Modular Designs using Replicators

[Baffalo]

I got to thinking about this the other day, and it involves ships like the Enterprise, the Excelsior, Voyager, any ship with replicator technology that serves a multi-role function. By this, I mean any ship that isn't a dedicated warship, with science labs, large cargo bays, etc. The idea was that in the modern military, several vehicles have begun to use modules to fill multiple roles quickly and easily.

Mk 48 Logistic Vehicle System in tanker configuration
Mk 48 Logistic Vehicle System

The problem with the system above is that each configuration must be physically carried to a depot and it takes anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours to reconfigure for a new mission profile. However, the idea is simply that the system can easily switch from a convoy of fuel carriers to a convoy of bulk goods to hauling heavy items like generators without having a dedicated truck for each job. Now, that's the idea, and here's the technology.


This is a replicator. For the purposes of this argument, we'll make the assumption it's just a transporter that moves supplies of an existing element nearby into the assigned position to recreate any item that is stored in its memory. This means that, with little effort, items can be constructed or broken down. So, let's say the Enterprise is going on a survey mission, and will be cruising around configured for such a mission. Along the way, a distress call gets received, and the Enterprise will be heading to a nearby planet to render assistance.

If we assume that some rooms are specially configured for their original mission, the Enterprise could, with ease, compress the standard equipment that can be easily reconstructed by replicator down into small blocks. Inside a rather large case, more often than not, is quite a bit of airspace. If all of it were compressed down with the replicator moving components around for optimal compression, a bulky item could be stored much more efficiently. That would let labs and other rooms be used to house even more people.

What if the Federation goes to war? Well, in theory, if a replicator were big enough, an entire starship could be reconfigured inside a shipyard. A ship like the Enterprise could be reconfigured into a sleeker, heavily armed ship. Or how fast could ships be produced just given the raw materials? Ships like Enterprise might need to be built in large segments, but ships like the Defiant could be produced quickly and efficiently. It would take quite a bit of effort, but if a shipbuilding facility like Utopia Planetia were to convert largely to replicators, they could, with ease, overhaul the entire fleet, build new warships, and make it possible for the Federation to adapt quickly and easily to the needs of the Federation within a few months.

[Coalition]

Replicators are interesting, but in DS9 we saw a trading station. In short, it took less resources to manufacture an item on another planet, ship it via transport to DS9, than it took to put in a request to the Federation personnel for a replicated item.

So if the Federation wanted a quick change for a few ships, it might go with Replicated equipment. But if it needs a large warfleet, regular construction will give them more vessels.

Watch the series, and see all the different times when a replicator was not able to help, or an item that had to be manufactured instead of replicated, or where the main ship had to divert to deliver something.

[Simon_Jester]

There are also very interesting questions about scale for replicators. How big an object is it feasible to replicate; how energy-intensive is the process? Creation of matter from energy would be ludicrously costly.

Transmutation of elements would also be costly- for example, transmuting helium into hydrogen would consume as much energy as would be produced by fusing the hydrogen back into helium; transmuting hydrogen to helium would release such energies in ways that might damage the machinery.

Rearranging molecular structures would be less energy-intensive, but potentially still difficult. As the scale of the replicator expands, we might run into difficulty maintaining the precision of parts. On the one hand, the scale of the object must be gotten to within machine-tool tolerances; on the other, "slips" or "flaws" in the alignment of the molecules translate to structural weaknesses in the finished object.

For all these reasons, the Federation might not be able to fabricate finished parts for starships, or at least not large ones: replicating the bolts is surely possible, but replicating the girders those bolts are meant to assemble might not be.

Where replicators could be really revolutionary is in the field of industrial chemistry, not so much heavy industry.

