Fabrication and Replication

The genesis of the 23rd Century Fabrication System to the current Replication System is, perhaps, the least recognized, significant development onboard starships in the past 50 years.

It is important to note that both the Fabricator and Replicator are transporter-based systems. Both use a stored pattern in memory to create a desired item, from crew meals and crew uniforms to engineering hardware and tools. The advances in transporter-based molecular synthesis have resulted in a significant increase in productivity and ability to produce materials
upon demand. The older Fabricators were dependant upon having to store various bins of raw materials to assemble requested items, Replicators only require a single base raw material. Put simply, both do the same job, the difference is the way they do it.

During the 23rd Century, the Fabricator was the mainstay of mass production. It could duplicate any material object – so long as an energy pattern of the object is stored within the memory bank, and the proper raw material available. It could not manufacture items from pure energy, nor could it build molecules by attaching atoms together like the Replicator can. Its function was designed around the principle of dematerializing various molecules in one location area (assorted raw material bins) and then rematerializing these as an edited physical pattern in a second location – a delivery hopper. There were four types of Fabricators in service, High-Resolution Organic, Low-Resolution Organic, High-Resolution Inorganic, and Low-Resolution Inorganic. High-Resolution Organic was for the fabrication of foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals, while Low-Resolution Organic was for laundry and base materials (textiles, plastics, etc.) High-resolution Inorganic was for micro- or nano-circuitry and detailed or precision equipment. Low-Resolution Inorganic was for base metals, ceramics, and simple tools.

For a Fabricator to materialize something, two things were required: An original pattern record on file and raw materials. The energy pattern either was a downloaded file from Starfleet records or could be made by placing the original object within and Delivery Hopper and activating the Recording System. For the raw materials, each molecule for every item a Fabricator can duplicate must be stored in the Raw Material Bins that the Fabricator can draw from. Each type of Fabricator is connected to a set of appropriate Raw Material Bins. High-Resolution Organic Fabricators have many bins, containing such raw material molecules as lecithin, maltose, water, glucose, etc. Low-Resolution Organic Fabricators have only a few bins, containing such materials as textiles and plastic molecules. Inorganic Fabricators have various bins containing metals, ceramics, and esoteric molecules.

Defabricators

For each type of Fabricator, there is an attached Defabricator, which keeps the Raw Material Bins filled. Defabricators function by dematerializing unwanted items placed inside, via transporter beam, editing the energy pattern into the component energy patterns, and then replacing these molecules into their respective Raw Material Bins.

Inorganic Defabricators are fed from the refuse chutes from workshops and other collection areas. Discarded items, such as broken or unneeded devices (deposited rather than being fixed or stored) are broken down and the molecules are returned to the Raw Material Bins of the Inorganic Fabricators. Low-Resolution Organic Defabricators take soiled or torn clothes/uniforms, dematerialize them and then duplicate a new or fresh one from the energy pattern for that crewmen. This is referred to as the Laundry System. Clothing or other materials not on file are not dematerialized. Instead, only foreign substances on them (dirt and body excretions) will be dematerialized and the original item will be returned as it was placed inside the Hopper, only clean. High-Resolution Organic Defabricators are fed from the waste disposal system on each deck. Wastes are sterilized, dematerialized, and their edited raw materials returned to the bins.

The Defabricator cannot store a molecule for which it has no bin. For example, thalium-oxide stains on a uniform cannot be stored in a specific bin. For this reason, each Defabricator has a Foreign Substance Bin, which acts as a repository for molecules that could otherwise not be stored. Every Defabricator has a built-in Kirlian Scanner. If the item within the Defabricator chamber shows the presence of pathogens, the Defabricator will ignore these, as they will be automatically irradiated by the sterile-field cycle. If however the scanner detects the presence of a life form (.01 liter bulk or greater), an alarm will sound and the Defabricator will disengage. This safeguard is intended to prevent the accidental disintegration of laboratory specimens or pets, which may find their way into the Defabrication Chamber.


Replicators

There are two main types of Replicators, these are the food synthesizers and the hardware Replicators. These devices permit replication of virtually any inanimate object with incredible fidelity and relatively low energy cost. The food Replicators are optimized for a finer degree of resolution because of the necessity of accurately replicating the chemical composition of foodstuffs. Hardware Replicators, on the other hand, are generally tuned to a lower resolution for greater energy efficiency and lower memory matrix requirements. A number of specially modified food replication terminals are used in Sickbay and in various science labs for synthesis of certain pharmaceuticals and other scientific supplies.

These systems operate by using a phase-transition coil chamber in which a measured quantity of base raw material is dematerialized in a manner similar to that of a standard transporter. Instead of using a molecular imaging scanner to determine the patterns of the raw base material, however, a quantum geometry transformational matrix field is used to modify the matter stream to conform to a holographically stored molecular pattern matrix. The matter stream is then routed through a network of waveguide conduits that direct the signal to a replication terminal at which the desired article is materialized within another phase transition chamber.

In order to minimize Replicator power requirements, raw materials for food Replicators is stored in the form of a sterilized organic particulate suspension that has been formulated to statistically require the least quantum manipulation to replicate most finished foodstuffs. This suspension, a combination of long-chain molecules, has been formulated for minimum power replication. The chief limitation of all transporter-based Replicators is the resolution at which the molecular matrix patterns are
stored. While transporters (which operate in real-time) recreate objects at a quantum- level resolution suitable for life-forms, Replicators store and re-create objects at the much simpler molecular-level resolution, which is not suitable for living beings.

Material that cannot be directly recycled by mechanical or chemical means is stored for matter synthesis recycling. This is accomplished by molecular matrix Replicators that actually dematerialize the waste materials and rematerialize them into the form of raw materials for later use by the replication system.

Another difference between Fabricators and Replicators is the quality of the object produced. Fabricators create exact copies of the 'original' recorded object. A raisin muffin will have exactly the same amount of raisins exactly the same location every time. The Replicators software allows for a certain degree of variation in the pattern matrix, something the Fabricator is incapable of. Today's raisin muffin looks different than yesterday's, tastes the same, but the raisins are arranged differently. It
was determined that this variation is an important factor in human perception of food quality, while other species, notably Vulcan, was not necessary.

Replicators, like Fabricators, have their limits. Some materials are incapable of being Replicated. It has been found that some materials are incapable of being scanned and others incapable of having their matrix stored in holographic memory. One of the more curious oddities in these regards is latinum. A precious metal, although of limited use other than non-Federation currency, is very difficult to accurately scan for pattern matrix storage, capable of refracting the scanning beams in all but normal quantum level transporters. The pattern matrix has also proven elusive as it causes a holographic cascade failure in the storage medium due to an anomalous algorithm.

Heavy duty and Industrial Replicators come in a variety of sizes and types, often specializing in one type of manufacture or another. While many common building materials and hardware can be replicated, the cost in power is often greater than that of more conventional means. Until Replication's power efficiency can be refined, many goods will still be manufactured by more conventional means. The power efficiency on board a starship is also a concern, but in fact the power necessary to transport supplies is still greater, so the Replicator has become essential for the long-term operation of Starfleet vessels.

One important point is that modern starships do in fact have galley's for food preparation. Simply, some crewmembers still do like to cook. It is also know that some Federation species eat living organisms for sustenance, others use form of nutrients incapable of Replication.

Bibliography

Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual – by R. Sternback and M. Okuda
Starfleet Dynamics - John David Schmidt

Author – Chief Engineer Lt. Wayne N Snyder
Date: August 8, 1998