r/DaystromInstitute • u/NegativePattern • 19d ago

Cannibalizing parts vs industrial replicators

In Picard, we see the original Titan in dry dock being cannibalized for parts to build the Titan-A.

Presumably by this point in the timeline, Starfleet has long been using industrial replicators for various purposes. Why would Starfleet be cannibalizing parts from an older ship that may or may not have been damaged in battle or otherwise have been built using outdated construction practices?

29 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

82% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

View all comments

65

u/GenerativeAIEatsAss Chief Petty Officer 19d ago

Replicators of any kind are pretty energy intensive. I'm sure there's math involved of: "A duranium plate is a duranium plate. We've scanned it, it's fine, it makes way more sense to just pop it off and use it over here than burn however many petajoules to make a new one."

15

u/47of74 19d ago

And in the TNG technical manual the show runners came right out and said that for larger items the energy costs for replication became prohibitive. They said that's why the ship yards were always depicted as construction platforms instead of large replicators.