[Connor MacLeod]

again I dont think replicators are "energy to matter" converters.. that's an argument that's been had lots of times before, but they basically seem to have more in common with transporter technology (matter streams, materialization, etc.) One possibility is that in order to make a "replicator" work on a large scale you need to scale up the requisite transporter technology - something that I don' tthink we've ever seen done. (we've never seen starship transporters, for example.)
Perhaps large scale replicators have too many mechanical components that could go wrong and screw up the entire process. Or it may be that the process itself doesn't scale up well. I mean, what I remember from TNG is that replicated things aren't exactly identical to their original source, and I doubt replication is perfectly efficient. What if (for example) the "less than perfect" bit was in the reactor chamber or some other place vital/potentially dangerous? One would also think that would make a starship virtually immortal and almost completely independent - only needing raw materials in order to operate away from base, they could fabricate ship parts, food, etc. all on the go.

There are two other major obstacles I can think of we can be sure of. a.) it's quite possible that any number of the components required to make a ST starship simply cannot be replicated. Perhaps enough of them cannot be so that much of the ship simply has to be manufactured in other ways - it may just be easier to build the ship by hand.

The other possibility is that, going by the replicator example, one would need a powerful enough computer to "break down" and hold all the data on the ship you intend to build in whatever "pattenr buffer" tehre would be (to borrow trek phrases.) Perhaps they lack the computer technology to easily handle an entire large scale object at once? Were that the case you'd end up getting replicators workin more on smaller scales along the lines of what Simon said.

The real problem is that the specific detaisl of replicators aren't well known, particularily when it comes to their limits. Some assume that because we dont know the limits there must be none, and you tend to get some pretty absurd logic applied to them (much like with say, Borg adaptation or assimilation.) In that respect it tends to be treated more like magic rather than technology, but I dislike getting needlessly magical.

[Baffalo]

Hmm. In regards to how much processing power that would require, just to store that much data, is absolutely huge. I'd imagine a computer large enough to store that much data would require a data core that would be quite a tempting target. Something I hadn't considered. Even if the computer were given only a CAD drawing and told to make it according to those specifications, how would the computer handle things like truncation error (the error that occurs when there aren't enough bits of data for the computer to store a complete number such as pi)? Would it measure according to what its sensors say? Would it go by inspectors who check measurements throughout the ship? Even if you store a number out to the equivalent millionth bit, there are billions of atoms per cubic centimeter, let alone across almost a kilometer.

As far as transporter technology and replicator technology is concerned, I think the 'transporter' methodology works best, because in order to convert energy to matter, you need the same energy as taking an equivilent mass and converting it into pure energy (moreso, given that such energy would have to be transported from place to place and there would be losses from wires, circuit components, etc), so it's a crude process. And I don't think the ship actually stores enough energy to do it on the fly, because of Star Trek II. Specifically, after Khan got the drop on Kirk, the Enterprise was knocked down to just battery power, and they had to limp away and their phasers were no match for shields. This means that batteries are only enough to get a starship moving and maybe fire one or two shots, and that's it.

Now, I do like the module idea, and I remember a show they had on Discovery years ago showing the construction of an aircraft carrier and how the ship was built in seven huge sections and then moved into place and secured. I wonder if that would be easier. Forming a large plate or girder would be easy enough I suppose, so long as it was constrained to certain proportions, and each piece might be fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle. I don't know which show it was, but it was the episode Data was having wierd dreams and it turns out there were creatures infesting the plasma conduits. The conduits were supposedly built using a unique manufacturing process on some manufacturing planet. That might mean that certain Federation worlds build large components for the fleet and have them shipped to Mars for assembly and instillation.

If the ship were assembled in sections, that would let the engineers install the large components between sections, fit each section together around these components (like the warp core, though given how delicate it is, I'd wait till last), and then fit out the interior. Seems to make the most sense.

[Connor MacLeod]

Something occured to me the other night. What has been the most complicated device ever constructed via replicator? I mean in terms of technology? I can't rely on my memory totally but nothing off the bat comes to mind as far as replicating devices or technology goes, and this can represetn a potentially massive leap in logic without more specifics to go on.

[Baffalo]

Something occured to me the other night. What has been the most complicated device ever constructed via replicator? I mean in terms of technology? I can't rely on my memory totally but nothing off the bat comes to mind as far as replicating devices or technology goes, and this can represetn a potentially massive leap in logic without more specifics to go on.

