Seriously. I want to know what kind of starship designer or half-baked engineer would have access to replication technlogy (actually fabrication technology, but that's another rant*) and didn't build it into every facet of the ship.
regenerating hullplating? cool. Regenerating critical structure? Awesome. Brig cells that seal off and have no exit because they're contained in six walls? klingons belt buckles need not apply. Need to isolate a contagion? yeah. Seal them off behind a bulkhead.
Intruders? make it so the only way you can move about the ship is your transporter system.
Fuel shortage? Well. you know you could have powered your ship with a singularity core, right? any old asteroid is fuel.
and you know what the best part is? all of that comes with the inherent ability to specialize. Analyze damage when regrowing hull and increase the hull plating thickness where you get hit. analyze wear and tear on components, and upgrade the ones that wear out the fastest. Do you spend your time sprinting from crisis to crisis? tweak the performance of the warp drive for sprints.
You need a new starship? fire a photon torpedo with a replication warhad into an asteroid. New base? bigger astroid.
*you want replicators? THIS IS HOW YOU GET REPLICATORS. replicators are things that make more of themselves. fabricators are things that make more of other things, and maybe also themselves.
Per the technical manuals, there are large industrial replicators in the engineering areas. They don't have the detail to reproduce complex molecules like food, but they can manufacture large forms of homogenous materials like metals. If they have to make new hull plates, I assume they use the industrial replicators to manufacture the parts, then a cargo transporter to beam the part into its location, though it probably still needs human technicians to bolt it in.
The replicators are not built directly into the hull of the ship because they're delicate equipment.
The replicators are not built directly into the hull of the ship because they’re delicate equipment.
If they're connected into an array (which I'm pretty sure is part of what makes a replicator 'industrial',) then any single component of that array would be very easy to replace. You know the episode where they first encounter the borg and they pump the cube full of photon torpedos only for it to "regenerate"?
this is how the borg do that. (and lets be honest, they already have these systems on the ship, so any danger to a ship going rogue or somehow being used against them is still just as real.)
Miles O'Brien needs to suffer more, the gods Emissary decided, so he made sure that no other ship had access to this technology. Wait, scrap that - I said "no ship", forget that other word in between them...
Computer just post this entire log entry. Wait, no DELETE it, I meant DELETE it!!! Recall it back, dammit recall it back NOW!!!
I always laugh at how little surveillance and security systems they have compared to us modern day too.
Like, there is zero fucking way the ship AI wouldn't know exactly where everyone is on the military ship at all times and recognize if anyone is doing something funny, or if there's someone extra on board, someone missing.
So many little star trek conundrums would've been solved in the first 5 minutes with the right security system that detected and isolated the threat before it had a chance to even do damage. It is well within their capabilities, it could summon force fields wherever the fuck it wants, fabricate the right material to cancel any issues. It could summon force fields around someone as soon as they pull out a phaser in an unexpected non hostile situation, ffs
It does ruin a lot of episodes and plots if you take these technologies to their logical end. It's a lot of work to write "hard" scifi and you kinda have to guess at how a lot of stuff will be used, think of the most common sense utilities it would be awesome for, and if you don't want that in your story... Fabricate a good reason ahead of time why it doesn't work that well. Oh no Zero Point Energy can't be manufactured at small scale so of course you only see it in large ships, small ships can't warp, faster than light comm isnt possible on a handheld device, this shield doesn't work for some rare energy weapons, etc
Like. That one episode where the orions snuck into a diplomacy thingy disguised as an andorians. I bet a simple airport backscatter scanner would have noticed the dangly bits were odd.
But even if it’s not hard sci, a coherent universe is better than one that flops around. Like when you’re doing world building a moment needs to be taken to consider what your stereotypical DnD party would do with it.
I mean, my party would absolutely weaponize the shit out of self sealing stem bolts.
Edit- imagine dr McCoy being like “sir, the computer flagged something in your embarkation scan…. Why don’t you come on down and we’ll deal with those janky balls”
(The transporters disassemble and reassemble stuff at the molecular level, surely there’s a way to check if they’re andorian, right?!)
Isn't that what ships are like in Discovery after it goes to the 31st century or whatever? (IDK, I find it hard to watch so I've only made it a few episodes in to season 3.)
