Having worked for AMHS for six years I actually have new found appreciation for Neelix as a character. Some of the stewards out here make his food look good and yet they retain their jobs. They actively piss off everyone else and yet we can't get rid of them. People like him do legitimately exist in the maritime industry and I've had to deal with them.
Oh I think Neelix absolutely could have worked if the "everybody hates Neelix" thing had been played straight on the show. It's not the character that unrealistic, it's that there aren't enough people in the show telling him to fuck off.
Kind of a common problem in Star Trek: There's often no particular problem with a particular character, only in how everybody else acts around them. Neelix acts like a bumbling fool straddling the line between malice and incompetence, but everybody treats him like a goofy but useful member of the crew. Janeway acts like an erratic tyrant, but people usually treat her like a tough but fair leader. Archer literally threatens to piss on sacred cultural artifacts of an ancient and benevolent civilization, but everybody else acts like he earned the opportunity.
Uh? Basically nobody criticised the replicated food except for a couple of wine snobs and the Klingons who prefer their gagh to be squirming. I always got the impression that the repliphobes were kin to that special breed of "audiophile" that can allegedly differentiate between digital signals sent down gold vs copper wire. Or even gold-coated copper wire.
Maybe there were a few issues with the first generation of food replicators, like limited selection or occasional glitches and folk are remembering that? Since replicator tech is actually fairly recent as of TNG and holodecks were literally brand new.
My guess is that the first generation replicators made food too uniform. Every part of a replicated steak or hamburger is exactly the same. With real food, different parts of the food might be seasoned slightly differently, it won't be cooked perfectly evenly, the distribution of chemicals within the food varies, and you can't ever make the same dish taste exactly the same every time.
Once they realized that was a problem, they added some randomization to the replication process to emulate real cooking.
My take on it is that a replicator reproduces, perfectly, whatever sample dish was originally dematerialized to make its pattern for the data banks. Which means that every time you order, say, a burger and fries, it's the exact same burger and fries. Exactly. Like, how could it not be? It's just an application/development of the transporter. Apparently you can add or substitute condiments, but every time you make the same order, it will be prepared exactly the same.
And after a while, some people (not all, but some) will be bothered by the fact that, say, the four pickle chips are always in exactly the same positions. Even if the original dish is (and almost surely was) prepared by a master chef before being chosen as the Platonic Cheeseburger to be digitized, how many times can you eat it before it gets old, or have memorized how the fudge is drizzled on the sundae, etc?
I wonder if replicated food being exactly the same every time leads over time to people eating their meal exactly the same way every time.
Take bite from front of cheeseburger. Rotate 20 degrees clockward and take another bite to catch the over-mustarded pickle that was slipping away. Take sip of coke to wash down mustard. Rotate 10 degrees counter-clockward to take bite of the bit sticking out between the first two bites.
That brings up another thought. What if the replicator isn't producing the worlds greatest burger as cooked by the worlds best chef using the worlds best ingredients? Instead, it produces the one that's going to be palatable to the greatest variety of people unless it's specifically told otherwise.
I assume part of it also has to do it with replicator food being a certain level of healthy. Flavor largely comes from fat and oils in food. I bet Starfleet has found the perfect balance between health and flavor to allow Starfleet officers to eat what they like but keep it relatively easy to stay in shape.
Sometimes you want a super greasy hamburger or deep fried chicken that the standard replicators just won't do. That is why Quark's are modified and why some people still go to real restaurants.
That brings up another thought. What if the replicator isn't producing the worlds greatest burger as cooked by the worlds best chef using the worlds best ingredients? Instead, it produces the one that's going to be palatable to the greatest variety of people unless it's specifically told otherwise.
I'd say that getting the best chefs was the first idea they had and within a week everyone came to the conclusion that lobster is just ocean spiders dipped in butter, truffles taste like burnt ass and that Ramsey puts cream fraiche on everything. The following week they went back to burgers and chocolate ice cream.
Instead, it produces the one that's going to be palatable to the greatest variety of people unless it's specifically told otherwise.
Sooo, basically your average ship food then?
0
Options
Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
Technically each user's personal settings are supposed to follow their commbadge around so if they had a particular preference for a kind of steak they should be given that one automatically, absent additional input.
Thing is, I bet there's bunches of people who never set up LCARS accounts or didn't ever bother changing the defaults so they're all stuck on generic McBurgers while their buddy says "a burger" and gets a medium-rare steak& bacon gruyere cheeseburger with rocket and endive salad on a focaccia bun, with a little starfleet flag stuck in the top.
Technically each user's personal settings are supposed to follow their commbadge around so if they had a particular preference for a kind of steak they should be given that one automatically, absent additional input.
