How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federation?

[Brainsucker]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

so... if it that simple and cheap, why need freighters? Because that makes every solar systems become self sufficient. Replicator could render every economy rules that we know now useless. Plus, the non currency life in Federation makes Merchant obsoletes. So why we still have the freighter captain Yates in DS9? Why they still transporting goods from one place to another? Because it is no longer necessary, if Replicator is indeed the machine of god. They don't need freighters, Merchants, distributors, etc anymore. Everyone could make their own item with the "replicator". and everyone could take the energy from their own solar system.

So... unless replicator is not that powerful just like you state, replicator is just a bad idea that come from bad writing of those lazy writers.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

so... if it that simple and cheap, why need freighters? Because that makes every solar systems become self sufficient. Replicator could render every economy rules that we know now useless. Plus, the non currency life in Federation makes Merchant obsoletes. So why we still have the freighter captain Yates in DS9? Why they still transporting goods from one place to another? Because it is no longer necessary, if Replicator is indeed the machine of god. They don't need freighters, Merchants, distributors, etc anymore. Everyone could make their own item with the "replicator". and everyone could take the energy from their own solar system.

So... unless replicator is not that powerful just like you state, replicator is just a bad idea that come from bad writing of those lazy writers.

So even in a replicator society, there will be a need for freightors, just what cargo goes in the freightors will be a little different.

Here is a list of some potential cargo:
1) Food Items:
- Naturally pre made food or basic food items ready to be cooked with for those on the frontier where replicators are not ready / installed.
- Pre-replicated food for helping hungry people

2) Medical items:
- Biomaterial used in labs for creating medicine and other biological items since biomaterial isn't replicatable.
- Medicine for helping others.
- Artificially grown biological body parts for helping the injured.

3) Personal mail

4) Living creatures or plants

5) Handcrafted items

6) Manufacturing equipment:
- Replicators
- Raw matter
- Batteries / Generators
- Pre replicated tools
- Construction Equipment

7) Parts for a giant power plant or other buildings.

8) Equipment for specialty application that can’t be replicated easily.

9) Custom made small vehicles

10) Any non replicateable raw material


All because you have a replicator society, doesn't mean you don't need cargo transports, it just means what you transport becomes more specific to the needs of a ever expanding society.

 

[Timo]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

It's actually quite interesting that the Star Trek universe doesn't appear to have freighters.

What it has instead is minuscule space scooters capable of carrying less cargo that the classic coastal cargo ships of the 20th century. In order to supply even an ordinary city with something that would make a difference, you'd need thousands of those ships, each doing daily trips. In order to keep a planet supplied with raw materials or food, you'd need hundreds of millions. Yet an effective siege involves only stopping a handful of ships.

If planets weren't capable of surviving indefinitely on their own, the Star Trek universe would need to feature freighters of appreciable size - say, boxes a few hundred kilometers on the side. Not only are such things never seen or spoken of, but our heroes seem to treat space structures of such a scale as abnormal.

Essentially, the self-sustainability of Star Trek planets is confirmed. Only very special cases, such as the 8,000-people Tarsus colony in the "Conscience of the King" backstory, depend on external supply. Whatever freight traffic there is to other places, it's apparently on items of luxury or sentimental value, or on extremely small quantities of items or substances that are difficult to replicate (that is, apparently just a few barrels of the stuff per year).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

Only very special cases, such as the 8,000-people Tarsus colony in the "Conscience of the King" backstory, depend on external supply.

Tarsus Four had it's own food attacked by an exotic fungus, the majority of the food was destroyed. That's why they needed ships to bring in food.

For actual creation of matter, replicators use plasma that powers the ship and convert it into matter

The plasma in the warp core is already matter, it doesn't have to be converted into it.

The warp core is filled with hot ionized hydrogen gas (deuterium plasma). It would take about 18,000 cubic meter of hydrogen gas will give you 1 liter of water.

