Resources Critical to Warp Travel?

[Catalyst]

I'm working on a Trek virtual series/fan fiction and am in the early stages of figuring out the plot. One of the ideas I was toying with was to have the UFP facing some sort of critical resource shortage that threatens their ability to continue building new ships or perhaps even threatens existing ships ability to travel at warp.

My first thought was a mass dilithium shortage, but I know there's methods of re-crystalizing dilithium as well. Basically, my question is: is there a resource critical to warp travel that I could use for this story at all? Something the Federation may have mined to the point that they're close to running out, similar to our own situation with oil? Something that could spark conflict due to the shortage.

I'm not as well versed in the technical aspects of Trek as some, so I thought I'd ask you folks, who certainly seem to know your stuff. Is there anything I can use?

 

[Timo]

Intriguingly enough, TOS had several plotlines hinging on the fact that the Federation was nearly out of a crucial mineral that could only be obtained from a specific planet. The starships' dependence on dilithium was established early on, but out of the left field came the Federation's dependence on other "natural resources" such as topaline, pergium, various medical products...

Possibly the Federation back then was built around Soviet-style "monograds", worlds dedicated to the extraction/production of a single rare resource, because this was found much more economical than the synthesis of resources elsewhere. It would be easy to write a TOS era plot where a crucial "monograd" world is severed from the Federation by war, disaster or dissent, plunging Starfleet into a severe shortage of resources.

It would then be fully in the spirit of TOS to invent an all-new critical resource - say, some material crucial to the seals of antimatter chambers, something that each ship needs at least fifty kilograms every year lest her powerplant explode. Or you could decide that one of the TNG technobabble resources is crucial not just to shipbuilding but to ship maintenance as well; say, each ship would need a ton of vertenium and cortenium every five years for resurfacing the warp coils, or else the engines degrade and fail. Or the whole Federation may be on the verge of literal dark ages when the sarium or the krellium in their power cells runs out.

In the TNG era, the plot would be much more difficult to execute, because replicator technology ought to be capable of producing just about anything. No matter if replication of dilithium were a billion times more expensive than replication of sandwiches, Starfleet would get its dilithium that way (while the rest of the Federation might have to do without sandwiches). I guess your best bet there would be to invent a shortage of a resource that keeps the replicators running! Alas, neither the TNG nor the DS9 Tech Manual mention any substance involved in the making or maintenance of replicators. But again, feel free to create an all-new key substance - TOS did it all the time.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr Silver]

Perhaps a Duranium shortage? Since it's a naturally occuring element (as per TNG tech manual), it's easy enough to explain a reason for the shortage.

 

[T'Girl]

My first thought was a mass dilithium shortage,

There was a novel, seventies I believe, with Harry Mudd. The Federation somehow allowed it various Dilithium mining contracts to lapse. Harry Mudd jumped in a cornered the market.

TNG did reveal that replicators can't make everything, in one episode there was a unreplicatorable pharmaceutical (too chemically complex probably), latinum (gold pressed), so create something along that line. It wouldn't have to be Federation wide, having a region, or just a planet "run short" might do the trick.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Modern warp coils apparently use verterium cortenide to drive large starships. If you imagine that verterium coretenide is manufactured by refining enormous quantities of a simpler ore (say, "monosilicate verterium" or sometihng) then you suddenly have a situation where the Federation either has to find a cheaper alternative to VC warp coils or find a new source of them. Again, mirroring today's energy crisis.

Failing that, you could simply elaborate on the Federation's antimatter industry by suggesting that antimatter is actually still too expensive to produce in bulk and is usually harvested from the polar jets of black holes.

 

[T'Girl]

a situation where the Federation either has to find a cheaper alternative to VC warp coils or find a new source of them. Again, mirroring today's energy crisis.

Or perhaps the original source has become exhausted. This could place the Federation in the position of having to leave the Federation and enter the space of a peaceful neighboring Republic in violation of the Prime Directive and basically taking the material. This could result in internal political problems among the various Federation members over the legal and ethical actions the Federation is undertaking.

Hypothetically, the Republic would trade, but they have only enough for their own needs and by taking the materail, the Federation is placing them in a position of having no star travel of their own.

How pragmatic is the Federation prepared to be?

Placing someone like Picard in the middle of all of this, with some of his long winded speeches, and occasional refusals to obey orders "because it's wrong," would be interesting in of itself.

 

[SWHouston]

Another avenue which may produce the same result could be, some entity/species which had some technology when applied/shot at a Starship, which caused the Dilithium to become inert.

Of course zapping a Starship out of Warp is not new concept, but I don't recall that a given technology applied directly to Dilithium.

 

[Ronald Held]

How about a shortage of antimatter. Have enough ships depleting their supply or being distroying in a conflict could create a temporary shortfall?

 

[Catalyst]

Thanks for the suggestions.

My goal here is to create a situation similar to our modern day oil vs. alternative energy situation where they haven't run out yet, but the day is fast approaching. Although, most other major powers (the Klingons, Romulans, Breen, etc.) have plenty, but the UFP is facing a major potential shortage within the decade, creating all sorts of political problems/pressure and perhaps forcing the Federation to take more aggressive action to ensure that they can survive.

 

[Qew]

You could create some kind of organic space faring bacteria that feeds on dilithium. It could pose a moral issue, do we destroy a life form to save ourselves or do we find some alternative.