Thing is, I bet there's bunches of people who never set up LCARS accounts or didn't ever bother changing the defaults so they're all stuck on generic McBurgers while their buddy says "a burger" and gets a medium-rare steak& bacon gruyere cheeseburger with rocket and endive salad on a focaccia bun, with a little starfleet flag stuck in the top.
Then would Picard have to specify Earl Grey, Hot? He should just be able to say "Tea," and get what he wants.
We have seen in episodes that the replicators are actually fucking obnoxious if you place a vague order.
I recall someone ordering a water and the replicator asking what temperature, for example.
That's engineering fucking with you.
There's a million "fuck those commissioned dickholes" subroutines that are passed down from engineer to engineer since time immemorial.
Hold the turbolift for your buddy for 30 seconds while the engineer next to you is late for his shift? Next morning your replicator is all "You want a water? Specify the exact amount of dissolved elements in the water, starting with Hydrogen and working your way down the periodic table. "
Technically each user's personal settings are supposed to follow their commbadge around so if they had a particular preference for a kind of steak they should be given that one automatically, absent additional input.
Thing is, I bet there's bunches of people who never set up LCARS accounts or didn't ever bother changing the defaults so they're all stuck on generic McBurgers while their buddy says "a burger" and gets a medium-rare steak& bacon gruyere cheeseburger with rocket and endive salad on a focaccia bun, with a little starfleet flag stuck in the top.
Then would Picard have to specify Earl Grey, Hot? He should just be able to say "Tea," and get what he wants.
Because depending on his mood, he's got the replicator set to make tea two different ways. 'Tea, Earl Grey' gets you the standard cup of tea the way most people get it, but adding 'hot,' has it come out the way you drink it if you're Jean-Luc-Fucking-Picard!
Saying "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot" is part of the ritual. By the time Picard realized he keeps on ordering the same damn tea every time, he'd gotten so used to saying it that he saw no point in changing the defaults.
What I'd imagine would happen is that there'd be entire databases full of different versions of the cooked/prepared meals. People would probably compete to create the best versions. That would result in the computer being able to draw from a very large database so it doesn't end up being the same each time. What with a post-scarcity society, renown for creating something that many others end up using would probably be a major goal for many to strive after.
0
Options
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
edited October 2014
I would expect replicator libraries to be as vast as you wanted them to be. So for example if you're not picky and you say "ratatouille" to the replicator, then it has some default set for what ratatouille is. But if you had something specific in mind, you might say "ratatouille as prepared by 21st century French chef Paul Bocuse" then there might be a database entry for that, or the replicator might say "don't have that, sorry."
I'd expect there to be various modders on whatever Star Trek uses on the internet who throw out there own database entries for the replicator. "Here's a mod for my father's Italian tomato soup that's been passed down in his family for generations. See below for the actual recipe and preparation that would go into making this from scratch. I think my programming has gotten it pretty close! Try it for yourself, and feel free to tweak it yourself," "Oh, that's a great recipe @replicator_ron, but I like a little more spice so I added crushed pepper flakes in my version of the mod. Here's an link for download if you'd like to try it yourself." etc.
Of course I'd also expect that on a flagship like the Enterprise, only people with clearance could even download mods like that. And there's possibly also a Starfleet approved food library.
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Well if DS9 is canon replicated food is actually not the same as fresh food, there's an artificial quality to it (which most people wouldn't be aware of even if true, clearly if there even is a difference to make superior food you'd have to be a good cook)
I'm sure there's plenty of disagreement and "you're just a food snob there's no difference" arguments on the space internet
I would imagine a replicator would really excel at simple things. Basic ingredients and the like. Chicken is chicken is chicken. You fry it in a pan, it turns out the same no matter who or where you are. Same with ground beef. Bread, at least your average white loaf. Basic cheeses. Drinks. And so on and so on.
Now ask it for a cheeseburger. What's going to come out. You can get a cheeseburger from McDonalds, Wendy's, and Burger King, and they're all almost completely different from each other, despite containing the same ingredients. Can you program it so the replicator "chef" prepares it identically to one of the above versions? Or do you just get the replicator's version of a cheeseburger, which might be its own thing entirely? They have given the impression over many an episode that it's more or less the former, with you having to program the computer on how exactly to cook.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
I'm sure replicators can be programmed to inject a small quantity of mild hallucinogens into the food to make people think that it's fresh and tastes great.
0
Options
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I'm sure replicators can be programmed to inject a small quantity of mild hallucinogens into the food to make people think that it's fresh and tastes great.
I'm sure replicators can be programmed to inject a small quantity of mild hallucinogens into the food to make people think that it's fresh and tastes great.
