Its limits are so vast, however, that it's actually more accurate to describe it as "anything that's on the menu."
Food replicator produce.
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I find it strange to transport over long spacial distances a substance that is present in abundance in every star system.
No, that's your gross misunderstanding of the technology.
...a menu that can be changed and altered pretty much at will by those with the technical skills to do so. There's been several episodes showing precisely that, as well as pretty much unlimited duplicates of those new creations being replicated.
Hell, even laymen can just ask the computer to create something new.
Also, no, the limitations are very limited, and exist for two primary reasons: 1.) because the writers need there to be limits to the technology or else very little of the show makes sense, and 2.) practical, sensible, legal, in-world reasons like not allowing it to create poisons or counterfeit uniforms. In the case of #2, it's not that the replicator can't do it, it's that it won't without some form of hacking those security features. (In which case, according to you, someone would have already spent the time 'uploading' every poison known to man into it aboard every starship, space station, colony, and world that has one.)
When neelix asks tuvok if the replicator could make him a uniform, he says "no, it cannot". considering the ability of replicators to make just about anything, including weapons, your understanding that its a security feature, rather than a technical feature that prevents uniforms or phasers from being replicated at will. At least one TNG episode mentions either disabling or reprogramming a replicator to prevent the creation of unauthorized weapons.
I guess that memo didn't reach the writers of NextGen then, as we see in the episode Evolution:
Yep, it's a food slot alright. According to the TNG Tech Manual, the actual replicator nodes are somewhat larger and there's only a few around the entire ship. What the crew commonly refer to as "replicators" would more properly referred to as "dispensing slots". However, casual speech mannerisms tend to persist among humans, even in the 24th century...
I think that was the Voyager episode Counterpoint:
Note that the type of weapon is not specified. In fact it would be ludricrous to think that the crew couldn't limit the machine to just producing plates of food. However, even simple cutlery could be offensive in the right hands and all Kashyk would need to do is order a juicy steak to get something a bit more useful
^yes well, writers change their minds over time. DS9 and Voyager certainly suggest that each replicator unit is essentially self-contained. Early TNG wasn't sure what to do with combadges or replicators. And I could have sworn there was a similar mention somewhere in TNG, not the same dialog by any means but the same concept. Oh well....
Plus in Children Of Time we can see that a replicator can work for centuries without problems.
Deuterium isn't actually that abundant. It would take quite some time for a starship to collect it any quantity from the interstellar medium on its own. It can be extracted more readily from large volumes of water, though, which is probably where the fuel carriers are going to tank off from. We saw one such refinery in Enterprise "Marauders," for example.
From the TNG technical manual:
"The heart of the food replication system is a pair of molecular matrix matter replicators located on Decks 12 and 34. These devices dematerialize a measured quantity of raw material in a manner similar to that of a standard transporter. Unlike a standard transporter, however, no molecular imaging scanners are used to derive analog pattern data of the original material. Instead, a sophisticated quantum geometry transformational matrix field is used to modify the matter stream to conform to a digitally stored molecular pattern matrix."
It goes on to say:
"As with all transporter-based replication systems, the food replicators operate at molecular resolution..."
So no, it's not a "misunderstanding" of the technology. It's the fundamental principle of how the technology works.
Not from a replicator, no. He has about 4500 items to potentially choose from and MOST of them will be stored in memory. The computer is smart enough to mix and match different items in its memory bank, but at the end of the day it can only make what it's programmed to make.
In a universe where a hostile alien can hack a starship's central computer by tapping three buttons on a light panel, where you can override the ship's security by rearranging a couple of isolinear chips, where a random civilian can hop a turbolift to the bridge in the middle of a yellow alert without anyone noticing, you REALLY think the security systems on replicators are the problem?
No, you're just not understanding what you're reading. (Not that tech manuals are in any way, shape, or form canon. But that's neither here nor there.)
Yes, it can destroy things just as easily as it can create it. In NO WAY WHATSOEVER does it ONLY create what it has previously destroyed, which was the crux of your understanding of the technology. You can use a replicator to get rid of a plate of food, a lump of coal, or a tattered Starfleet uniform. That matter can then be replicated into -anything else- the replicator is capable of creating. Including a completely different plate of food, a bowl of sugar, or a set of plate mail.
It even specifically says that it doesn't remember what it destroyed in the very thing you quoted, for fuck's sake.
Yes, from a replicator. We've seen it done on-screen before, where a character describes very precise parameters for something brand new, and the computer then creates it via a replicator.
No? And I'm not sure how you think what I said was a 'problem.' It was a FEATURE of replicators. A FEATURE that we KNOW isn't impossible to get around, because it's been gotten around (or at least mentioned) on more than a few occasions. That doesn't make it any less of a feature, or why it has such limits.
This discussion seems to be getting a little heated.
