I remember an episode of DS9 where O’Brien implies that 24th century humans are somehow better than 20th century humans.
Considering the fact that some 20th century humans seem to think the ancient Egyptians were incapable of building the pyramids by themselves, that could have just been his opinion.
Star Trek is a science fiction universe where the Laws of Physics are fundamentally different from ours. That’s the only way to explain away the nonsense.
Like, if replicators create matter from energy, then where are they getting that much energy? You could say ‘anti-matter’, but you’d need more anti-matter than the mass of whatever thing you’re making, given the conversions, storage, etc, which then brings us to “where the fuck are you getting free planetary volumes of anti-matter?”
The energy comes from dilithium, which is a powerhouse of energy. It powers the warp drives and everything else. You can replicate dilithium, of course, but there’s a net loss of energy, so it’s more effective to find natural dilithium. The same as it is today: we can build gold in a nuclear reactor, but the energy cost is more than its value.
I don’t think Jason Vigo had a job.
Take today’s Walmart. Extrapolate the amount of stuff they sell into the 24th century. Also extrapolate their decreasing cost per unit item into the 24th century.
Viola. Free massive volumes of anything you want.
Of course they still have to destroy Taco Bell during the corporation wars somewhere along the way.
So it contains far more energy than the mass it contains? :dubious:
No real answer to that specific question, but dilithium is a vital part of the matter/anti-matter exchange making warp fields possible.
Treknology, man!
Do replicators create matter from energy, or are they just taking a bunch of basic matter (a big lump of carbon somewhere in a hold, sewage, etc), and turning it into something else? The latter still seems like it would require a lot of effort, but not E=mc^2 levels of energy.
Maybe they’re using dark matter. Or maybe they’re sucking energy from parallel universes or the intercosmic vacuum.
Makes perfect sense to me! 
Probably lots of free protein floating around in the holodeck filter systems.
Just don’t order up any clam chowder when Barkley has been eating asparagus.
Depends. If it is basic alchemy of taking element N and turning it into elements A-Z and all the chemical arrangements to make a sandwich, then yes, it is still going to take a fuckload of energy.
Then there’s the whole 'does the Transporter actually break your mass into energy at your location (enough to put a serious dent in a planet) and then remotely suck it up somehow? Or is this just ‘magic’ relocation of molecules?
didn’t Picard’s family own a very successful winery ? I remeber an episode where he goes home and had him and his family clearing the air over his “running off” to Starfleet
Yeah, I mentioned it upthread, but I guess I chose a too-complex word for it to get any traction.
I got it. I responded.
Sort of.
I rather enjoyed your response! 