IMO, there's no difference whatsoever with the real thing but people always like to think that there is something more in the real thing, regardless of what science tells them. Just like people who collect vinyls swear that there is something unique about them regardless of what sophisticated measuring devices tell them.
Food replicator produce.
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IMO, there's no difference whatsoever with the real thing but people always like to think that there is something more in the real thing, regardless of what science tells them. Just like people who collect vinyls swear that there is something unique about them regardless of what sophisticated measuring devices tell them.
I agree. If you're not told that it's one or the other you won't know. And I bet it's the same with replicated food.
I remember candid camera types of jokes that were played on so called experts that were easily fooled into believing for example that a painting by some random guy was made by some famous artists. History is full of suckers like that.
Nothing to do with finances for the Federation.
It has more to do with what those industrial replicators can do.
They can build large scale objects at a press of a button most likely and in an automated fashion.
It is also not as if the Federation cannot make an abundance of industrial grade replicators... its just that they need to be careful that their technology is not misused - especially with the state of affairs the Bajorans were in so early after expelling the Cardassians.
The Feds also keep a tight track on the technology they lend to others for the very reason that they wouldn't go missing or end up misused (the planet for one thing needs to be unified for the most part and it is easier to keep track of what the 2 industrial grade replicators are used for and where as opposed to 12 of them).
The Feds initially wanted to really help the Bajorans even without knowing the wormhole was there, and they saw them as a potential candidate for membership from the get go once the planet is restored. The discovery of the wormhole however made the Bajoran system a more inviting place indeed, which probably resulted in the Federation offering membership sooner than what originally might have happened.
Since the Federation doesn't use money, its not a matter of measuring the value of industrial replicators in monetary terms.
Its that they can be used for a lot of things on an industrial scale that makes them a highly sought piece of technology almost anywhere.
2 industrial grade replicators are likely more than enough for Bajor. Besides, the situation there was shaky at best in terms of societal and political aspects that its best to minimize how much you send.
Nahh, there are too many examples of money use inside the Federation to believe that Picard's puzzling claim of no money is anything more than just another one of his brain farts.
Really? The Federation gave five to the Cardassians.
More likely Bajor only got two because they're really expensive for the Federation to obtain. And maybe that was the maximum number the Federation could lay their hand on with that years budget.
There's a lot of examples of money use between someone in the Federation and someone outside the Federation, yeah, but are you saying there are a lot of examples of it post-TOS internal to the Federation? That is, between two Federation citizens? None really come to mind offhand for me.
The Federation and its citizens might need some method of exchange to engage in trade with other powers or citizens of other powers, sure, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their internal economy is currency-driven. There are other economic models, especially for a nation as resource- and energy-rich as the Federation.
It's never been clearly explained how they managed something that is an exploit and paradoxical on the face of it.
And inside the Federation.. One of my favorite examples would be the piano player who Riker was trying to get information from, she suggested an bribe, but Riker put her off.
1) She had a tip jar of her piano.
2) Riker said he didn't carry money, not that money didn't exist on Federation planets.
Quark had paying customers including Miles and Julian and he owed Riker some latinum. Where did Miles and Julian get their latinum from and why wasn't Jake able to get it from the same source?
In "Gambit", right? Was that a Federation world? It'd seem weird for Picard to go through everything he had to if it was, not to mention the open "murder" that had no follow-up by civilian authorities. And there seemed to be a certain ire towards Starfleet there that'd be weird if it was a Federation world.
And Riker was flirting at the time, that just sounds like a playful way to phrase it. It might be in character for Picard to go into detail like that while flirting, but not really Riker.
How's it paradoxical? The Federation seemed to essentially be post-scarcity. Currency is only needed as a way of facilitating exchanges of goods or services, but if there's no more social benefit to materialism then a more socialist system where services are just given freely according to a person's desires at providing them, automated systems handle the services that have a labor deficit, and goods are provided either by replication technology or, in cases where replication can't actually overcome natural scarcity (like land), granted by need would be completely feasible. And for those that do want to pursue a more capitalist direction, there's plenty of friendly neighboring powers or colony worlds not under the Federation government to facilitate that. It's just no longer the only means of participating and existing in society, it's not required. You don't have to make the choice of "participate in capitalism or die on the street" anymore.
There was a extensive Federation storage depot for starships in orbit. This leads me to think it was a Federation member planet.
The planet was very close to the Romulan neutral zone, my understanding is that the Federation and the Empire essentially "push up" next to each other, with no open unclaimed space on either side of the neutral zone.
The both have borders that don't face each other, but not where the neutral zone is.
Do you realize that you're essentially describing communist heaven, something even the communists don't believe in anymore?
I don't think communist heaven would include "participate in capitalism if you want", communist heaven is saying that everyone would be communist. But also this isn't communist, it's socialist. I agree that communism is untenable over this sort of scale, since I believe you need some sort of government on a scale above the town level while communism includes the assumption that the community would manage itself, but I don't agree that socialism is. Heck, it might not even be socialism, it might just be social democracy writ large, but you still don't really need money in that situation once you're to the level of resources and technology that the Federation is.