One question I do have is that what exactly is meant by "molecular resolution"? Does that make the limit down to proteins, sugars, and starches (which I believe are just really long molecules of sugar)?
Would it break down really really long molecules like DNA in replicated meat and vegetables or would it keep that molecular pattern?
One question I do have is that what exactly is meant by "molecular resolution"? Does that make the limit down to proteins, sugars, and starches (which I believe are just really long molecules of sugar)?
Would it break down really really long molecules like DNA in replicated meat and vegetables or would it keep that molecular pattern?
Water OR hydrogen, any gas giant like Jupiter for example must contain large quantities of deuterium.
Actually it can do NEITHER of those things because matter cannot be created nor destroyed. Matter can be rearranged and reorganized to a limited degree, and replicators have demonstrated a fairly limited capacity to do this. It has to do with the fact that the "raw material" used in the replicator system is a type of substance that is already chemically similar to the thing being replicated; lots of basic carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, lipids, collagens, polymers, polysacharrides, etc.
You feed a replicator system a block of solid carbon and tell it to make you a chicken wing, you're going to get a lump of steaming hot chicken-shaped material that looks like, tastes like, and basically IS, a graphite sculpture of a chicken wing.
Of approximately the same material, which is mainly because the replicators are based on transporter technology. The same raw material that is used for making plates and knives is not being used to make ice cream and whiskey. They're not the same molecules; they're not even the same ELEMENTS.
And that even assumes plates and knives are being replicated at all (they probably aren't).
That's not what it says.
It says it doesn't scan and pattern the raw material used in replication and imposes a quantum matrix technobabble thing to turn it into something new. That's the OUTPUT of the system, not the input. The TNG manual also implies that only foodstuffs and edible waste is actually recycled; plates and cutlery are not replicated at all, they're just beamed into position and combined with the food item and then returned to storage when not in use. There is an example of a "replicator malfunction" in which a glitching replicator first deposited a cylindrical column of beverage (which then splashed to the ground) and then several seconds later materialized the glass that was supposed to contain it. These things are supposed to happen at the same time, but the glass was late to the party.
Which is a distinct concept from saying "Computer, create something new."
You tell the computer WHAT to create, what it's made of, what it's components are and how those components fit together. That's design and programming, and takes a certain amount of knowledge not to mention back-end software support. A really great example of this is Barclay's interface on the holodeck:
BARCLAY: Computer, begin new programme. Create as follows, workstation chair. (he sits in it) Now, create a standard alphanumeric console positioned for left hand. Now an iconic display console positioned for right hand. Tie both consoles into the Enterprise main computer core, utilising neural-scan interface.
COMPUTER: There is no such device on file.
BARCLAY: No problem. Here's how you build it.
So no, you can't just walk up to a food slot and tell the replicator "Make something new." If what you want isn't in the library, you have to add it yourself, and you have to know EXACTLY what the thing is and how to put it together in order to do so.
Obviously it isn't, or else the HACKING of replicators to produce such mayhem would be a fairly common occurrence.
It's not that I'm saying replicators are unhackable, because they're obviously not:
It's that the hacking of replicators never results in that kind of mayhem on a massive scale. If somebody like Quark can hack the replicators on a starfleet ship to produce an annoying commercial advertisement, then there's nothing to stop the Maquis or the Kohn Ma or anyone else from using replicators to crank out weapons, warheads and starship parts by the truckload, in which case there would be no reason whatsoever for the Maquis or anyone else to have to purchase weapons from anyone.
And yet weapons, like medical supplies, are manufactured and shipped the old fashioned way. That tells you something right there.
Which, basically, is where you're going to find the most profitable deuterium refineries and fueling stations. OTOH, a planet whose aquifers contain a larger than normal abundance of heavy water provides opportunities for a deuterium refinery on the cheap (the settlers in "Marauders").
The REAL question is "Why the hell are starships using a deuterium fuel cycle?" Deuterium-Deuterium fusion is favored in modern reactors because it's easier to control and because tritium is even harder to find than deuterium; in the mean time it produces a lot of secondary radiation (neutrons, mostly) that is bad for both the reactor and anything/anyone monitoring the reaction. Proton-proton fusion -- requiring only normal hydrogen -- produces a lot more energy, is a lot cleaner, and produces only helium as a byproduct. For the Federation, which has the capacity to manufacture and control antimatter, proton-proton fusion should be a piece of cake. This is a real headscratcher to me.
*just rubs his temples and moves on to another thread*
but with all that helium everyone would sound funny
I wonder what pork vindaloo would taste like replicated against the same dish hand made?
I always figured it was along the lines of a boxed cake mix vs a cake made completely from scratch. Both are good, the scratch cake is a tiny bit better, but you probably wouldn't notice the difference in a blind taste test
There are some brands of cake mix which have a distinctive taste
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