You should drink at least 2 liters of fluids a day, more is better. The crew of the Enterprise Dee would consume over 2 metric tonnes of drinking fluids per day. That's 36,684,000 cubic meters of warp plasma being used daily just to produce water.

We know the very same process occurs in Supernova's in real life (conversion of energy into matter).

If you are referring to nucleosynthesis, you have it all wrong. Nucleosynthesis in no way converts energy into mater, but instead it is a process by which heavier chemical elements are created using hydrogen and other previously synthesized elements. Energy is used in the process, but is not converted into matter.

The Federation (if anything) is basing their technology on how nature works

And what you're describing doesn't work. Neither through "creating" matter out of energy, or by siphoning off plasma from the warp core to use in the replicator.

The technical advisers on the show produced a technical manual (nope, not canon), the replicator is described as employing base stock materials, which are altered by the replicator into the desired product. These base materials have to be periodical restocked owing to a recycle efficiency of 82%.

... but that basically comes down to writers being uninformed and dumbing things down.

Really? Sound like they had it right.

They do have recycling capability which effectively converts matter into energy

Okay, what kind of energy then? By what you've posted, obviously not energy in a physical form. So it isn't just sitting in the EPS, because electro-plasma is a form of matter. What kind of "energy" did you have in mind?

Thermal energy
Chemical energy
Electric energy
Radiant energy
Nuclear energy
Magnetic energy
Elastic energy
Sound energy
Mechanical energy
Luminous energy
Mass

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

The war wasnt long enought for the economy to be affected in a society like they have.

Instead, ships fight pitched battles, and then the side that loses the space war surrenders.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

So basically the war like Dominion War won't effect any major power economy in the galaxy. Both Dominion and Federation can war forever if there is no worm hole that limit their access?

Forever? No. Remember, the Dominion (mostly the Cardassians in the AQ, since there was virtually no supplyline from the GQ after the blockade of the wormhole), had some serious supply constraints. Cardassia did not have wide-spread replicator access to begin with, and at one point they were so resource strapped that they tried to trick the Federation into ceding a planet to them that they could bio-engineer new supplies of Ketrecel White from because they had no factories to produce it in.

In the "colonies", where replicators were less common and power systems less developed, I'm sure there were widespread economic dislocations and problems due to the war.

The "core worlds", however, are a different story altogether. With every household potentially a "mini factory" if their replicator were provided with the raw materials and power needed, you have production networks so distributed that it would be impossible short of total planetary annihilation to shut them down completely. And the total potential output of just ONE planet is staggering to consider.

Let us take just one item, for example a hand phaser. Replicating an item that size takes at most 5-6 seconds.

Now, let us take a SMALL settlement on a core world with, say, 5000 households. Assuming that single settlement devoted just ONE replication session to making phasers, you would have a rate of production of 5000 phasers a day.

Let us assume that the population of a core world is 3 billion people with an average household size of 4 people. That is 750 million households, or 150,000 times the size of our example community.

So if the entire planetary population did just ONE replication cycle a day for hand phasers, that would be 750 million hand phasers produced in just one day by that one planet.

That's not counting the output of small public replicators (as in a replimat such as the one on DS9), or big industrial replicators that might be able to turn out hand phasers by the freight-car load.

The industrial capacity of the Federation on a war-footing is beyond scary. The problem seems to be extremely large and complex objects like starships, but even then the Federation appeared to have plenty, being able to field many 1000s even after the crushing losses of the first year of the war.

Indeed, the real problem for the Federation would have been manpower, as Senator Vreenak noted in "In The Pale Moonlight". The Federation could replace the ships and the material, but not the trained crews to operate them.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

I don't know if any of you are following the lit-verse, but there was recently an "all-out" confrontation between the Feds and the Borg, with much of the attendent issues you talk about, economic problems, refugees, etc.

The difference being that the Borg were orders of magnitude more destructive than the Dominion ever even thought about being.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

Except that on-screen evidence states in TNG and Voyager that replicators convert energy into matter.

