The Klingon agent has attempted to interfere with human colonization of Sherman’s Planet by poisoning the shipment of quadrotriticale on Station K-7. The poison kills the tribbles who eat it, and it is made clear it would kill any humans who ate it.
SFW? Who’s going to eat it? Baris made clear they’re shipping it because it’s the only Earth crop that will grow on Sherman’s Planet. It’s seed corn. You can put poison on it, but the crop it grows into won’t be poisonous. So what’s the point?
We can replicate flintlocks today, but we sure can’t replicate wheat bread. TOS Star Trek had much more limited replication than TNG did.
Also… We have other TOS references to colonization. Colonies are primitive. Much like Oregon Trail colonists: they start with damn near nothing. They have to pass through a period of subsistence farming, before they get big enough to have anti-matter energy plants and replicators.
At the time of the original broadcast, and in the reruns until STNG, I took that to mean how long would it take their machine shop to produce convincing replicas. The obvious application of transporter technology to produce copies of anything was not mentioned in TOS. Well, except for Good Kirk/Evil Kirk and a few other transporter accidents.
You don’t have to replicate bread; just grain seeds.
And you would only need a small amount of actual grain to replicate a larger amount assuming that you actually need the matter that you are replicating as a “template.”
Yes, but they wouldn’t need to if spaceships (“transports”) could simply beam down replicated seeds.
Since Kirk’s crew was living on reconstituted food, you’re probably right that their replicator abilities were more limited than on TNG, but that could have been just a matter of the energy available for replication.
