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Alright... I was not sure which topic area to place this one in, it may be more appropriate for general chat or off-topic, I am not sure.

If you were a leader of a middle-of-the-road, average size nation on Earth today, and you could have one TNG tech, what would it be and why would you take it?

You get the tech only-- for instance you can't say "A Federation computer core, cause then I'd have access to all Federation technology." The computer would just be the computer. Likewise if you took a replicator you could only replicate things you were able to program into it, you couldn't take a replicator and say "give me a phaser."

Additional restriction is a TNG-era tech-- so no cloaked self-replicating mines, or transphasic torpedoes.

Replicator. Then I'd be able to produce an item on a regular basis...like AK-47s or an endless amount of other valuable materials like gold or titanium.

A transporter. It's the one piece of technology that would have an immediate and decisive impact on the modern world.

Incidentally, the cloaked self-replicating mines are TNG-era tech.

Captain Seafort wrote:A transporter. It's the one piece of technology that would have an immediate and decisive impact on the modern world.

Very good point, it would revolutionize our society on many levels.

Duskofdead wrote:

Captain Seafort wrote:A transporter. It's the one piece of technology that would have an immediate and decisive impact on the modern world.

Very good point, it would revolutionize our society on many levels.

And a replicator wouldn't? Near infinate resources would make any one person and/or nation that much more powerful.

I actually almost added "I guess ANY Trek tech would", but I was commenting more on the very simple nature of transportation being instant, and how much that would change our society. If you had a replicator you could almost hide it-- you'd just look like you were a suddenly much more productive nation. Transporter though would be huge. "How'd you get here from Australia in one hour?!"

ChakatBlackstar wrote:And a replicator wouldn't? Near infinate resources would make any one person and/or nation that much more powerful.

Replicators would only simplify and magnify your industrial base - you'd still have to find and process the stuff to feed into it, and find people to operate it.

Transporters are a true force-magnifier. Why risk men and equipment on bombing missions when you can simply beam lots of HE to the exact location of your target? Not to mention it would vastly improve the effectiveness of special forces - you could be literally knocking on the door of any tin-pot dictator within seconds of being sent after him.

It would operate like adding several factories... cause the thing certainly could only produce so much in a day, even if in constant use. Though Blackstar is correct if it was churning out something like valuable medical supplies or platinum or something, it could certainly boost your economy immeasurably.

Duskofdead wrote:Though Blackstar is correct if it was churning out something like valuable medical supplies or platinum or something, it could certainly boost your economy immeasurably.

Medical supplies seem to be the most serious limitation of replicator technology. How many times did we see the E-D hauling such supplies around the Federation to deal with some epidemic or other? It's a good indication that replicators simply can't produce them.

Captain Seafort wrote:

Duskofdead wrote:Though Blackstar is correct if it was churning out something like valuable medical supplies or platinum or something, it could certainly boost your economy immeasurably.

Medical supplies seem to be the most serious limitation of replicator technology. How many times did we see the E-D hauling such supplies around the Federation to deal with some epidemic or other? It's a good indication that replicators simply can't produce them.

True but it was inconsistent. Voyager had no problem replicating Borg nanoprobes, a clearly very intricate bit of technology. It was just limited in how fast it could produce them.

Duskofdead wrote:True but it was inconsistent. Voyager had no problem replicating Borg nanoprobes, a clearly very intricate bit of technology. It was just limited in how fast it could produce them.

The E-D could produce nanoprobes - see "Evolution". By contrast, even simple blood was unreplicatable, suggesting that the problem was with biological items for some reason, rather than with complexity.

There does appear to be a problem replicating organic things. They weren't able to replicate Neelix a pair of lungs, nor were they able to replicate more of those bio-neural gel packs in that episode where Neelix's cheese started killing the ship.

Rochey wrote:There does appear to be a problem replicating organic things. They weren't able to replicate Neelix a pair of lungs, nor were they able to replicate more of those bio-neural gel packs in that episode where Neelix's cheese started killing the ship.

That's true, living things yeah. And it's certainly plausible that a lot of things needed for plagues or medical disasters might be biological compounds or herbs or vaccines with active biological components that can't be replicated.

Also, and there is much debate on this. It seems like replicators can't just turn energy to matter and back.

Otherwise why use fusion and antimatter reactions when you can get your E=mc^2 from thowing some rocks in a replicator.

Instead they work on transporter technology and take existing elements and weave them together as desired. At most being able to fuse some select types together.

Still you could make laptops by the load.


I'm in the transporter camp though, presuming you get the sensors to use the thing for free. You could use the thing to mine, win wars pretty much instantly, all sorts of stuff.

The transporter is certainly the most practical answer, but the romantic dreamer in me forces me to say that I'd take the most taken-for-granted tech aspect of 'Trek - FTL travel.