Why hate replicator????

[Brian]

How would that be done? Do the food slots have little harvester robots that go to the ship's celery garden to pick that stuff for each plate?

Food dispenser transports celery from ships kitchen, where there is small selection of real foodstuff.

That's my thought. We know that the Enterprise has a galley (in "Charlie X", dialogue indicates that they put meatloaves in the ovens and they turned into real turkeys; and we finally saw the galley in Star Trek VI).

IMO, there are real people preparing the food and it "somehow" gets to the food slots, maybe via short range transporters (or some kind of "wired" transport, to avoid all that beaming of energy/matter streams amidships).

 

[Timo]

I rather doubt it would be as simple and monobloc as that. More probably, futuristic technologies would blend in with traditional cooking methods, with the latter being favored in preparing VIP meals for the officers and their guests, and the former in the daily feeding of the crew.

(And really, celery as the single real element in a synthetic meal? What were they thinking?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Brian]

I've been reading The Physics of Star Trek, and in the chapter on transporters, he discusses how they made up a piece of tech to determine the "quantum resolution" of the matter being transported. He went on to say that transporters use quantum resolution and replicators only use molecular resolution, which is why replicated food tastes "off" and also why people can't be replicated.

 

[cultcross]

Which never made sense to me. If a replicator just uses transporter technology to materialize a pattern stored in memory and it doesn't taste like the real thing, what does that say about the efficacy of transporter travel?

If they can't transport a steak that tastes right, why would you step into the chamber yourself?

That's a brilliant observation!

I've seen this argument before, and my answer comes from Our Man Bashir. Remember how complicated and massive the data was to store the transporter patterns? You couldn't have that kind of detail for every replicatable item stored in the computer memory, you'd need a second station to store it all. I always assumed that the data for the replicator was a 'compressed' version of the date you'd send if you were transporting something. a gif file to the transporters bitmap, if you like. Hence, you lose some quality.

 

[Apogeal Alpha01]

If I remember, wasn't the difficulty storing their brain patterns in particular? They contain millions and billions of chemical connections stored as memories, that could not be contained in or replicated by ordinary computer memory, hence the massive storage needs. A steak is a lot less complex.

 

[Timo]

Yes, it's said (by Odo, though, not by one of the technoheads) that storing the neural patterns is more complex than storing a regular transporter pattern.

Which makes no sense. Wouldn't every "normal" transporter pattern contain a neural pattern or six? That is, unless you were transporting steaks.

We do know that a starship computer can store a neural pattern, be it part of a transporter signal or a separate construct - this happens in "Lonely Among Us" and "The Schitzoid Man", without crashing the computer. (Advanced aliens can use far more compact computer storage means, though, as in "Return to Tomorrow" and "The Passenger"!)

And apparently, a holodeck is a valid alternate storage medium for transporter patterns of "lower than quantum" resolution. So we are to believe that the trick in "Our Man Bashir" was to sort of "decapitate" Sisko and the others, let the holodeck take care of the matter streams, and place the highest-resolution patterns of their minds elsewhere in the computer system.

Two issues of interest here: one, living bodies do not require quantum resolution in order to survive a transport process (although the transporting or replication of steaks might utilize an even lower type of resolution) - and two, the computer apparently sorted the victims' minds and bodies all on its own, as if this weren't a big deal at all. In "The Schitzoid Man", it took a supergenius to do the same... Perhaps it's time to relinquish all R&D work in the Federation to unsupervised computers?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Brian]

They could call it Skynet.

 

[votd]

There was an episode where Eddington was discussing replicated food with Sisko; he said it was "replicated protein molecules and textured carbohydrates"; you could infer from that that it wasn't an actual replica of food, but generic protein shaped coloured and flavoured to taste similar to real food - similar to Quorn/other meat free products claiming to be meat.

 

[cultcross]

Yes, it's said (by Odo, though, not by one of the technoheads) that storing the neural patterns is more complex than storing a regular transporter pattern.

No, what he says is that the neural information is much much larger than the physical information. This of course makes no sense if you follow the scientific, secular-humanist type angle that the 'mind' is just a precise chemistry within the brain - ie, it has physical existence just like the heart or liver. If the computer isn't storing that level of data about your liver, what exactly do you get back when you rematerialise? a compressed liver, with Jpeg artefacts?
But rememebr that in Star Trek often the 'mind' is seen as separate from 'the body', and as such this hugely complicated 'consciousness' needs a lot of computer memory to store it.

We do know that a starship computer can store a neural pattern, be it part of a transporter signal or a separate construct - this happens in "Lonely Among Us" and "The Schitzoid Man", without crashing the computer. (Advanced aliens can use far more compact computer storage means, though, as in "Return to Tomorrow" and "The Passenger"!)