It was also said that the replicators are an outgrowth of transporter technology... but that doesn't mean it will work EXACTLY the same.

For actual creation of matter, replicators use plasma that powers the ship and convert it into matter (probably manipulating the particles of the plasma on a sub-atomic level).

Uh, no...

Transporters convert matter into energy on one location then transfer that energy to another location and convert it into matter.

And again, no. Transporters break down matter, move it to the target, then reassemble it. This is referred to as the "matter stream", as in this example from the Voyager episode "Tuvix":

TUVIX: Actually Captain, when you think about it, Neelix and Tuvok were broken down to a microcellular level during transport. DNA, protein, all in a state of molecular flux.

KIM: And if the enzymes that cause symbiogenesis interacted with their DNA while they were in the matter stream, it might have caused their patterns to merge.

or this from TNG's "Relics"

SCOTT: Aye, lad. Franklin. We went in together. Something's wrong. One of the inducers has failed. Boost the gain on the matter stream. Come on, Franklin. I know you're still in there. It's no use. His pattern's degraded fifty three percent. He's gone.

and "Realm of Fear" (the most extensive explanation of how transporters work Trek has ever given us)

O'BRIEN: Engaging interlock. Buffers synched. Oh, wait a minute. I'm reading an ionic fluctuation in the matter stream.

and later (same ep)

BARCLAY: When I was returning to the Enterprise I could've sworn I saw something in the matter stream.
LAFORGE: Something?
BARCLAY: There was phased matter all around. At first I thought it was some kind of energy discharge, but then it flew toward me and it touched my arm. How could something be in there? Molecules flying apart, half phased? I mean, it's impossible, isn't it?

and

LAFORGE: Reg, there's a lot of energy floating around in the beam. Maybe you saw a surge in the matter stream.

and

BARCLAY: A fluctuation occurred while I was inside the matter stream?

and

DATA: Normal spatial relationships are often distorted within the matter stream. Your perceptions may have been exaggerated.

and

DATA: The microbes exist simultaneously as both matter and energy. The biofilter cannot distinguish them from the matter stream.
LAFORGE: Right, but if we held Barclay suspended in mid-transport at the point where matter starts to lose molecular cohesion.

and

BARCLAY: But if I'm in the matter stream too long.
DATA: Your pattern would degrade to the point where your signal would be permanently lost.

So sorry, no "energy to matter" for you...

 

[Timo]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

Random hipshot #1:

Tarsus Four had it's own food attacked by an exotic fungus, the majority of the food was destroyed. That's why they needed ships to bring in food.

It must have been more severe than that. If Tarsus IV were a habitable planet with arable land, then the survival of 8,000 people would not have been in the slightest jeopardy even with total loss of stored food. The people could have been dispersed to the landscape where edibles would have been found in abundance.

This can't have been the case for two reasons. One, this "Kodos" character found followers to his claim that 4,000 people would have to be killed so that the remaining 4,000 would not starve; such a claim would alienate any followers if there was a planet full of food around the colony, but not if there indeed was "virtually no food" as stated - a situation specifically calling for a barren world. Two, relief was said to have arrived, but too late to prevent the executions; had the colony made an emergency call for unscheduled food shipments, there would have been hope of them arriving in time, and Kodos would not have found followers. But if calling for help were impossible, and this gave Kodos the support he needed, then arrival of relief dictates regular, scheduled food shipments.

Random hipshot #2:

So sorry, no "energy to matter" for you...