You're absolutely right! We've never seen anything really replicated other than food and drinks. We've never seen them replicate such common, everyday items such as toothpaste, toiletries, or anything like that, let alone any actual devices.

Now, a quick glance at Memory Alpha says that DS9 featured what were called Instrustrial Replicators, which apparently are used to produce large industrial goods. Of course, it's odd that Bajor, a world pretty well raped by the Cardassians, only got two of these things, where the Cardassians asked for 12, only failing to receive them when they were captured by the Marquis. Shows about where the Bajorans stand on Starfleet's roster.

[B5B7]

Can a replicator create a new crew? (That's a rhetorical question BTW).
It seems to me that even if the Federation could create a whole lot of new ships quickly, that unless they radically increase their ship automation capability, the bottleneck to their fleet increase is crew. This is something that seems to get ignored a lot. The other alternative is to have a very large reserve of trained people [who did some kind of accelerated basic course at an auxiliary Starfleet Academy after leaving school], who can be activated when fleet increased due to war [they would probably also need regular refresher periods of a couple of weeks each year - so that they stay familiar with controlling a starship, and also learn any new systems or protocols].

[Baffalo]

In the DS9 episode "Rivals" the guest replicated scaled up versions of a toy. Turns out it also did magic to alter probability in the area, and the upscaled size also upscaled the effect.

In DS9 "Civil Defense", a phaser death ball was replicated in Ops to start killing people.

Ah thank you. I figured that if transporters can transport things like phasers and other things up and down, surely they can replicate components. The only reason I can see to reasonably fail to replicate is if the replicator doesn't have access to a stored material. This would prevent replicating things like warp cores, which would no doubt use exotic materials to properly contain the matter-antimatter reaction. But for standard items, such as panels that use titanium, that would be reasonably easy. Especially if a stock of material was placed on the replicator and then simply rearranged.

[Simon_Jester]

again I dont think replicators are "energy to matter" converters.. that's an argument that's been had lots of times before, but they basically seem to have more in common with transporter technology (matter streams, materialization, etc.)

I'm really inclined to agree, but you still need to get molecular binding energy from somewhere.

Conserving energy in a transporter scenario is not entirely unreasonable, barring anomalous multiple-duplications and the like that we could explain if we really wanted to. Conserving energy in a replicator scenario requires considerable power input: you can use a replicator to make steak from a blob of miscellaneous organic matter, but you have to move energy because the final configuration of atoms doesn't match the initial one.

The scale on which energy must be moved becomes quite significant when we're talking about, say, refining thousands of tons of ore.

Perhaps large scale replicators have too many mechanical components that could go wrong and screw up the entire process. Or it may be that the process itself doesn't scale up well. I mean, what I remember from TNG is that replicated things aren't exactly identical to their original source, and I doubt replication is perfectly efficient. What if (for example) the "less than perfect" bit was in the reactor chamber or some other place vital/potentially dangerous?

Seems likely to me.

Hmm. In regards to how much processing power that would require, just to store that much data, is absolutely huge. I'd imagine a computer large enough to store that much data would require a data core that would be quite a tempting target. Something I hadn't considered. Even if the computer were given only a CAD drawing and told to make it according to those specifications, how would the computer handle things like truncation error (the error that occurs when there aren't enough bits of data for the computer to store a complete number such as pi)? Would it measure according to what its sensors say? Would it go by inspectors who check measurements throughout the ship? Even if you store a number out to the equivalent millionth bit, there are billions of atoms per cubic centimeter, let alone across almost a kilometer.

Since shipboard computers can do this for many routine objects (food, machine parts, etc.), I suspect building a shipyard computer to do the same for whole ships is possible.

Then again, it may be that working out the "blueprints" for a replicator to create an object require destructively scanning a copy of the object, or even doing so many times to be sure you got it right. If we have to hand-build and then destructively scan twenty starships to create the replicator blueprint, it might be quicker and roughly as cost-effective to build the entire production run of ships by hand.