Even more stupidly, we know that a transporter can hold someone and their 'neural information' in a pattern buffer for 70 years - see Relics. It's stupid that no-one considered this possbility, given all the transporter pattern buffers that must be available to them - the Defiant, the runabouts, the station units, the shuttles...

and two, the computer apparently sorted the victims' minds and bodies all on its own, as if this weren't a big deal at all. In "The Schitzoid Man", it took a supergenius to do the same... Perhaps it's time to relinquish all R&D work in the Federation to unsupervised computers?

Well on this score it's more The Schizoid Man that's at fault - we've seen computers on Trek handle that kind of information probably dozens of times. No-one seems to think it's unrealistic when the concious, sentient and very intelligent program Moriarty is compressed into a computer the size of a tennis ball on TNG.

 

[Timo]

No, what he says is that the neural information is much much larger than the physical information.

Why "no"? Odo says that the neural information won't fit anywhere easily, but he also literally says that this is because handling a neural pattern is more complicated than handling a "standard" transporter pattern.

If the computer isn't storing that level of data about your liver, what exactly do you get back when you rematerialise? a compressed liver, with Jpeg artefacts?

I'm sure our livers could withstand a bit of compression. The processes underway there don't really suffer if they are rudely interrupted and then restarted slightly askew - the liver will cope. Not so with the processes that comprise our mind - we might cope on the long term, but the short term effect would be very disruptive.

It would be disastrous, of course, if every cell in our bodies suddenly "hiccuped", say, lost the electric gradient across the cell membrane. But I take it that the lower resolution used by the holodeck would be more about mercilessly "averaging" the cells - not an issue of resolution as such (because the ability to see where each molecule goes would be "low resolution" already, something the replicators must be capable of), but of saving memory. An "averaged" cell would do the job as nicely as a "customized" one, in all likelihood.

It's stupid that no-one considered this possbility, given all the transporter pattern buffers that must be available to them - the Defiant, the runabouts, the station units, the shuttles...

I don't think Odo and Eddington had the luxury of moving the matter stream between devices or spacecraft in the time available to them; it had to be done within the station. However, that solves nothing, as the station ought to have dozens if not hundreds of transporter stations. We have to assume that these units aren't cross-linked, which I'm sure is typical Cardassian engineering but something our heroes might have wanted to rectify. And it then strains credibility that the holodecks could talk with the Ops transporter when transporters can't talk with each other...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[cultcross]

No, what he says is that the neural information is much much larger than the physical information.

Why "no"? Odo says that the neural information won't fit anywhere easily, but he also literally says that this is because handling a neural pattern is more complicated than handling a "standard" transporter pattern.

You're quite right, my apologies, I should have checked the script - what an odd line, I can only assume a 'normal' transporter pattern must refer to an inanimate one, like equipment. Or Odo just says something dumb in the heat of the moment.

If the computer isn't storing that level of data about your liver, what exactly do you get back when you rematerialise? a compressed liver, with Jpeg artefacts?

I'm sure our livers could withstand a bit of compression. The processes underway there don't really suffer if they are rudely interrupted and then restarted slightly askew - the liver will cope. Not so with the processes that comprise our mind - we might cope on the long term, but the short term effect would be very disruptive.

It's not the fact that the liver would be stopped and restarted that bothers me, but the concept that appears to be displayed in this episode that the minds of the people in the transporter are stored in such huge detail while the rest of their physical forms are not. Memories and conciousness is just chemistry, like anything else in the body - what gives the need for the greater resolution on them that wouldn't be needed elsewhere? Action potentials are transported along nerves by chemical concentration gradients so could survive momentary interruption during transport as long as the gradients returned as they were left on re materialisation, so I don't see that being an issue - essentially the only thing that explains the massively greater amount of computer space necessary is the concept that the people in the runabout have some ethereal conciousness or 'soul' which is incredibly complex, more so than simply body chemistry.

And it then strains credibility that the holodecks could talk with the Ops transporter when transporters can't talk with each other...

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant - they can transfer this information anywhere on the station but apparently not through another transporter unit.

 

[SoM]

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant - they can transfer this information anywhere on the station but apparently not through another transporter unit.

They panicked - and none of the people involved in doing stuff (for some strange reason) were trained engineers. If O'Brien had been there, rather than one of the victims, he'd probably have got it done.

 

[Good Will Riker]

You mean we're not already?

Who said Quark serves "real food"? Quark has a replicator behind his bar, and used it to create food and drink regularly. In fact, in "Babel" Quark nearly went out of business because his replicators were down.