While the "normal" mode of transporting is rather carefully described as moving the original matter from A to B, simply in a more moveable, "phased" form, there's some evidence for energy conversion for us in the special cases which so often strike our transporter teams. Say, we have the two episodes where a person is duplicated in transport, "Enemy Within" and "Second Chances", where the source of additional matter is left undescribed. Since supposedly there never is spare phased matter floating around, the transporter process must have been making use of something more easily accessible, which would open the way for using the basic transporter process for manufacturing. Then there's "Lonely Among Us" where Picard "beamed out, energy only". His matter stream (here referred to as "his physical pattern" by Data) was evidently left in the machinery, and atypically spent more than an hour there, but Picard's return involved some supernatural twists which may have allowed for the unusual recovery of such an old pattern. Yet the initial separation of "energy" from "physical pattern" was seemingly achieved by the standard transporter machinery, in a way our heroes immediately recognized, indicating the system is capable of fooling around with "pure energy", whatever that is.

Basically, what I'm saying is that while standard transporters are not replicators and vice versa per se, it's not just their operating principles but their actual practical modes of operation that are common or interchangeable when need be. Indeed, a replicator was turned into a transporter in DS9 "Visionary", in seeming mirror image of "Enemy Within" or "Second Chances".

What implications any of this has on war economy is unclear. A couple of special cases involving top-notch Starfleet hardware, unique natural phenomena or the efforts of Klingon elite operatives need not have any noticeable impact on what the respective societies can do on a large scale.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[T'Girl]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

Random hipshot #1

An assumption on my part, the food that was destroyed was the crops in the fields, the stored food was largely untouched.

8,000 people on a virgin planet suddenly having to "live off the land." Plus whatever they have in cans on the shelf.

Thirty years ago Mount Saint Helens erupted in Washington State, isolating the eastern part of the state from the western part, the grocery stores ran out of food in few days.

How much food do you have current sitting in your house?

 

[anh165]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

I think that war in the DS9 series did the Federation good in terms of economy, it allowed them to get rid of old knackered 80 year old 23rd century starships without having to go through the expense of scrapping them.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

Perhaps they can convert matter into energy and vice versa but it would take incredible amount of power, too inefficient. We already know that regular replicating can take too much resources. There is that episode in TNG where Enterprise had to drop out of warp to replicate something.

 

[T'Girl]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

^^^ Containment vessels for hundreds of deadly diseases, the replicator consumed to much power for hours for the warp drive to be used at the same time. They didn't drop out of warp, as could not go into warp in the first place.

And in the episode Night Terrors (?), power cuts precluded the replicator use to produce an explosive chemical.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

^^^ Containment vessels for hundreds of deadly diseases, the replicator consumed to much power for hours for the warp drive to be used at the same time. They didn't drop out of warp, as could not go into warp in the first place.

And in the episode Night Terrors (?), power cuts precluded the replicator use to produce an explosive chemical.

Yeah that's the one.

Think about what you're doing when replicating. I'm no physicist, but wouldn't you have to deal with tremendous strong and weak forces to do what they do? Then have teh computer memory to map everything.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

Either way, the point is that the Federation's production capacity in the core worlds was so vast and so distributed that their economy was basically more than capable of functioning well even during the Dominion War. Their problems were limited to large, highly complex items like ships and manpower shortages on the battleline.

 

[Timo]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

Containment vessels for hundreds of deadly diseases

It would appear that there's a theme of forcefield containment going on with things that are difficult to replicate. We also learn that photon torpedo warheads are easier to steal from a Starfleet facility than to replicate at home...

Possibly the difficulty of replicating intricate forcefield machinery is what's keeping Commander Maddox from producing a dozen Datas to vivisect, or Starfleet from creating starships at the push of a button? It might be something they can do (since there's nothing the transporter explicitly couldn't do), but won't, because of the complexity and thus the time or other expense required?

