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I think the general explanation is that not just everything can be replicated and also that they require a huge amount of power and maintenance. They also do consume basic materials I believe.
In that sense it makes sense that you only have a few. They’re not in every inch for the same reason that not every inch of car interior hides an airbag system.
The limit on what can be replicated seems more vague and changes. But at least i think you cant replicate a replicator directly.
Its definitely more a fabricator then a replicator as i understand it in function.
You actually make me think of something else. The holographic technology.
We know holographic environments have full physical collision and can be deadly.
What is stopping someone from making a huge holographic ship projected from a tiny drone.
Then you can actually change the entire interior on the fly and easily get rid of invaders, be immune to many attacks.
But then again the system is its own weak point, one issue and the ship is gone, probably works best with a holographic crew.
To my understanding, holodecks aren’t really physical- it’s over laying force fields with holographic projections to cheese reality.
That said, La Sirena was basically one big giant holodeck inside.
As for “only having a few”, on the D, those things are everywhere- everyone’s quarters, every conference room, probably every office. Every toilette, too.
The rant by janeway in year of hell, about her pocket watch being a hypo, suggests that replicators aren’t restricted to needing a supply of every element used rather than having a “pattern” (aka design file) that gets called for whatever is being used. (Imagine a repository of files that contains “steel” or “tritanium” and 37 varieties of tomato soup. It’d just be an extra parameter in the parametric design file.
Which, yeah. e=mc^2 (+ineffeciencies) would suggest massive energy consumption- though it’s likely they have some sort of dense, stable material that serves as feedstock.
Interestingly, the antimatter reactors used as the warp core would consume about the same amount of mass, so if we assume similar inefficiencies (I have no idea what these would be like, and neither do the writers,) using replicators as a power bank would be about the same as using an antimatter warp core…
(Remember my comment about singularities for energy storage? It’s all just asteroids. Or, uh, extra hull plating…)
I think the general explanation is that not just everything can be replicated and also that they require a huge amount of power and maintenance. They also do consume basic materials I believe.
In that sense it makes sense that you only have a few. They’re not in every inch for the same reason that not every inch of car interior hides an airbag system.
The limit on what can be replicated seems more vague and changes. But at least i think you cant replicate a replicator directly.
Its definitely more a fabricator then a replicator as i understand it in function.
You actually make me think of something else. The holographic technology.
We know holographic environments have full physical collision and can be deadly.
What is stopping someone from making a huge holographic ship projected from a tiny drone.
Then you can actually change the entire interior on the fly and easily get rid of invaders, be immune to many attacks.
But then again the system is its own weak point, one issue and the ship is gone, probably works best with a holographic crew.
To my understanding, holodecks aren’t really physical- it’s over laying force fields with holographic projections to cheese reality.
That said, La Sirena was basically one big giant holodeck inside.
As for “only having a few”, on the D, those things are everywhere- everyone’s quarters, every conference room, probably every office. Every toilette, too.
The rant by janeway in year of hell, about her pocket watch being a hypo, suggests that replicators aren’t restricted to needing a supply of every element used rather than having a “pattern” (aka design file) that gets called for whatever is being used. (Imagine a repository of files that contains “steel” or “tritanium” and 37 varieties of tomato soup. It’d just be an extra parameter in the parametric design file.
Which, yeah. e=mc^2 (+ineffeciencies) would suggest massive energy consumption- though it’s likely they have some sort of dense, stable material that serves as feedstock.
Interestingly, the antimatter reactors used as the warp core would consume about the same amount of mass, so if we assume similar inefficiencies (I have no idea what these would be like, and neither do the writers,) using replicators as a power bank would be about the same as using an antimatter warp core…
(Remember my comment about singularities for energy storage? It’s all just asteroids. Or, uh, extra hull plating…)