Not replicatable but transportable?

[Red]

I think I figured it out.

As I understand it a replicator combines base elements from a storage tank(s) and combines them in a specific order and pattern (ie. form ans substance).

What if items like latinum require a base element rare enough that to find it in nature you have to have phenomenal luck.

As such the material in question can still be transported, just not replicated.

What do you think?

Red

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"Being afraid all of the time of forgetting somebody's name. Not...not knowing what to do with your hands...I mean, I am the guy who writes down things to remember to say when there's a party. And then when he finally gets there, he winds up alone in the corner trying to look comfortable examining a potted plant."
-Lieutentant Reginald Barclay

[Capt.Hunter]

In the case of latinum, I'm not sure if it was every said on screen, but I've seen a Paramount product saying that latinum partially exists in subspace, so that it can't be replicated (it was also once considered on Trek that you couldn't transport latinum either, but I think they dropped that idea).

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"Spatial anomalies, energy beings, telepathic echoes. You know, sometimes I really miss the Dominion War. At least then all we had to worry about was where the next polaron beam was coming from...": Capt.Hunter, USS Tempest

[reimero]

::sigh::

Okay, if you want the REAL reason, here it is:
The Trek writers decided it would be more convenient and futuristic to be able to have a device that can create pre-programmed foods and basic items instead of a galley. (After all, everyone knows that in the future we'll all take nutrition pills instead of eating, but they decided that eating had too many social connotations, so they developed a hybrid. That chocolate Troi is always eating is actually chock full of vitamins and nutrients.) Anyway, as a way of explaining it Treknologically, they developed it from transporter technology.
Before long, the question was raised why certain medicines, rare minerals and even people couldn't be replicated. Two things were decided: first, the replicators don't quite replicate down to the quantum level; they just get close enough for foodstuffs to be close (which is why replicated gagH is dead rather than live) and that some things just required too many resources to replicate.

Replicators store the patterns in their memory banks. Basic foods from various cultures are pre-programmed in and "optimized" for minimal system overhead. Fancier stuff invariably has to be programmed in manually or scanned in, and is invariably of lesser quality. No one will mistake replicated caviar for Beluga. The more complex the signature, the more overhead and memory is required for it.

Finally, when it's said that something "can't" be replicated, it means that "the ship does not have the capacity" to replicate the item. There are special industrial and medical replicators located at starbases and on planets for that sort of thing because of the enormous overhead. Ultimately, the idea is to use replicators as an aid, not a crutch. If the crew is facing a mysterious plague, there's no adventure in replicating some magic cure-all. Instead, the crew will have to develop the cure, test it, THEN feed it into the medical replicator. Make sense?

[Klingermann]

Well, I for one would never use a replicator to make anything important unless you don't value your life. The truth about it is that replication is a relatively new and somewhat quirky technology, kind of like how transporters were in the original series.

Mishaps occur and minor variances are common (as has been stated in Voyager as well as in the TNG core book) so I wouldn't use it to replicate something that is as important as say the "Plague cure" example that was given earlier. In that particular case I might use a medical replicator to make the components for the drug, but then test those components and mix them in-lab to use first on say a culture or subject tissue or blood sample before administering it. It's just too dangerous to use otherwise.

Plus, it would be broken and boring to simply replicate your way out of every problem you face. I know if I was narrator and my group used the replicators to solve every problem I put them up against (something that fortunately cannot be done even if the technology was flawless) that I wouldn't run very long.

Oh well though that's way off subject but it's still my two cents.

[tonyg]

Actually repiclicator techinolgy isn't new and qurky, it is a reliable technology. Replicator technology is used to make all sort of items, including parts for starships.

But replicators work on the molecular level, and some things (including living beings and some rare medical items) need to be assemled on the sub-atomic level. Personnel Transporters work on the sub-atomic level.

[Lee T]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by qerlin:
I think the arguments are bogus. It you can't replicate, you shouldn't be able to transport.</font>

True, I never thought about that but if only tech/power constraint limited the replication then why not use massive industrial replicator. After all they are sued to build starbase and starships, why couldn't they be fine tuned enough and powered enough to replicate the ireplicatable?

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Hoping You'll understand all of this

[reimero]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Lee T:
True, I never thought about that but if only tech/power constraint limited the replication then why not use massive industrial replicator. After all they are sued to build starbase and starships, why couldn't they be fine tuned enough and powered enough to replicate the ireplicatable?
</font>

As I mentioned before, technology is a real mitigating factor here. Starships simply do not have the resources necessary to replicate on that level. In addition, it is important to remember that transporters don't really change anything fundamentally. It's possible to make a few minor modifications, but matter is transformed into energy and then returned as exactly the same matter. Nothing is being created or destroyed. In contrast, a replicator turns matter into entirely different matter. This alone is a significantly more complex process and one that requires significantly more overhead.

What this means is that in theory it would be possible to replicate the unreplicatable, but in practice, the computer processing and memory and power demands are so great that it is not practical to pursue the matter.

In addition, for most of Starfleet's purposes, replication at the molecular level is quite sufficient. If replication at the quantum level were developed and in such a way that it were commonplace, Starfleet would also face a serious moral dilemma, namely, that life itself could be replicated. By using replicator technology, the already outlawed genetic engineering of sentient life forms would become that much easier, especially for rogue scientists. How easy would it be for a Khan-like figure to create his own army of perfect and loyal soldiers? Or what if this technology fell into enemy hands (I have little doubt the Romulan Empire would have no second thoughts about augmenting their military with it.)

Be very, very careful with this one, the can of worms you open may be larger than it appears.

[tonyg]

Lee T,

Because bigger/more powerful doesn't mean more complex or sophsticated. thought to Sort of like like using a chainsaw for neurosurgery.

the road The main problem with replicating things at the subatomic level is the computer power required to handle all the data. On DS( when they had to store the pattens of several of the characters into the computer, it took all nearly all the computing poweron the station.

Apparently a transporter and the uses streaming data and a buffer.