"Dude, what happens on the lower decks stays on the lower decks!"
"Apparently not."
"What do you mean?"
"apparently, we just flushed the entire colony of space spores into life support. Welcome to USS Discotheque"
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.
Honestly I never found the fact that they repaired the ship and had a seemingly never ending supply of torpedoes and shuttles to be perfectly normal.
They have the ability to manufacture the delta flyer, so they can easily manufacture more shuttles. They have replicators to make the unimportant and easier pieces of torpedoes, and they have encountered many advanced species some of whom ally the elves with Voyager. So they could get what they need from those species. Plus with all the engineers and former freedom fighters on board, they could definitely make torpedoes. Even if not 100% starfleet standard. And hull plates are designed to come off, and they aren't that complex.
It's a ship designed to go farther out than any other contemporary ship, it has the ability to fix itself and keep itself supplied.
All they really have to do is find a good nebula to suck up (and hope Janeway doesn't keep it all for coffee)
One of the writers, Ronald D. Moore, wanted to write Voyager as this lone starship where scarcity exists. But the executives basically wanted a full reset every episode.
Moore got his wish when he left Star Trek and developed Battlestar Galactica.
28 Comments
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world · 48 pts · 21h
Seriously. I want to know what kind of starship designer or half-baked engineer would have access to replication technlogy (actually fabrication technology, but that's another rant*) and didn't build it into every facet of the ship.
regenerating hullplating? cool. Regenerating critical structure? Awesome. Brig cells that seal off and have no exit because they're contained in six walls? klingons belt buckles need not apply. Need to isolate a contagion? yeah. Seal them off behind a bulkhead.
Intruders? make it so the only way you can move about the ship is your transporter system.
Fuel shortage? Well. you know you could have powered your ship with a singularity core, right? any old asteroid is fuel.
and you know what the best part is? all of that comes with the inherent ability to specialize. Analyze damage when regrowing hull and increase the hull plating thickness where you get hit. analyze wear and tear on components, and upgrade the ones that wear out the fastest. Do you spend your time sprinting from crisis to crisis? tweak the performance of the warp drive for sprints.
You need a new starship? fire a photon torpedo with a replication warhad into an asteroid. New base? bigger astroid.
*you want replicators? THIS IS HOW YOU GET REPLICATORS. replicators are things that make more of themselves. fabricators are things that make more of other things, and maybe also themselves.
Tattorack@lemmy.world · 37 pts · 20h
"My ship is saturated in replicators"
Star Trek: 😎
Stargate: 😱
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 19h
Imagine the M5 computer getting access to a replicator. the stargate cross over you didn't know you wanted.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub · 13 pts · 20h
Per the technical manuals, there are large industrial replicators in the engineering areas. They don't have the detail to reproduce complex molecules like food, but they can manufacture large forms of homogenous materials like metals. If they have to make new hull plates, I assume they use the industrial replicators to manufacture the parts, then a cargo transporter to beam the part into its location, though it probably still needs human technicians to bolt it in.
The replicators are not built directly into the hull of the ship because they're delicate equipment.
quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 8h
That's an easy fix, just patch the output of the replicator to the pattern buffer of the transporter, and voilà self repairing ship.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 19h
If they're connected into an array (which I'm pretty sure is part of what makes a replicator 'industrial',) then any single component of that array would be very easy to replace. You know the episode where they first encounter the borg and they pump the cube full of photon torpedos only for it to "regenerate"?
this is how the borg do that. (and lets be honest, they already have these systems on the ship, so any danger to a ship going rogue or somehow being used against them is still just as real.)
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 20h
I'll have what they're having
OpenStars@discuss.online · 8 pts · 20h
Miles O'Brien needs to suffer more, the
godsEmissary decided, so he made sure that no other ship had access to this technology. Wait, scrap that - I said "no ship", forget that other word in between them...Computer just post this entire log entry. Wait, no DELETE it, I meant DELETE it!!! Recall it back, dammit recall it back NOW!!!
terranoid@lemmy.cafe · 7 pts · 17h
I always laugh at how little surveillance and security systems they have compared to us modern day too.
Like, there is zero fucking way the ship AI wouldn't know exactly where everyone is on the military ship at all times and recognize if anyone is doing something funny, or if there's someone extra on board, someone missing.