I never thought about that, but it does theoretically make sense. I know we're talking about a fictional universe, but one day we might be able to "replicate" food, and I'm just pretending we're actually planning for that day.
Some people are just so against hallucinogens that they would refuse though. I suppose at that point in the future, however, we would know exactly what those hallucinogens do to our bodies, and how to completely stop any negative side effects.
Don't replicators basically work along similar lines as transporters? If so, what does it say about transporters if replicators cannot replicate food perfectly? Unless, that is, more energy and computing power is put into transporters because while it's okay to have somewhat off-brand burgers and Earl Grey (would Picard stand for this?), it's more of a problem to have off-brand Kirks and Picards and Siskos.
And for "off-brand", read "detachable sideburns".
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Same lines, different resolutions. Think the same difference between pocket calculator and smartphone. The smartphone is far more powerful and can do many more things much better. But the pocket calculator is specialized. Without a specialized app for it, you can't really go and start graphing equations on your smartphone. Both are based entirely around computing equations in binary very very fast though.
I'm sure replicators can be programmed to inject a small quantity of mild hallucinogens into the food to make people think that it's fresh and tastes great.
I never thought about that, but it does theoretically make sense. I know we're talking about a fictional universe, but one day we might be able to "replicate" food, and I'm just pretending we're actually planning for that day.
Some people are just so against hallucinogens that they would refuse though. I suppose at that point in the future, however, we would know exactly what those hallucinogens do to our bodies, and how to completely stop any negative side effects.
It's infinitely more believable to have a futuristic setting where most people are fine with recreational drugs than a setting where people synthesize booze that doesn't even get you drunk.
It's infinitely more believable to have a futuristic setting where most people are fine with recreational drugs than a setting where people synthesize booze that doesn't even get you drunk.
Yeah. When're looking at (as a society) removing the intoxicating effects of recreational drugs or developing other substances that remove, blunt, or fix the harmful side effects of said recreational drugs, I know which way I'd bet a human society would likely jump.
+3
Options
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I'm sure replicators can be programmed to inject a small quantity of mild hallucinogens into the food to make people think that it's fresh and tastes great.
I never thought about that, but it does theoretically make sense. I know we're talking about a fictional universe, but one day we might be able to "replicate" food, and I'm just pretending we're actually planning for that day.
Some people are just so against hallucinogens that they would refuse though. I suppose at that point in the future, however, we would know exactly what those hallucinogens do to our bodies, and how to completely stop any negative side effects.
It's infinitely more believable to have a futuristic setting where most people are fine with recreational drugs than a setting where people synthesize booze that doesn't even get you drunk.
I like Scotty's reaction to synthahol.
"It replicates the taste and smell of alcohol without the deleterious effects."
"Why would anyone ever want to drink that?"
Like all of star trek, the replicators aren't entirely consistent. Sometimes, especially when TNG is playing up the utopia element, they're portrayed as the greatest thing ever and fully capable of making gourmet meals. Other times they're more like "even though technology is great it will never completely match the traditional way" and people complain about how replicated food just isn't quite right.
It does seem like, if they're capable of perfectly materializing a human brain from pure energy, a souffle shouldn't be that much harder.
OTOH if they're capable of replicating the same food over and over, what's to stop them from "replicating" the same human being over and over after they've got their pattern in the transporter?
Pi-r8 on
+1
Options
MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
Like all of star trek, the replicators aren't entirely consistent. Sometimes, especially when TNG is playing up the utopia element, they're portrayed as the greatest thing ever and fully capable of making gourmet meals. Other times they're more like "even though technology is great it will never completely match the traditional way" and people complain about how replicated food just isn't quite right.
It does seem like, if they're capable of perfectly materializing a human brain from pure energy, a souffle shouldn't be that much harder.
OTOH if they're capable of replicating the same food over and over, what's to stop them from "replicating" the same human being over and over after they've got their pattern in the transporter?
Which is something they never really address. And honestly Star Trek is probably not the show to do that.
Anyway, it gets better. They also have the ability to make alterations during transport, so instant army of super beings.
The difference, at least according to the technical manuals (time to dive into nerdiness) is that the transporter is designed to literally move the same human being from one place to another, down to the subatomic particle level and quantum states. They are moving the exact person (or as exact as possible) through a subspace stream to another location.
The replicator is converting one set of matter to something else at the atomic level. The replicator is operating at several orders of magnitude lower resolution per particle. They go further and talk about the transport buffer being too large and temporary to treat as a permanent storage/pattern for replication, but of course that brings up the question: given technological advances, why wouldn't this be possible in the relatively near future? Why can't they just duplicate Data over and over again? etc.
