with drinking replicated tea, so it can't have been so bad
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
But I think realistically, a starship like the Enterprise exploding in your orbit is really bad news for whoever is currently (or rather, immediately before the explosion) living on the planet. Maybe Starfleet's antimatter containers are designed to even survive the warp core breach (so only a really tiny amount of antimatter is causing the explosion?). Also shows that they have scarcity, if they can build antimatter containers this tough, they should build the entire space ship from it. Obviously it's too expensive to do that.
Of course, there are things of scarcity. The entire "post-scarcity" thing only means that people of Earth (just Earth!) live in a state of not having to worry about shelter, food or safety. This is somewhat expanded throughout the Federation, but there are still unreplicatable materials and particularly starship construction is a) performed traditionally, with wielding the hulls together manually (or via pods) and b) the hull materials cannot be replicated, just as dilithium crystals and other elements needed.
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However
That scarcity only applies to stuff like starship construction, which the average everyday civilian, need never come into contact with. It's like I was saying over the page, while there likely is a limit to what the everyday civilian can get from a replicator, the chance of them actually hitting that limit, is much less a proposition, than someone in the 21st century running out of food in the larder, and having to get a payday loan to stock up. I don't see anyone, for example, being given a strict 'three meals a day' limit, simply because (by Kek, I'm citing Janeway as a point of reference
We only get the dil/ec/marks/zen structure in-game, because the structure of the game requires a functional economy
"I was here before you, I will be here after you are gone. I am here, regardless of your acknowledgement or acceptance..." - The Truth
> starswordc wrote: »
>
> But that's exactly what they do, the TM and evidence from the shows suggests that. In the technical manual it's labeled "molecular synthesis" - a replicator needs the exact amount of raw matter to replicate something and if something is recycled via the replicator it goes back into storage. A replicator can theoretically run out of matter and thus the ability to replicate certain objects.
I think you and I are actually saying the same thing. Say you want to replicate 1 liter of water in a glass. If it's as you and I think, that the replicator can rearrange subatomic particles, then it can break down deuterium (one proton, one neutron, one electron) and reshape it into water and silicon dioxide of the same mass.
But Mark proposed that they have to work with whole atoms, meaning the ship would have to be specifically carrying oxygen, hydrogen, and silicon. Sure, in this example they'd have it, but think if instead of water you wanted to replicate something that requires rare transuranics to produce and the logistics pukes hadn't anticipated the need. This really isn't how replicators are presented.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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No, it's as Mark says. A replicator does not work on the subatomic level, only the complete molecules/atoms can be rearranged. In-universe (though not in canon) it is explained as a transporter having a finer resolution and working in "real time" whereas a replicator only stores so much information to limit computer usage that objects are assembled at a lower resolution, thus creating imperfect "copies" and things that require to be exact down to the genetic level (say living tissue) can't be replicated because of that. Mind you, the most common replicator on board are food replicators and the base for foodstuff is essentially the same across the board (according to the TM stored in a compressed state) but is you'd want to replicate something more exotic the raw materials need to be in storage or fed to the replicator before. It cannot alter molecules/atoms.
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The reason broadcast power is not used is because George Westinghouse could not figure out a way to make money by delivering free power to anyone capable of erecting a receiving antenna.
As for signal attenuation: a 1200 watt Ham Radio transmitter can be received halfway around the world at night, though at vastly reduced ranges in daytime due to atmospheric ionization due to the sun.
A very high frequency signal propagates farther with less attenuation than a low frequency signal, which is why we use very high voltage power transmission lines, and why AC is the preferred type of electricity over DC for most uses.
The only difference between a radio transmitter like the one in your wireless device and a power transmitter is the amount of power at the point of origin.
There are other significant differences between radio-frequency photons and the electrons that "make up" electricity, of course, but that's one of the reasons we don't convert the one into the other - it just wouldn't pay off.
Current, meanwhile, is actual flow rate of electricity, which is dependent on the actual power needs of the devices in a given circuit.
Source: I am an electrician.
Protip: it's also not always true that higher frequency will make radio signals go further, either. The US Navy uses Extremely Low Frequency (ELF, 3 Hz to 30 Hz, with wavelengths of tens of thousands of kilometers) to communicate with submerged submarines, because they can penetrate deep water.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Yeah. What the expert said above and what the armature said above and what I say here.
If it was possible then everybody would be doing it. Oddly enough most of the world dosn't give a flying sod what the US patent office thinks and would build as many free electricity transmitters as it's humanly possible to cram into every square metre of their land. The reason they don't is because the idea is not possible, not because it's not commercially viable.
If magic existed then everybody would be using it weather some inventor in the US could make money out of it or not.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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And it's a good thing too, knowing what we now know about the long term effects of EM radiation. Having a power station and transmitter at a great distance would certainly be impractical for much more than LED's, and having one on everyone's block would be disasterous: free electricity and cancer for everyone!