If the ship were assembled in sections, that would let the engineers install the large components between sections, fit each section together around these components (like the warp core, though given how delicate it is, I'd wait till last), and then fit out the interior. Seems to make the most sense.

Yes. This is already standard practice in naval engineering, and it's difficult for me to imagine starships being built any other way (unless you have magic 'push button ship comes out' technology).

Now, a quick glance at Memory Alpha says that DS9 featured what were called Instrustrial Replicators, which apparently are used to produce large industrial goods. Of course, it's odd that Bajor, a world pretty well raped by the Cardassians, only got two of these things, where the Cardassians asked for 12, only failing to receive them when they were captured by the Marquis. Shows about where the Bajorans stand on Starfleet's roster.

Behind appeasing the Cardassians?

Also, it's not necessarily in the Federation's interests to turn Bajor into a major industrial center; I'm not entirely sure about that.

In the DS9 episode "Rivals" the guest replicated scaled up versions of a toy. Turns out it also did magic to alter probability in the area, and the upscaled size also upscaled the effect.

In DS9 "Civil Defense", a phaser death ball was replicated in Ops to start killing people.

Ah thank you. I figured that if transporters can transport things like phasers and other things up and down, surely they can replicate components. The only reason I can see to reasonably fail to replicate is if the replicator doesn't have access to a stored material. This would prevent replicating things like warp cores, which would no doubt use exotic materials to properly contain the matter-antimatter reaction. But for standard items, such as panels that use titanium, that would be reasonably easy. Especially if a stock of material was placed on the replicator and then simply rearranged.

Right. And I wouldn't be surprised if the Federation did use replicators to mass-produce things like circuit boards; using them to mass-produce bolts or girders would probably not be cost-competitive with more "conventional" forms of industrial production in automated factories.

[TOSDOC]

Baffalo wrote:
Destructionator XIII wrote:
In the DS9 episode "Rivals" the guest replicated scaled up versions of a toy. Turns out it also did magic to alter probability in the area, and the upscaled size also upscaled the effect.

In DS9 "Civil Defense", a phaser death ball was replicated in Ops to start killing people.
Ah thank you. I figured that if transporters can transport things like phasers and other things up and down, surely they can replicate components. The only reason I can see to reasonably fail to replicate is if the replicator doesn't have access to a stored material. This would prevent replicating things like warp cores, which would no doubt use exotic materials to properly contain the matter-antimatter reaction. But for standard items, such as panels that use titanium, that would be reasonably easy. Especially if a stock of material was placed on the replicator and then simply rearranged.
Right. And I wouldn't be surprised if the Federation did use replicators to mass-produce things like circuit boards; using them to mass-produce bolts or girders would probably not be cost-competitive with more "conventional" forms of industrial production in automated factories.

They've been replicating things like that since TOS--I remember in "A Private Little War" they were going to start mass-producing flintlock rifles for a native race, and McCoy was complaining in "Patterns of Force" that the computer got his measurements wrong for his clothes. And "Data's Day depicted kids getting toys and people replicating wedding gifts.
A problem with replicating large items such as starships may be the mass involved, at least in TOS time. A living being is an incredibly complicated thing to take apart and put back together correctly--miss just a few of those neuron pathways, and you may lose all your starfleet classes. But this is never touched upon--instead we get Scotty in Star Trek IV concerned over how he's never beamed 400 tons of matter before, most of it plain seawater. Now this is just conjecture, but it sounds like this implies that no matter the complexity of the subject, with increases in mass you could have greater transition times, power consumption, and computer utilization all at once, which may inhibit ease of using replicators on large scale complex items after a certain point.

[Connor MacLeod]

I also just recalled the Exocomps, they could do replication of mechanical tools and such, so we know at last SOME Devices can be replicated. (Although that Rivals example bugs the hell out of me for some reason... it just seems too.. magical. Or too dangerous.) We still know there are certain things that replicators cannot replicate. Some of which may be explained by simply not having the blueprints or scanned images or whatver, but at least some things they definitively (out of universe act of plot) could not replicate.