People use food and beverage for socializing. Think of bars and restaurants as a good example. Sure, we can open up a can of beer and watch a game at home, but you can also hang out with a bunch of friends at the sports bar and drink from the tap.

Same with restaurants. It's about the atmosphere and variety. Plus, there are games at Quarks. People still need to eat and drink while playing games and hanging out with other people, you know?

 

[jealousblues]

Hi

I was wondering why people tend to hate replicated food??, because on DS9 everyone seems to go to Quarks bar and order real food (supposedly real, you can never trust Quark lol) and pay good money for it. Is replicated food not that accurate in terms of taste or are people cautious because it is replicated???

Thanks

I assume its nasty, or its designed to replicate food but with specific health standards or something that would make it not as tasty as real food.


What I wonder about is where do these Federation types get their money from in the first place...?

I can recall an Episode of TNG where Riker goes to some bar and talks to a lady with four arms playing piano, and says he doesnt have any money to bribe her...I would assume the entire ship had none or they would have called on that?

I know DS9 is way differnt than the fleets flagship but still



and I guess the number one reason for it was probably just to give a more interesting setting in the show and have more of Quark ect...

 

[jealousblues]

I thought it had to due to the fact the replicators didn't work as well as the ones on the Enterprise. Either that, or they were trying to make DS9 more like real life.

yeah, and didnt they have like 20 year old Cardassian ones or did they ever replace them?

 

[Timo]

I can recall an Episode of TNG where Riker goes to some bar and talks to a lady with four arms playing piano, and says he doesnt have any money to bribe her...I would assume the entire ship had none or they would have called on that?

That was in "Unification", I think. In an analogous situation in "Chain of Command", Crusher used her feminine wiles to resolve a similar shortage of buying power. Both cases would involve an undercover mission of sorts, so perhaps our heroes would not be able to draw on the resources of their mothership easily?

More probably, though, Riker was just playing a role there - he was in uniform, he was openly Starfleet, open about inhuming the lady's recently-late hubby, and he might have given the lady the straight-guy act, on several levels. "I'm honest, I don't try to bribe you, I don't even carry money, but is there something else I might interest you in?"... Bringing along wads of replicated bills, coins or other valuables would not have helped Riker in that situation, but not bringing them along apparently had the desired effect.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[jealousblues]

I can recall an Episode of TNG where Riker goes to some bar and talks to a lady with four arms playing piano, and says he doesnt have any money to bribe her...I would assume the entire ship had none or they would have called on that?

That was in "Unification", I think. In an analogous situation in "Chain of Command", Crusher used her feminine wiles to resolve a similar shortage of buying power. Both cases would involve an undercover mission of sorts, so perhaps our heroes would not be able to draw on the resources of their mothership easily?

More probably, though, Riker was just playing a role there - he was in uniform, he was openly Starfleet, open about inhuming the lady's recently-late hubby, and he might have given the lady the straight-guy act, on several levels. "I'm honest, I don't try to bribe you, I don't even carry money, but is there something else I might interest you in?"... Bringing along wads of replicated bills, coins or other valuables would not have helped Riker in that situation, but not bringing them along apparently had the desired effect.

Timo Saloniemi

still id like to know where they get their money from, since I think ive heard it said we dont use money in those times. It was either Picard or Kirk, I cant remember anymore.

 

[Timo]

Kirk only said the highly ambiguous "We don't!" as a response to the query "Don't' tell me: they don't have money in the 23rd Century". Kirk might simply have been saying that he and his immediate friends were broke in the 23rd century, not an unlikely situation for hunted criminals at all...

In the 24th century, some people have declared outright that money is out of vogue. However, those "some people" have been underage civilians, namely Jake Sisko. It wouldn't be difficult to say that military personnel are allocated currency to help them with their foreign assignments, or interactions with foreigners during domestic assignments.

And it would be natural enough to assume that this currency is created out of thin air as needed, too. It would be mere decency that would stop the Feds from creating so much of this "counterfeit money" that it would collapse alien economies.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Damask]

In Encounter at Farpoint didn't Crusher buy something on the station and go "charge it to Dr Crusher, USS Enterprise"?

Does the Federation provide credit cards too?

 

[jealousblues]

In Encounter at Farpoint didn't Crusher buy something on the station and go "charge it to Dr Crusher, USS Enterprise"?

Does the Federation provide credit cards too?

For some reason i thought there was no money because there was no scarcity or something like that. I forgot who siad it.

and you are right about Crusher, she bought some kind of string or fabric or something.



Bear in mind im not super vigilant about any of this stuff and alot of my ideas are off memories of things i saw a long time ago ;-)