The basic idea behind the replicator is taking a stock supply of atoms and rearranging them/adding/removing protons and electrons to create something. They have large stores of stock material (which is partially replenished by the toilets, if I recall correctly) to do this. So, poop to steak. No bigs.
The transporters are a little different. Instead of playing god with atoms, you're taking a large, living organism, breaking it down to the smallest parts of atoms, memorizing where those parts are and which direction they are moving/spinning, turning that into energy, and then turning that energy back into those small parts in the exact places while still moving/spinning in the right direction, all while doing it quick enough that the organism experiences very little discomfort and almost no loss of perception (except sometimes the have a hold button?) You don't interrupt anything about the organism that could be considering living, which you don't have to do when you're turning stock material into something not living.
When you turn the poop into steak, you don't give a damn about the things smaller than electrons are doing. That's got to be at least a magnitude "easier" to do.
But then, if some vaccines are too complex to be replicated, but can be transported, does that mean you could build a super-duper replicator that could make that vaccine? Whats the bottleneck here? Would it need more processing power than even the flagship's computer core? More power than a starship's warpcore?
The basic idea behind the replicator is taking a stock supply of atoms and rearranging them/adding/removing protons and electrons to create something. They have large stores of stock material (which is partially replenished by the toilets, if I recall correctly) to do this. So, poop to steak. No bigs.
The transporters are a little different. Instead of playing god with atoms, you're taking a large, living organism, breaking it down to the smallest parts of atoms, memorizing where those parts are and which direction they are moving/spinning, turning that into energy, and then turning that energy back into those small parts in the exact places while still moving/spinning in the right direction, all while doing it quick enough that the organism experiences very little discomfort and almost no loss of perception (except sometimes the have a hold button?) You don't interrupt anything about the organism that could be considering living, which you don't have to do when you're turning stock material into something not living.
When you turn the poop into steak, you don't give a damn about the things smaller than electrons are doing. That's got to be at least a magnitude "easier" to do.
But then, if some vaccines are too complex to be replicated, but can be transported, does that mean you could build a super-duper replicator that could make that vaccine? Whats the bottleneck here? Would it need more processing power than even the flagship's computer core? More power than a starship's warpcore?
probably requires space gas like that time with Riker.
Posts
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
Kind of a common problem in Star Trek: There's often no particular problem with a particular character, only in how everybody else acts around them. Neelix acts like a bumbling fool straddling the line between malice and incompetence, but everybody treats him like a goofy but useful member of the crew. Janeway acts like an erratic tyrant, but people usually treat her like a tough but fair leader. Archer literally threatens to piss on sacred cultural artifacts of an ancient and benevolent civilization, but everybody else acts like he earned the opportunity.
My guess is that the first generation replicators made food too uniform. Every part of a replicated steak or hamburger is exactly the same. With real food, different parts of the food might be seasoned slightly differently, it won't be cooked perfectly evenly, the distribution of chemicals within the food varies, and you can't ever make the same dish taste exactly the same every time.
Once they realized that was a problem, they added some randomization to the replication process to emulate real cooking.
And after a while, some people (not all, but some) will be bothered by the fact that, say, the four pickle chips are always in exactly the same positions. Even if the original dish is (and almost surely was) prepared by a master chef before being chosen as the Platonic Cheeseburger to be digitized, how many times can you eat it before it gets old, or have memorized how the fudge is drizzled on the sundae, etc?
Take bite from front of cheeseburger. Rotate 20 degrees clockward and take another bite to catch the over-mustarded pickle that was slipping away. Take sip of coke to wash down mustard. Rotate 10 degrees counter-clockward to take bite of the bit sticking out between the first two bites.
Sometimes you want a super greasy hamburger or deep fried chicken that the standard replicators just won't do. That is why Quark's are modified and why some people still go to real restaurants.
I'd say that getting the best chefs was the first idea they had and within a week everyone came to the conclusion that lobster is just ocean spiders dipped in butter, truffles taste like burnt ass and that Ramsey puts cream fraiche on everything. The following week they went back to burgers and chocolate ice cream.
Sooo, basically your average ship food then?
Thing is, I bet there's bunches of people who never set up LCARS accounts or didn't ever bother changing the defaults so they're all stuck on generic McBurgers while their buddy says "a burger" and gets a medium-rare steak& bacon gruyere cheeseburger with rocket and endive salad on a focaccia bun, with a little starfleet flag stuck in the top.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
Then would Picard have to specify Earl Grey, Hot? He should just be able to say "Tea," and get what he wants.
I recall someone ordering a water and the replicator asking what temperature, for example.
