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Thread: Transporters and latinum

  1. #1
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    Post Transporters and latinum

    In the last session of JAG campaign, the PCs had to cut a deal with a bar-owner. He would provide the identity of teh person who bought a poison used in the murder of a Starfleet captain, but they would beam him up to the ship in order to protect him from the Orion Syndicate. They had also to transport his latinum, 200 bars. They said "Sure, we'll beam your latinum too." At that moment, I said "How? Latinum cannot be transported."

    My assumption was that if it cannot be replicated, it cannot be transported, since both systems use the same technology.

    But I wonder. I have never seen that mentioned. Although, I never saw the episode where they say it cannot be replicated.


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  2. #2
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    The encyclopedia doesn't say it can't be replicated or transported. Can you get an episode name where it says this?

    The way beagle-ears go nuts for the stuff, it stands to reason that it must be at least extremely difficult to replicate, otherwise they'd all be rich.

    But while transporters and replicators share similarities in their technology, they are not the same. So even though something cannot be replicated (creating something from nothing), it may be possible, with great difficulty, to transport (disassembling and reassembling an already existing object).

  3. #3
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    Latinum can be transported just like anything else because a transporter can disassemble at the quantum level and then reassemble it.
    as of yet we are not capable of replicating it because of its makeup. It would half to be replicated at the quantum level which we are not capable of partly because of the huge computational power it would require. That is why it is so popular as a currency. I believe their is info on this in the DS9 CORE BOOK AND THE NARRATOR'S MANUAL.

  4. #4
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    Originally posted by Fred:
    My assumption was that if it cannot be replicated, it cannot be transported, since both systems use the same technology.
    Umm...people can't be replicated, but they can be transported...

    There is apparently some quality of latinum that only resolves at a quantum level (as is the case with living organisms); as such, a molecular-level resolution replicator cannot reproduce it.

    A transporter, however, possesses quantum-level resolution (allowing subatomic particles to be recorded and reassembled exactly in the state they are (even including both velocity and position, thanks to the "Heisenberg Compensators" ), allowing accuracy several orders of magnitude over replicators.




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  5. #5
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    I believe the deal with latinum and dilithium is that they have a molecular stratum that extends into subspace. Quite simply, while the transporters, through whatever technobabble empowers them, can pour any object through a funnel somewhere else, the replicators don't know how to glue something piece by piece into the subspatial layers. All you need is to explain that anything involving subspace construction requires 2^1000 terraquads of data processed a nanosecond and that's just beyond our technology.

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    Well, just let me clear up something. What i know is - and I think it's the canon version - replicators don't create something out of nothing. They reconfigure the molecular arrangement of bulk matter into whatever was ordered.

    I know about the molecular to quantum resolution difference. The problem with that is that if transporters can beam latinum then they can create it by rearranging whatever is being transporter. Imagine a wealthy Ferengi, or a DaiMon, transporting rocks, altering their composition to latinum, and resolidifying it. This would blow the whole "latinum is valuable because cannot be replicated" theory.

    Saying it requires a lot of compitational data doesn't make it for me, since I find it hard to believe innanimate matter would require more processing power than living beings.

    The subspace extension would be good, but it still violates the "valuable bacause is rare" equation.

    I don't see it as problem for most campaigns, but it might get tricky for the players in a Raiders, Rogues & renegades campaign.


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    It's not a theory. It is rare, at least when something becomes a valued commodity its suddenly hard to find it laying around on planets without mining stations at work trying to suck it up. Sure it's valuable because it's rare. Not ultra-rare, but then you never have enough in your account.

    As for not being replicatable... It's been established that dilithium, latinum and some form of gold (I don't have the source here at the moment) are more than mere 3-space constructs.

    Our current knowledge of superstring theory suggests that there may be a higher form of math that would simplify the immensly complex computations needed to calculate the simplest of relations between the two realms.

    The difference between the two is the same difference being made between replicator energy and holodeck energy. On Voyager, they only rationed one, but if they did that for the holodeck, then the audience would leave for some FOX syndication. Sure they're plot devices, but that's what technobabble's for. On the basic level, the technology differs. So different that decades have gone by without someone figuring out how to replicate latinum to get rich quick.

