# Star Trek: Why not use a giant replicator to create Starships? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 6, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030 "2012-05-06T00:00:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![noobzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@noobzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/noobzilla)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/1 "2012-05-06T00:00:25Z")
I was thinking if in the Star Trek universe you had a powerful enough replicator could it be used to fabricate an entire starship? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/2 "2012-05-06T00:09:53Z")
Maybe it doesn’t scale efficiently. I would think they’d use replicators to make smaller more manageable pieces and then put them together like a giant model. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/3 "2012-05-06T00:23:22Z")
I suspect that this will work better in Cafe Society than as a Great Debate. Off it goes. ---
**Author:** ![Alpha\_Twit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alpha_twit/32/265_2.png) [@Alpha\_Twit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alpha_Twit)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/4 "2012-05-06T00:43:39Z")
I’d assume that at least part of the issue is the energy and resource budget. It’s easier and cheaper to use relatively conventional construction methods than to build a starship size Xerox machine. Non-canon I know but at least a couple of the books have commented that some components can’t be reliably replicated. ---
**Author:** ![noobzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@noobzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/noobzilla)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/5 "2012-05-06T01:03:54Z")
> [@Alpha\_Twit](#): > > I’d assume that at least part of the issue is the energy and resource budget. It’s easier and cheaper to use relatively conventional construction methods than to build a starship size Xerox machine. > > Non-canon I know but at least a couple of the books have commented that some components can’t be reliably replicated. I imagine just replicating all the parts of the ship that are inert and building around that. Putting a starship together piece-by-piece seems tedious and the Federation always seems to be lacking in Enterprise-class starships. If I was the Federation rather than a single flagship I would have a fleet of replicated Enterprises running around the galaxy. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/6 "2012-05-06T01:06:56Z")
It’s mentioned that replicators can’t build living things due to tiny errors; good enough for food, but not good enough for a living thing. Perhaps a lot of components need to be be built using other methods without the same problem. One presumes that starship technology is high end stuff after all. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/7 "2012-05-06T01:13:09Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It’s mentioned that replicators can’t build living things due to tiny errors; good enough for food, but not good enough for a living thing. But the transporter **can** – remember Lieutenant Riker? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/8 "2012-05-06T01:23:49Z")
In an episode of DS9, Kira complains that the Cardassians have received more industrial replicators than Bajor. Sisko pointed out that Bajor was just one planet while the Cardassians had more area that needed help. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/9 "2012-05-06T01:26:51Z")
But I believe that the transporter requires a _lot_ of energy to operate-I recall scenes where they had to divert a large percentage of power from the ship’s engines to bring in somebody who had a weak signal. That’s why they used shuttles whenever it was feasible. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/10 "2012-05-06T01:28:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But the transporter **can** – remember Lieutenant Riker? But they don’t seem to be able to duplicate (heh) that kind of replication at will. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/11 "2012-05-06T01:35:29Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > In an episode of DS9, Kira complains that the Cardassians have received more industrial replicators than Bajor. Sisko pointed out that Bajor was just one planet while the Cardassians had more area that needed help. And apparently they can’t use replicators to make replicators, or else no planet would need more than one to start with. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/12 "2012-05-06T01:40:14Z")
I dunno. Why not use transporters to regenerate people back into their pre-illness and -injury selves? Why not use holodeck technology to simulate prefect replicas of James T. Kirk and put him in command of every starship? Why not use that radical technological advance we used that time to solve that problem and then forgot about? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/13 "2012-05-06T01:50:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But the transporter **can** – remember Lieutenant Riker? That was an accident due to the energy field around the planet. Ontopic: The Next Gen Technical Manual says that replicators get less efficient the larger the object replicated gets. ---
**Author:** ![noobzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@noobzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/noobzilla)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/14 "2012-05-06T01:54:11Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I dunno. Why not use transporters to regenerate people back into their pre-illness and -injury selves? Why not use holodeck technology to simulate prefect replicas of James T. Kirk and put him in command of every starship? Why not use that radical technological advance we used that time to solve that problem and then forgot about? Yes agreed. Why do they need to even train new cadets at Starfleet Academy when they could just as easily trasnport(clone) a few dozen Picards, Laforges, and Crushers to crew their replicated fleet of Enterprises. Perhaps the Federation’s idealistic tendencies prevent them from creating armadas of replicated ships manned by cloned crews. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/15 "2012-05-06T02:09:56Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I dunno. Why not use transporters to regenerate people back into their pre-illness and -injury selves? Why not use holodeck technology to simulate prefect replicas of James T. Kirk and put him in command of every starship? Why not use that radical technological advance we used that time to solve that problem and then forgot about? You’d need replicas of hot alien babes also. And I think Kirk is too weird for a computer to perfectly simulate. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/16 "2012-05-06T02:12:45Z")
There is actually a very good reason why this wouldn’t work. Any replication process has errors. Replicating tea or food or maybe even a phaser is unlikely to produce a bad one. For an entire starship it would be inevitable. I don’t know what process technology they use for their chips, but small discrepancies in replicating them would cause defects. They’d wind up taking a week to replicate a starship and five years to debug it. And of course the worst of the errors would be in the hardest to get at places. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/17 "2012-05-06T02:15:55Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I dunno. Why not use transporters to regenerate people back into their pre-illness and -injury selves? Why not use holodeck technology to simulate **prefect** replicas of James T. Kirk and put him in command of every starship? Why not use that radical technological advance we used that time to solve that problem and then forgot about? Best typo of the week-cue the William Shatner/Mos Def clones sailing merrily through space. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/18 "2012-05-06T03:23:12Z")
Obviously, star ships needed gold-pressed latinum in the design of all their parts. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/19 "2012-05-06T03:32:57Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > And I think Kirk is too weird for a computer to perfectly simulate. He sets computers on fire by _talking_ to them. Uploading him into one is probably a bad idea… ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030/20 "2012-05-06T04:04:43Z")
I don’t remember the episode, but there was an episode of TNG where they explained there were some exotic parts to the engine that couldn’t simply be replicated. As I recall, gold-pressed latinum is also something that can’t be replicated. Of course, that was the writers figuring out the replicators were overpowered, but it’s still an explanation. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-why-not-use-a-giant-replicator-to-create-starships/621030.md?page=2)