Seriously, if you don't have to work in order to be able to afford the ability to survive, and if you can have automated systems do jobs that people don't want to do, then what does money do internal to your economy? How does that not lead to a situation where people can take jobs according to desire rather than an outright requirement to participate in the workforce in any possible fashion simply in order to not die? I'm honestly confused why you would even need money in an environment like that when you're participating within the economy.
Oh, wait, you're right, I was mixing up the bar in "Gambit" and the bar in "Unification". Yeah, that's fair, I can't really counter-argue that appearance. Though it still just makes more sense to me than the alternative, for the reasons I laid out in the top half of this post, so I'll just gloss over it in my mind instead of glossing over Picard and Jake's lines.
When both Picard and Jake made their "no money" pronouncements, they directly tied it to Humanity, and not the Federation in general. And there is dialog (DS9) that indicates there is commerce on Earth in the 24th century.
Picard himself made a purchase of (what looked like) a cheap mass produced item, on the Federation member world Risa. So Risa (a member) isn't post-scarity. Vulcan too (VOY) has market economy based commerce in the 24th century, which featured supply and demand.
O'Brien (owing to material shortages within the Federation) had to trade for a graviton stabilizer in order to obtain a spare from another Starfleet vessel, instead of the surplus stabilizer being freely transfer from the Sentinel to the Defiant. As mentioned, the Federation does experience shortages in goods.
Or they can (more close to home) engage in capitalism right in the Federation, or on Earth.
Doesn't seem likely if the Federation has a non currency based economy.
Fair points; I'll admit I might be biased by the modern novelverse, which tends to portray it as a Federation-wide thing, but your examples do highlight that it might be more restricted to Earth's local economy, and possibly not universally. I'll have to reconsider my overall perception. I do think that there's an aspect of it in some form, that it's not just Picard overstating matters, but you make a good argument.
It's perfectly consistent. The most specific thing anyone says about replicators is that they're an outgrowth of transporter technology. Transporters don't convert energy into matter; energy is just a medium for matter to be transmitted from one place to another. If replicators are based on that technology, then their advantage is their capacity to move matter from different places and splice it all together in a new stored pattern; but the replicator must have the original source of matter accessible and it must be a form that the machinery is programmed to manipulate specifically.
No they can't. They can only build the PARTS for devices based on those files; otherwise, they are limited to simple machines and basic shapes. They also require a certain amount of raw material to manufacture those products, and that material takes up a certain amount of space too. Unless you have a constantly shifting need for a very wide range of tools without having any solid idea what you're going to need from one day to the next, it's more efficient to simply store the tools you need rather than have to try and make them when you need them.
How many times have you heard someone say that humans only use 50% of their brains? (or is it 10%? Or 20%? Various quotes float around but...) and how many times have scientists pointed out that this factoid is 100% bullshit with no basis in reality?
"Replicators convert energy into matter" is probably the 24th century equivalent of "Cell phones cause brain cancer."
I disagree. They don't simply move matter, they turn it into energy and then back into matter. How else do you explain how Scotty managed to store his pattern in a transporter for seventy years or how Sisko and al patterns were stored into computer memories in Our Man Bashir. Or last but not least how they managed to make two Rikers with ONE. If it were simply matter being transported then the latter would be impossible.
With the considerable difference that replicators are not real!
The thrust of the theory seems to be: It's easier to replicate a chunk of stock protein shaped like a chicken wing and glazed with a really convincing artificial chicken-flavoring than it is to replicate an actual chicken wing.
Strictly speaking, there isn't any real difference between canned veggies and fresh ones, but people can usually tell the difference.
The exception is because replicators can't reproduce things they don't have the raw materials for. If a replicator can't make a latinum object, it's because it doesn't have any latinum in its matter reservoir.
Which requires something to "turn into energy" in the first place. Which is, in essence, "moving matter" using energy as a medium.
By stating the obvious: a transporter can capture an object and it can, in some cases, even store an object for a limited period of time, but it can't COPY an object or produce one that didn't previously exist in some form or another. IOW a transporter can convert an object into energy and then back into matter at a new location, but it can't take a quantity of energy BY ITSELF and make an object out of it.
Replicators have the same inherent limitation. You feed it 1kg of water, 60g of sugar, 40g of protein and 80g of fat and it will take those infgredients and superimpose a stored pattern for "chocolate milkshake" on them. Add some artificial flavoring to that pattern (also from storage) and it'll TASTE like a milkshake too.
They apparently pushed Riker's pattern onto a quantity of matter (about 90kg of it evidently) that had gotten caught up in the second confinement beam. IOW, they accidentally replicated him.
Evidently a one-time fluke since the matter that got swept up managed to produce a living being rather than just a Riker-shaped meat puppet.
The latter technically IS impossible under all but the most unusual of circumstances.
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