Another thing overlooked in this discussion is that electricity moves in two ways: DC which is the direct flow of electrons, and AC which is a waveform moving through an electrically conductive medium. In AC power transmission the higher the voltage the greater the distance it can travel, and the medium really doesn't matter except as regards its conductivity. Electricity is not just an orderly flow of electrons from point A to point B, it is a field effect.
For an example of this simply google flourescent lights under high voltage lines. This is an example of the field effect created by transmission at frequencies optimized for transmission through steel wires. Other frequencies are better for transmission through other materials, such as ELF for water or VHF for atmospheric transmission.
Is it a practical system? Not if you want to make money selling electricity. Why would a for-profit entity even consider a type of power transmission which would be impossible to meter or otherwise regulate its use? (It is also very inefficient as multiple paths to ground such as trees, houses, hills, and rainfall affect the path of current flow.) There are also technical issues, known in Tesla's time, including the need for a great many towers to service relatively small areas and the many independent power houses such a system would require. (This is also why Eddison's DC system failed commercially.) And there are issues we know about today through long term use of VHF/UHF and microwave transmission, including disruption of DNA and the carcinogenic effects of long term exposure to EM radiation.
As for credentials, I'm a master electrician licensed in Louisiana with over forty years of experience and education in my field. My grandfather trained at Eddison General Electric in the 1930's and worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority until he was drafted, and after the war founded an electrical contracting company. My father and uncle were also master electricians, as are two of my four siblings. I grew up with electrical theory.
You are kind of missing the point on my comment about land being a limited resource. Sure you can find land on other planets, but that doesn't change that the amount of landmass on any given planet is finite. If you want to live on Earth you are limited to the amount of available landmass that the Earth has. Due to this not everyone can get the prime real estate that they want. There has to be some method to facilitate the exchange of land ownership or the system breaks down.
As for interstellar travel being common for civilians in Star Trek... You would assume so, but the shows do a poor job of conveying it. Everything about the colony worlds in Star Trek is portrayed totally wrong for the setting... The populations are to low and the worlds to underdeveloped. They are heavily reliant on support from the home worlds, and yet we never see any of this widespread commerce in action. It almost feels like the colonies are where they dump the undesirables so they will be out of sight and out of mind. I can't recall the last time a Federation colony was treated in a respectful manner.
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It really would make better story telling sense if replicators required a stockpile of base elemental material to create their constructs.
A transporter works by mapping the target, breaking it down, transmitting it, and reassembling it based on the map. Replicators basically take a pre-mapped template and assemble a new object from scratch. That material should come from somewhere, it is also internally consistent with how transporters function.
If you have replicators work in this fashion then it adds built in limits on what can be made. Much like transmutation in Full Metal Alchemist, you can only make objects that are made from the elements you have stockpiled. This would explain why stuff like Latinum can't be replicated, its composition would be made of rare elements, which means that starships wouldn't have any stockpiles of it to work with.
As a ships stockpiles are depleted they would have to institute rationing until they can be replenished. Thus facilitating the need for bussard collectors and occasional mining.
A simple easy to understand solution that gives the writers clear limits to work within, as opposed to just making it up as you go.
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Well Scotty was pretty certain the Enterprise's self destruct would be more than enough to destroy V'Ger in the first movie. It also easily explains why most destroyed ships in Star Trek are vaporized instantly. Of course the pesky Romulans with their singularity cores don't quite fit with this... guess it must be the plasma torpedoes going off that makes their ships explode.
Honestly anti-matter torpedoes should be pretty scalable in terms of firepower. Starfleet should have no problem making ones big enough to destroy entire planets.
of course, that was only strong enough to destroy a moon, not a planet - but anything strong enough to destroy a moon is going to irreparably devastate a planet
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
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Synthesizer was the term Kirk used when instructing his mess crew chief to prepare a turkey dinner that looked like real turkey, indicating to me that most of his crew would be familiar enough with the original for that to matter. So farm-raised meat was still a thing in TOS. Perhaps it was a luxury food, limited to holiday meals with synthesized food being more common daily cusine.
I have the sneaking suspicion that our new hero will be a vegan, having spent a lot of time with Vulcans.
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— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Same basic concept, but I didn't want someone claiming the example was invalid because it happened a little differently in the episode. They tried to do it exactly the way it was described here, and it was implied that it would have worked with just about anyone else.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
No it can't. Sorry, but I'm not making this up, a replicator is not the same thing as a transporter, the source material says so. It's not my choice
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Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Well, considering while the us was obsessing over a boxing match, congress pretty much makes warrant-less searches ok, now.
So, another step to the Borg done.
Maybe we should shut down this thread anyway, at least once we're close to the end of September so we can create a fresh "Discovery" topic. So what I'm saying is maybe @baddmoonrizin could - assuming nobody flames which required immediate action - simply put an expiration date on this one. Discovery will air September 24th in the US, so the speculations this thread was about would come to an end anyway.
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