    On the flip-side, if you made it non-transportable, then everytime a Ferengi were beamed out unexpectedly he'd check his pockets and groan at the worthless gold lying in them. Pretty soon everyone would deal in electronic currency.

  8. #8
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    Originally posted by Fred:
    Well, just let me clear up something. What i know is - and I think it's the canon version - replicators don't create something out of nothing. They reconfigure the molecular arrangement of bulk matter into whatever was ordered.
    Precisely - molecular rearrangement.
    Not quantum rearrangement.
    That's why people with discerning palates claim replicated food doesn't taste as good as fresh food - there are single-bit errors that alter the chemistry slightly.

    I know about the molecular to quantum resolution difference. The problem with that is that if transporters can beam latinum then they can create it by rearranging whatever is being transporter. Imagine a wealthy Ferengi, or a DaiMon, transporting rocks, altering their composition to latinum, and resolidifying it. This would blow the whole "latinum is valuable because cannot be replicated" theory.
    But why then can't you extend that to living beings? The whole point of latinum is that (for whatever reason) if it isn't materialised with quantum resolution, it simply isn't latinum any more.

    Apart from that, a transporter can't just rearrange molecules to form something else, otherwise you could turn a person into a chicken if you adjusted the whoosamiwhatsits in the transporter system!

    [QUOTE]Saying it requires a lot of compitational data doesn't make it for me, since I find it hard to believe innanimate matter would require more processing power than living beings.[QUOTE]

    Well, hard to believe or not, a single molecule can contain millions of quanta. If you have to keep track of the quantum state of matter (which is canonically so), you need a million times more memory than keeping track of the molecular state.

    And that's ignoring the effect of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (which is compensated for in Trek, but must still be accounted for, and that's even more information required for each quanta).

    Let me give you an example (extremely contrived - please don't pick on the numbers, here - I'm going for simplicity):
    A photon torpedo casing has, say, 1 billion molecules (I know it has more, but I'm trying to keep the math manageable).
    A human has roughly the same: about a billion.

    Let's say each molecule has, on average, ten atoms (which again is extremely conservative, especially considering organic molecules - like DNA - are massive in comparison to simple metallic molecules).

    So, a torpedo has 10 billion atoms, as does a human.

    Each atom is made up of, say, 10 each of protons, neutrons, and electrons. The protons and neutrons (being baryons) are made up of 3 quarks, the electrons (being leptons) are made up of 2 quarks. Each of these particles also carries 8 gluons of various charges to hold the quarks together. So each atom, therefore, has 30 particles, each of 2 or 3 particles and 8 gluons. Doing the math, we get 100 quarks per atom, plus 8 gluons for 108 "bits" in an average atom. Now, we also need to record where each particle is, and its velocity. So, we actually need to record 324 bits of information per atom to get quantum-level resolution.

    Going back to our initial numbers, then, we find that to hold the information about a person, we need 324 x 10 billion, or 3.24 trillion bits of information.

    That's at quantum level resolution.
    For our torpedo casing, we only need molecular level resolution, so we only need to keep 1 billion bits of data.

    So, storing a human pattern takes about 3240 times the memory that storing a torpedo casing does.

    And that is with my extremely simplified version. In reality, organic molecules (like carbon chains, proteins, DNA, etc) are vastly larger than inorganic molecules (collagen, for example, a protein in our skin and hair, is large enough to be visible with an ordinary microscope - that's one molecule!! It contains millions of atoms).

    Now, since Trek canon talks about the energy cost of replicating even normal, inorganic items (witness Voyager, limiting replicators even with a matter/antimatter core as a power source!), you would be looking at at least half a dozen orders of magnitude more to replicate something at a quantum level.

    Since latinum cannot be replicated, but can be transported (which is quite canonical, by the way - people are always beaming around DS9, and nobody ever mentions their latinum disappearing), I think it's pretty safe to assume that it falls under a similar auspice as living organisms - it must be resolved at a quantum level. Therefore, if you wanted to replicate it, it would end up costing you more than it was worth in energy.

    Voila! We have a substance which is pretty rare, costs more than its own worth to replicate, but can be transported - the ideal currency!

    Ultimately, it's your campaign, of course - I'm merely pointing out that there is nothing in Trek canon which supports the contention that "if it can be transported, it can be replicated."

