Poll Greatest invention in Trek?

What is the greatest in-universe invention of the Trekverse?

Warp drive gets you to other worlds.

Transporter gets you anywhere on a world, and with mods works as a cure-all, has a range of up to 100 light years (with risk) or can beam you to alternate universes.

Replicator feeds you whatever you want to eat or wear or any gizmo you can imagine, forever.

Holodeck gives you all your fantasies and if you ask the right thing, even creates life (or a simulation indistinguishable from life)

The Spore Drive gets you instantly anywhere in the universe. This galaxy, another galaxy, anywhere. With mods and some danger, gets you to other universes and future times.

Or is it something else?

 

I initially chose the warp drive, just for the sake that it is the premise of Trek entirely. However, the replicator being able to end world hunger has to be my pick.

 

Spore Drive. It'll be a genie that is hard to put back in the bottle.

 

I guess replicator would be my #1 as well, for all the good it could do. Although it would instantly cause a massive overpopulation crisis and you'd need warp or the spore drive to get your massive population "out there"

 

True, but couldn’t we just replicate a warp drive?

 

And yet the replicator (turning matter into something else) is superior to the transporter (moving matter from one location to another within a limited distance)

 

Other -- Plot-dependent physics.

Seriously, though, I still think I would go for 'other'. Most of these inventions would probably need massive amounts of power, the kind of power that needs matter-antimatter reactor technology to make such devices practical.

Without it, you can e.g. still have warp drive but you can't probably build anything as fast and long-range as even the NX-01. I think similar considerations would hold for e.g. replicators and such. They might still exist, but as extremely bulky, and power-hungry devices (for a society that "only" has fusion), rendering them impractical for most purposes.

 

My first two thoughts were wsrp drive and replicators, but then I picked 'other'.

Data.

If we had one of him, he could help invent and build ALL of those things.

 

Inertia dampers. Prevents people from being smeared like spam across the nearest bulkhead whenever their ship accelerates at high sublight velocities.

 

How does this poll not include the Heisenberg Compensator?

 

Universal translator.

 

IDIC medallion.

 

Something must be wrong with spore drive or they would have kept it in the future of disco which apparently they didn't. If it's the case then it can't possibly be a great invention, let alone the greatest.

 

Who wants to see holodeck characters become real?

 

Greatest innovation? Lasting world peace and acceptance of others.

 

Which is really hard to believe when you see Kirk getting beaten within an inch of his life for calling the head bouncer "cupcake"... If that happened TODAY the bouncer and/or his employer would get sued for everything they're worth and more.

 

That wasn't a bouncer that was a Starfleet cadet.

Also, DS9, ENT and more showed that the idea humans have bettered themselves is a sham.

 

So? Besides he was obviously mandated to be a bouncer or he should definitely have been court-martialed for that. It's really hard to believe that there is world peace when people still behave like that. In fact, I have an even harder time believing in St world peace than in a moneyless society and that says something.