You know I don't see any reason why they couldn't re-engineer parts of the ship layout, even out of dry dock. With replicator technology changing the engineering layout in response to some emerging need would be quite feasible. Maybe moving the reactor would be out of scope. But moving a door? Is that much harder than "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot"?
Possible, perhaps. Practical... I'm less confident about that! 🙂 It isn't just a door being moved but an entire turbolift shaft system. It's definitely major structural work we're talking here, and I'd personally put this out of reach of TNG tech. Fun to ponder, though!
Actually it's one of the areas where they were not prescient: much of the operation of a starship would be less human-heavy if you imagine using drones. Who needs a Jeffrey's tube at all? I think Farscape did this much better with the DRDs.
In this regard, it is helpful to think of Star Trek not as futurism (I'm sorry to say I don't think starships-like-cruise-liners are part of any plausible future) but as a sci-fi romance where the psychological present is reflected in a merely possible future world. I find myself less and less interested in 'realistic' sci-fi, since the supposedly 'realistic' elements seem to purposefully avoid the surreality of our persistent interstellar fantasies. .🙂
If we want to get all technical about it replication does seem to be constrained to small spaces within a replicator device although I believe they refer to "industrial replicators" at times and it's not inconceivable that a starship should be equipped with one. It could be incredibly useful, for example, for dealing with a planetary disaster. But I agree, it's reasonable to rule it impractical.
You know I don't see any reason why they couldn't re-engineer parts of the ship layout, even out of dry dock. With replicator technology changing the engineering layout in response to some emerging need would be quite feasible. Maybe moving the reactor would be out of scope. But moving a door? Is that much harder than "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot"?
Possible, perhaps. Practical... I'm less confident about that! 🙂 It isn't just a door being moved but an entire turbolift shaft system. It's definitely major structural work we're talking here, and I'd personally put this out of reach of TNG tech. Fun to ponder, though!
Actually it's one of the areas where they were not prescient: much of the operation of a starship would be less human-heavy if you imagine using drones. Who needs a Jeffrey's tube at all? I think Farscape did this much better with the DRDs.
In this regard, it is helpful to think of Star Trek not as futurism (I'm sorry to say I don't think starships-like-cruise-liners are part of any plausible future) but as a sci-fi romance where the psychological present is reflected in a merely possible future world. I find myself less and less interested in 'realistic' sci-fi, since the supposedly 'realistic' elements seem to purposefully avoid the surreality of our persistent interstellar fantasies. .🙂
If we want to get all technical about it replication does seem to be constrained to small spaces within a replicator device although I believe they refer to "industrial replicators" at times and it's not inconceivable that a starship should be equipped with one. It could be incredibly useful, for example, for dealing with a planetary disaster. But I agree, it's reasonable to rule it impractical.