    Otherwise, why don't Starfleet crew simply keep a copy of themselves "backed up" in the computer in case they get killed?



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  9. #9
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    Originally posted by Aldaron:
    But why then can't you extend that to living beings? The whole point of latinum is that (for whatever reason) if it isn't materialised with quantum resolution, it simply isn't latinum any more.
    Well, they can do it to humans. They just don't because of ethical reasons.

    Apart from that, a transporter can't just rearrange molecules to form something else, otherwise you could turn a person into a chicken if you adjusted the whoosamiwhatsits in the transporter system!
    But you can. That's the thing about transporters. They can do all that weird stuff, but we don't see it in the show because there are ethical reasons in the UFP not to do it. I may be a bit wrong here and the producers and writers might have invented something to explain that they can't do it because of some scientific principle instead of a moral one.

    Well, hard to believe or not, a single molecule can contain millions of quanta. If you have to keep track of the quantum state of matter (which is canonically so), you need a million ...
    I agree with your example, but you misunderstood me. When I said I found it hard to believe innanimate matter would require more computational power than living beings to transport, I was referring to both being scanned at quantum resolution. Of course something that has a higher resolution would require more processing power: a 300 dpi image is a bigger file than a 72 dpi image (assuming the same file format).

    Anyway, I'm satisfied with the "huge amount of power involved in quantum resolution would make it cost-prohibitive to forge latinum" explanation. But if someone wanted to do that, it would be able.

    Otherwise, why don't Starfleet crew simply keep a copy of themselves "backed up" in the computer in case they get killed?
    Well, they do, sort of. The transporter keeps a id file of the people transported. The Federation don't allow it based on the above mentioned ethical reasons. It's after all possible to duplicate someone via transporter: "The Enmy Within" (TOS, the episode with the evil Kirk) and the TNG episode where Ryker finds a copy of himself created during a transporter malfunction.

    This was a very interesting topic.



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    Concerning back-up copies of people, I wouldn't allow that in my campaign. Maybe you could "replicate" a person's body, but what about their soul (or katra for all you Vulcans)? If somebody tried that in my campaign, they would end up with a perfectly replicated but very dead body. On a dramatic success, they might get a pulse and brainwaves, but it would be a mindless "vegetable". In some campaigns, it might work to be able to resurrect the same character over and over, but I find that role-playing is more fun if the characters look on death as a very real threat.

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  11. #11

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    OK, heres one where Voyager provided an answer. Remember 'Distant Origins'? The fragment of replicated uniform had (If I remember correctly) an atomic level label, sort of made in Taiwan' indicating the ship and replication date and time...

    While this 'tag' wouldn't matter in everyday articles such as clothes and equipment, it would affect the tansaction of of precious stones and materials...

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  12. #12
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    I expect every day replimats and starfleet issue replication centers would be required to show identification, perhaps so much so that the writing is incoded throughout the programming so that it cannot easily be removed. Why would you need to do it unless you were doing something seedy?

    As far as that replicating a person deal, the transporter holds information like dna/rna scan, bio-filter scans, and other information but whenever someone is copied it's usually due to a power surge in-transport causing the pattern buffer to momentarily (what?) phase out of time to provide twice the energy? *shrug*

  13. #13
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    Much like the "beaming thru shields rule" the "transporters replicating or rearranging people rule" is one that the writers occasionally slip up on (or use to get themselves out of a jam), but it has been made quite clear over the years that you cannot replicate living matter.

    There are also certain un-living substances which cannot be accurately replicated, latinum and dilithium being two of them.

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    -----------------------------------
    Originally posted by Aldaron:
    But why then can't you extend that to living beings? The whole point of latinum is that (for whatever reason) if it isn't materialised with quantum resolution, it simply isn't latinum any more.
    -----------------------------------

    Well, they can do it to humans. They just don't because of ethical reasons.
    No. It has been established that 1) It takes a LOT of energy to replicate a living being and 2) All attempts have resulted in a dead being.
    For some enjoyable non-canon reading about this subject, go to http://www.elsinore.net/uss_sulu/logs/glitters.htm (logs from some PBeM).

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    I was under the impression that plant metter had been replicated successfully but that kind of animal (including sentients) was difficult to replicate.

    Red

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    -Lieutentant Reginald Barclay

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