this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name
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Trigger Warning: Nerdy Pedantry.
ST "replicators" would be more properly called "fabricators". Replicators make more of themselves- they replicate. (see StarGate replicators for an example. or any of the NanoGoo scenarios.)
Fabricators on the other hand might be able to make more of themselves, but they're cheifly designed to make other shit- that is to fabricate.
In universe, I'm just going explain it away as, "This is what happens when you let politicians name shit."
As a side note, regardless of what ever you want to call it; why the fuck would you as a ship's designer have access to this technology and not literally integrate it into every aspect of you ship? Especially if you can go the other way- recycle matter back into energy.
grey- and black-water handling would literally be eliminated at the source. other trash, too. Armor plating damaged because Ryker boned the wrong chick again? replication units in the hull replace it automatically. Worf blows his load and you're now out of torpedos? Yeah. who cares, just salvage their hulk and make more.
Wesely crashes yet another shuttle because he's a kid? oh well. it's a good thing Earth has a lot of rivers.
That's a good point. It's not replicating unless you're telling it to make a copy of something that already exists (you wouldn't replicate a car...). Great, now I have another commonly used Star Trek word to be annoyed about! Although it is on-brand for humans to have named replicators incorrectly. We operate more on vibes than anything else and do stuff like that a lot. My biggest pet peeve, and not only Star Trek is guilty of this, is using "sentience" to mean "sapience." All animals are sentient - they can sense the word around them. It's in the name!
It is though. The replicator stores static patterns in a similar way to the transporter - they're basically the same technology. To create a new replicator pattern (e.g. a cup of tea) the original cup of tea is dematerialized and the pattern saved for future reproduction. This also explains why some people complain about eating "the same replicated meal" over and over - it's literally true, the replicator replicates the exact same cut of chicken cooked the exact same way with the exact same spice blend every time, because it's reproducing a copy from a file. Even if it's a perfect chicken dinner, it's the same one you've had hundreds of times before.
This also explains why every replicator in the universe can't just reproduce anything at any time. Different models have different sets of patterns available. A restaurant-grade model (like Quark's) might be distributed with a menu of meals prepared by chefs with good reputation and have more space dedicated for storing food patterns, whereas the Starfleet model has a menu prepared by a committee of Starfleet nutritionists (decent, healthy, but not gourmet) and also uses some pattern storage for utility items like uniforms and tricorders &etc (it's general-purpose, not specialized for food, so its food reproduction is comparatively lower quality than Quark's).
Presumably the patterns are not easily interchangeable/distributable - different file formats, different scanner resolution, maybe different output options (canonically some materials are more difficult to replicate than others, so might require a specialized replicator). Quark's replicator, being Ferengi, is probably proprietary and requires purchasing new patterns only from the original manufacturer to increase the variety.
They are, it just takes time to update, since it gets sent over whenever the computer gets updated. That's why Tom Paris was annoyed that the Voyager's replicator didn't have his preferred tomato soup ready. It was scheduled to be loaded onto the computers on Tuesday.
You can write the pattern yourself, but it is easy to get them wrong (Janeway managed to have it consistently produce charcoal).
Patterns might be portable on storage devices, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're cross-platform, especially cross-species/technology, or maybe it would require a technical specialist to convert the pattern between systems.
I can absolutely see this being a thing in Star Trek life. You find specific versions/recipes that you like and save them to a personal data storage device, and then when you transfer to a new command you put in a request with the local IT department to have your recipes loaded into the replicator system, which takes some time because they have to review them for safety (no malicious insiders uploading weapons labeled as "grandma's chicken soup") and maybe convert the pattern to work on the local replicators. There's a support ticket queue for that, submit your files and take a number, we'll get to you when we can.
Absolutely, or probably try to arrange a new meal pattern using information on previously scanned & stored items. But yeah, it would require some specific knowledge and skill to get right. In the present, you can download lots of 3D-printable objects from the Internet, or if you know how to model you can design your own - the second is a lot more complicated. Most people would probably just use existing replicator patterns.
At least on this front, Star Trek doesn't tend to have that much of an issue crossing between platforms. The only time problems seem to rear their head is when another completely different computing paradigm comes into play (like using biochemical computers instead of electrical).
Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be anything technically preventing you from hooking up your Federation computers to a Cardassian mining station and have everything work more or less okay.
Oh, disagree, O'Brien complains about trying to get Federation and Cardassian technology to work together all the time. They don't necessarily show specific scenes of what that means technically, but there are definitely interface problems.
Tom was annoyed because he didn't want to sort through 37 varieties of tomato soup. He didn't care- he just wanted food.
At some point, though, it seems a little unreasonable, when there's enough ambiguity that the computer has 37 separate presets for tomato soup.
It'd be like going to a coffee shop and adamantly demanding "coffee", and then being annoyed that the barista can't magically intuit what it is that you exactly want.
I mean, you go in and ask for coffee, the barista is going to assume you mean drip. They might ask if you want a light or dark roast. They're not going to ask you to pick from 37 different beans, then ask whether you want it a light roast, dark roast or decaff, then ask how you want it brewed (steam pressed, drip, pour over. cold brewed. french. perc. cowboy. Turkish. Greek.) then ask how hot you want it (warm. hot, HOT HOT, cold. Frozen.); how strong do you want it, do you want cream (Soy, oat, half/half, full cream, milk. Goat milk. Almond. butter.) how much cream. Sweetener (Sugar, honey, raw sugar. corn syrup.... i think you see my point?)
A good barista knows when not to ask, as much as when and what to ask.
though it's almost blasphemous they didn't conjure up a grilled cheese to go with it.