Replicating an entire large scale object isn't probably a good idea from the perspective of engineering or testing, since replication by its nature is an imperfect process... would you have a way to control or test for any potential flaw (what if you only have 99.9% of a reactor containment vessel?) I also have to wonder about playing aruond with hundreds of thousands or millions of tons of mass in a matter of seconds from a thermodynamic perspective (its not "rapid fabrication" like in an RTS game I think - I have this mental image of trying to replicate a GCS, and then the ship vaporizing because of the speed and heat created as a result.)

REally this just highlights the two problems speculating on replicator tech. a.) Technology tends to be alot more magical (Bcause they use it as a plot device so often, especially in later Trek) that it can sometimes contradict itself, making it hard to create a stable, internally consistent model, and b.) even with all the mateiral we do have, there are still things we don't know.

[Baffalo]

They've been replicating things like that since TOS--I remember in "A Private Little War" they were going to start mass-producing flintlock rifles for a native race, and McCoy was complaining in "Patterns of Force" that the computer got his measurements wrong for his clothes. And "Data's Day depicted kids getting toys and people replicating wedding gifts.
A problem with replicating large items such as starships may be the mass involved, at least in TOS time. A living being is an incredibly complicated thing to take apart and put back together correctly--miss just a few of those neuron pathways, and you may lose all your starfleet classes. But this is never touched upon--instead we get Scotty in Star Trek IV concerned over how he's never beamed 400 tons of matter before, most of it plain seawater. Now this is just conjecture, but it sounds like this implies that no matter the complexity of the subject, with increases in mass you could have greater transition times, power consumption, and computer utilization all at once, which may inhibit ease of using replicators on large scale complex items after a certain point.

I think in the case of Star Trek IV, the transporter itself is limited in size due to the fact that transporters have to take material naturally present in the local atmosphere to reproduce the items necessary, and in essence create anything that isn't there. In regards to water, that's simple H2 and NaCl. The oxygen and hydrogen aren't going to be that big a deal to produce, but it will be the salt in such quantities that will be the real problem. Also, obviously, the amount of carbon and calcium and other necessary materials needed to produce two humpback whales. I imagine that, in the case of transporters, there is a certain amount of stock material ready on standby to reproduce most necessary materials, such as clothing and other components. However, that stock of materials might not be up to the job of creating something that's several orders of magnitude larger than the mass of a full compliment of soldiers. If the average man weighs about 250 lbs and has 60 lbs of gear, that's about 310 lbs per soldier. If a pad can hold six men, that's 2460 lbs, or about 1.25 tons.

Now, I know the transporter probably creates materials out of pure energy. That's not really a big issue, if it only happens on the small scale. Remember, we said most transporters average below 2 tons, even for the heavier aliens. If I were designing a transporter, I'd probably top it out at about 5 tons. That should be easy enough to do. And if the materials you need are there, in the local environment, sure you can go bigger. But we're talking 400 tons here. The whales are about neutral buoyancy, and so we can assume that of that 400 tons, the two humpbacks weigh approximately 79,000 lbs each, or 39.5 tons each for a total of 79 tons. 400 minus 79 leaves 321 tons. Because saltwater is on average 3.5% salinity, for every pound of salt, you need 285.608 lbs of water. This doesn't sound very bad, but if you have 321 tons of seawater, that's 2247.836 lbs of salt! And that's just one part of the equation. Even with the more advanced Federation technology, I'm sure Mr. Scott was worried about having to come up with the necessary minerals to beamup that much, and he was using Klingon technology to do it!