So many little star trek conundrums would've been solved in the first 5 minutes with the right security system that detected and isolated the threat before it had a chance to even do damage. It is well within their capabilities, it could summon force fields wherever the fuck it wants, fabricate the right material to cancel any issues. It could summon force fields around someone as soon as they pull out a phaser in an unexpected non hostile situation, ffs
It does ruin a lot of episodes and plots if you take these technologies to their logical end. It's a lot of work to write "hard" scifi and you kinda have to guess at how a lot of stuff will be used, think of the most common sense utilities it would be awesome for, and if you don't want that in your story... Fabricate a good reason ahead of time why it doesn't work that well. Oh no Zero Point Energy can't be manufactured at small scale so of course you only see it in large ships, small ships can't warp, faster than light comm isnt possible on a handheld device, this shield doesn't work for some rare energy weapons, etc
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 17h
Right?
Like. That one episode where the orions snuck into a diplomacy thingy disguised as an andorians. I bet a simple airport backscatter scanner would have noticed the dangly bits were odd.
But even if it’s not hard sci, a coherent universe is better than one that flops around. Like when you’re doing world building a moment needs to be taken to consider what your stereotypical DnD party would do with it.
I mean, my party would absolutely weaponize the shit out of self sealing stem bolts.
ummthatguy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 16h
You mean Orion disguised as an Andorian from "Journey to Babel."
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 16h
Yeah that one.
Edit- imagine dr McCoy being like “sir, the computer flagged something in your embarkation scan…. Why don’t you come on down and we’ll deal with those janky balls”
(The transporters disassemble and reassemble stuff at the molecular level, surely there’s a way to check if they’re andorian, right?!)
grue@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 15h
Isn't that what ships are like in Discovery after it goes to the 31st century or whatever? (IDK, I find it hard to watch so I've only made it a few episodes in to season 3.)
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 15h
Dunno.
The entire show makes more sense if you assume they’re tripping balls on space spores
grue@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 15h
Now that's a Dallas-style ending I could get behind!
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 14h
"Dude, what happens on the lower decks stays on the lower decks!"
"Apparently not."
"What do you mean?"
"apparently, we just flushed the entire colony of space spores into life support. Welcome to USS Discotheque"
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 8h
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.
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 17 pts · 16h
Honestly I never found the fact that they repaired the ship and had a seemingly never ending supply of torpedoes and shuttles to be perfectly normal.
They have the ability to manufacture the delta flyer, so they can easily manufacture more shuttles. They have replicators to make the unimportant and easier pieces of torpedoes, and they have encountered many advanced species some of whom ally the elves with Voyager. So they could get what they need from those species. Plus with all the engineers and former freedom fighters on board, they could definitely make torpedoes. Even if not 100% starfleet standard. And hull plates are designed to come off, and they aren't that complex.
It's a ship designed to go farther out than any other contemporary ship, it has the ability to fix itself and keep itself supplied.
All they really have to do is find a good nebula to suck up (and hope Janeway doesn't keep it all for coffee)
Korval@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 14h
I was skeptical until I got to the part where you explained that Voyager is allied with the elves. Now it all makes sense!
OpenStars@discuss.online · 10 pts · 16h
Well, then that idea is out - got any others?
Keeping the crew alive is optional, but coffee is ESSENTIAL!
ummthatguy@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 16h
All valid, but how else are we to get the "Battle Damaged Voyager"^tm^ playset?
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 6h
I agree, but that would have made for some good stories in their own right.
witnessradiant650@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 22m
One of the writers, Ronald D. Moore, wanted to write Voyager as this lone starship where scarcity exists. But the executives basically wanted a full reset every episode.
Moore got his wish when he left Star Trek and developed Battlestar Galactica.
ummthatguy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 15m
He also really let loose on the war crimes and tragedies.
kalpol@lemmy.ca · 11 pts · 16h
Why is there a Sontaran in a Star Trek episode named after a Le Carré novel
ummthatguy@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 16h
All I know is that he must be stopped...
Etterra@discuss.online · 4 pts · 3h
I dunno, what does Mark Twain have to do with time travel? The universe is a weird fuckin place, it's easier to just roll with it.
kalpol@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 46m
That's easy, Devidians