The Borg Queen wrote:
What there any specific reason (other than "because of the plot!") why Latinum isn't able to be replicated?
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My thought was this: Latinum is a base substance that nearly all non-Starfleet replicators use to manufacture hard (non-edible) goods. The replicator takes a quantity of latinum, rearranges its molecules and converts it into the desired product. By its very nature, it is a substance that contains sufficient quantities of the ten most common elements/isotopes found in non-food products, and in such density and arrangements that even a small amount of it can be converted into a comparatively large amount of material.
Food and drink are not expensive in the Trekiverse, but things like computer chips and devices are implicitly so, due to their scarcity and the need to repair things by hand instead of simply throwing them out and replicating new ones.