The difficult replicating of explosives wouldn't quite fit that picture. But in "Night Terrors", the power shortage aboard the ship was particularly severe. Or at least the loss of propulsion was quite total, even though nothing indicated that the anomaly of the week was actually grabbing the heroes. It simply seemed as if they had lost the power to fire up their engines, even the feeblest ones. Which is a bit inconsistent with them being able to consider a deflector dish burst as a means of escape... But apparently the issue is the rift eating up all output power, even if there's lots of energy in the reserves. If it eats things as diverse as propulsive power and deflector output, then it could eat replication energies, too, and we'd learn nothing much about the normal capabilities and limitations of the replicator.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Brainsucker]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

Then we all agree that replicator has limitation.
According to "Yesterday Enterprise" in TNG, the warship version of Galaxy Class uses ration instead of replicator just because the energy of the ship is being used to empower weapons and shields.

So..., blockade still work in this "Star Trek World". A colony that being siege by Dominion would suffer starvation. Because with the limitation of the replicator, they shouldn't be able to replace immediately "The planetary power supply" if they are all being bombed and destroyed by Dominion Fleet. Plus with the war, they would use the energy to empower the phaser and shield rather than replicator, thus the people would relied on food ration instead.

So... my conclusion is still the same. It is either plot hole or the Dominion War is actually not as big as we think.
Well, I understand that I'm being stubborn. I know that you all have give your opinion and I'm very grateful for that. And telling a stubborn man like me will exhausted your energy into nothing. So I'm apology for that.

 

[brian577]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

Most of what Federation ships use for construction is Duranium for the hull.
I would surmise that these materials would have to be reproducible as a synthetic substance in abundance.
Dilithium crystals might be the only thing needed that cannot be synthesized... but we don't know for sure whether the Federation was able to create synthetic dilithium crystals by the 24th century.
We do know they also need Deuterium for 'fuel' (which really doesn't make any sense - but the stuff is basically 'everywhere' and it would be rather idiotic that a culture as advanced as the Federation wouldn't be able to synthesize it artificially).
The Feds can employ a number of highly sophisticated technology in the late 24th century even during war-times.

Actually in the DS9 episode Penumbra it was stated that the Galamites were supplying the Federation with Duranium. It would seem the war was so bad that the Federation had to rely on allies to provide them with raw materials.

 

[Deks]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

Actually in the DS9 episode Penumbra it was stated that the Galamites were supplying the Federation with Duranium. It would seem the war was so bad that the Federation had to rely on allies to provide them with raw materials.

Doesn't that strike you as poor writing?
To rely on any 1 species or source for something as vital as ship construction materials in the face of highly advanced technology that is basically integrated EVERYWHERE and is capable of creating practically anything is utterly unsustainable.
Ship construction materials would have to be made from readily available superior synthetic materials that can be made in abundance using the least amount of energy and resources... especially if we are talking about sustainability (let alone a war which was EXPECTED even).

I find it highly improbable, that they were never able to analyze the material and make a synthetic version - plus the material is NOT new.

Besides... Voyager constructed the second Delta Flyer which had a Duranium enforced hull (the first version had a Tetraburnium alloy that allowed the ship to withstand heavy atmoshperic pressure).
If Voyager was able to construct that ship at a spur of a thought and synthesize these materials (which they had to), the raw materials needed would have to be readily available in their environment (almost any given environment) that can be turned into synthetic Duranium, or Duranium is already replicable from energy alone (although granted, Voyager also could have traded with other races to get Duranium... if not the raw materials needed for its making).

 

[Timo]

Re: How could the Dominion War doesn't effect the economy of Federatio

The Federation would have long experience with single-source raw materials by that point, and might have found ways to cope. Kirk was always securing unique sources of absolutely vital substances: pergium, topaline, zenite, even dilithium had to be pried from the hands of foreigners or greedy entrepreneurs rather than obtained from state-controlled sources.

Of course, such sources were never truly unique. The substances were merely specified as being rare and difficult to obtain; Kirk's efforts would have been aimed at broadening an already existing acquisition base. The same probably goes for the Gallamite duranium shipments.

Moving some production abroad might be a smart move during a conflict, really, even when shipping connections are in jeopardy. Distribution gives survivability, and the enemy might not want to expand the conflict to the incidental allies of its opponent quite yet.

Timo Saloniemi