That's engineering fucking with you.
There's a million "fuck those commissioned dickholes" subroutines that are passed down from engineer to engineer since time immemorial.
Hold the turbolift for your buddy for 30 seconds while the engineer next to you is late for his shift? Next morning your replicator is all "You want a water? Specify the exact amount of dissolved elements in the water, starting with Hydrogen and working your way down the periodic table. "
ha yeah that was a Romulan though.
Maybe they programmed it to do that just to fuck with him.
Something something programming joke.
I'd expect there to be various modders on whatever Star Trek uses on the internet who throw out there own database entries for the replicator. "Here's a mod for my father's Italian tomato soup that's been passed down in his family for generations. See below for the actual recipe and preparation that would go into making this from scratch. I think my programming has gotten it pretty close! Try it for yourself, and feel free to tweak it yourself," "Oh, that's a great recipe @replicator_ron, but I like a little more spice so I added crushed pepper flakes in my version of the mod. Here's an link for download if you'd like to try it yourself." etc.
Of course I'd also expect that on a flagship like the Enterprise, only people with clearance could even download mods like that. And there's possibly also a Starfleet approved food library.
I'm sure there's plenty of disagreement and "you're just a food snob there's no difference" arguments on the space internet
Now ask it for a cheeseburger. What's going to come out. You can get a cheeseburger from McDonalds, Wendy's, and Burger King, and they're all almost completely different from each other, despite containing the same ingredients. Can you program it so the replicator "chef" prepares it identically to one of the above versions? Or do you just get the replicator's version of a cheeseburger, which might be its own thing entirely? They have given the impression over many an episode that it's more or less the former, with you having to program the computer on how exactly to cook.
Zinc Saucier brand replicators?
I never thought about that, but it does theoretically make sense. I know we're talking about a fictional universe, but one day we might be able to "replicate" food, and I'm just pretending we're actually planning for that day.
Some people are just so against hallucinogens that they would refuse though. I suppose at that point in the future, however, we would know exactly what those hallucinogens do to our bodies, and how to completely stop any negative side effects.
And for "off-brand", read "detachable sideburns".
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
It's infinitely more believable to have a futuristic setting where most people are fine with recreational drugs than a setting where people synthesize booze that doesn't even get you drunk.
One man's "so nerdy it's physically painful" is another's "fascinating extrapolations into a fictional world."
But yes. This is an extremely nerdy discussion. And I love it.
Yeah. When're looking at (as a society) removing the intoxicating effects of recreational drugs or developing other substances that remove, blunt, or fix the harmful side effects of said recreational drugs, I know which way I'd bet a human society would likely jump.
Need I remind you that you're in the Star Trek thread?
On a forum. For a web comic. About video games.
We're already wading waist deep in nerd here, no need to point it out.
neeerrrrrdddsssssss
I like Scotty's reaction to synthahol.
"It replicates the taste and smell of alcohol without the deleterious effects."
"Why would anyone ever want to drink that?"
It does seem like, if they're capable of perfectly materializing a human brain from pure energy, a souffle shouldn't be that much harder.
OTOH if they're capable of replicating the same food over and over, what's to stop them from "replicating" the same human being over and over after they've got their pattern in the transporter?
Which is something they never really address. And honestly Star Trek is probably not the show to do that.
Anyway, it gets better. They also have the ability to make alterations during transport, so instant army of super beings.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
The replicator is converting one set of matter to something else at the atomic level. The replicator is operating at several orders of magnitude lower resolution per particle. They go further and talk about the transport buffer being too large and temporary to treat as a permanent storage/pattern for replication, but of course that brings up the question: given technological advances, why wouldn't this be possible in the relatively near future? Why can't they just duplicate Data over and over again? etc.
The transporters are a little different. Instead of playing god with atoms, you're taking a large, living organism, breaking it down to the smallest parts of atoms, memorizing where those parts are and which direction they are moving/spinning, turning that into energy, and then turning that energy back into those small parts in the exact places while still moving/spinning in the right direction, all while doing it quick enough that the organism experiences very little discomfort and almost no loss of perception (except sometimes the have a hold button?) You don't interrupt anything about the organism that could be considering living, which you don't have to do when you're turning stock material into something not living.
When you turn the poop into steak, you don't give a damn about the things smaller than electrons are doing. That's got to be at least a magnitude "easier" to do.
But then, if some vaccines are too complex to be replicated, but can be transported, does that mean you could build a super-duper replicator that could make that vaccine? Whats the bottleneck here? Would it need more processing power than even the flagship's computer core? More power than a starship's warpcore?
probably requires space gas like that time with Riker.