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Considering the replicators in this case would probably have access to the materials simply being moved into close enough proximity to simply rearrange the materials instead of actually form them from energy or fusing items together, it's reasonable to assume that the biggest source of energy will be taken up simply applying force to move atoms around and rearrange them. Applying force against an object does impart energy, and so I wonder how the replicator stops the items. Does it simply let the items collide? That collision will alter their trajectories, so the computer would need to apply another force to stop the collision. Because the two objects will have imparted energy on each other, the net energy required to stop the two atoms would be equal, though the velocities would be less because some of the inertia was imparted to the stationary atom. Regardless of how, the atoms would need a starter atom to get the reaction started, building mass and simply adding to it. That much energy would indeed create heat, so I wonder how the replicators aboard a starship deal with it? Does it bombard the material with electromagnetic waves to cause a reversal of microwaves? Or does it instead simply force cold air as necessary to keep the reactants cool until the user goes to retrieve the item?

As far as testing goes, I'm sure that, for small scale applications, a few atoms out of place won't greatly affect things in regards to food or function. Even when transporting someone, if an atom gets misplaced in the DNA, that cell will be treated as a mutation, and destroyed by the body. Or not, and that person has instant cancer. That must be in the brochures... get instant cancer in thousands of cells throughout your body. Don't worry, you'll be fine with the best in Starfleet's medical corps. Who is simultaneously treating thousands of other cancer patients from transporter usage. Did we mention this is the safest mode of travel? Imagine what shuttles must be like to ride in.

[Sea Skimmer]

You wouldn’t be able to find many key strategic materials needed to make weapons in sufficient quantity at any given site without deploying a large number of replicators over a wide area and then collecting up what they produce to somewhat centralized assembly facilities which become prime targets. Some sites might leave you with little more then silicon to work with on hand, or just iron ore, and trees. Make bow and narrows with that maybe? Unless we are assuming transporters that can function over hundreds of miles to actively seek out specific ores.. seems unlikely. At that point you should just be able to beam the heart of our your enemies instead of shooting phasers...

Anyway if you deploy this technology and it works , and your enemy is a equivalent then it also means the enemy can be beaming around commando sabotage units with heavy mortars all over the planet, attacking your replicator sites with indirect fire, destroying defenses with direct attacks and wiping out and deploying transporter jammer and remote sensor gear all the time. This makes them a huge defensive liability, taking away a major advantage of the attacker. You'd need to dig in to guard each and every one as they will have a huge active signature from all the transporting and replicating.

I don’t see logistics as part of the assault force as very feasible until you’ve already largely secured a planet or else attacked a world which was never well defended in the first place. At that point you might be able to deploy them widely enough to be effective for the consolidation-fortification phase of a planetary conquest.

For a major sustained combat operation you’re still going to need to bring up heavy logistics support with bulk supplies that can be simply landed to the troops who need them or unloaded like conventional logistics supplies in designated, defensible areas. Manufacturing weapons in the forward combat area, maybe 20-30 light years behind the lines seems entirely feasible, but it would be based on mobile factories which have a lot of ships bringing bulk supplies to the site harvested out of local worlds. This would make life way easier for automated weapons production, and allow you to make much bigger objects like tanks and cruise missiles as well as millions of tons of bulk ammo.

[Alien-Carrot]

(we've never seen starship transporters, for example.)

There was an episode of Voyager where the Voth transported the entire ship into their own ship. But you were probably taling about Federation transporters, not trek in general.

[Baffalo]

(we've never seen starship transporters, for example.)

There was an episode of Voyager where the Voth transported the entire ship into their own ship. But you were probably taling about Federation transporters, not trek in general.

Usually when we talk about Star Trek, we're referring to the Federation first and foremost. They're the big kids on the block, so they get all the shit piled on them. If we are referring to another species, we mention them specifically. Though I do admit you have a good point. The Voth can do what the Federation can't, in terms of transporters. The Voth, however, are much older than the Federation and have much cooler technology, just because they're around. Their primary purpose in the show was to take the theory of evolution and turn it on its head, showing where a species of dinosaur evolved to where they are, but then reject their own heritage because they don't want to admit they crawled somewhere. It's also got a bit of Galileo tossed in there just to make sure the humans appear better. We're totally cool with finding out another star faring species came from Earth, but we're still so much better just because we can admit it and the aliens won't.