Let's say I decide I've had enough with this whole Federation business and that humanity would be better represented by a Starfleet that follows my particular ideology. Assuming I could get enough people for crew and support, why can't I start my own Starfleet?
I could replicate ship parts until I have a couple vessels. Go to new worlds and present myself as the official first contact of humanity. I could fly to Vulcan or Bajor and tell them no actually my organization represents humanity.
What's going to stop me?
Most structural starship components would require large industrial replicators.
These seem to always be centrally located and powered.
What someone can do with a small home model would be quite different.
Raw material, I would imagine. I don't remember exactly how replicators work in the Star Trek universe, but they either rely on energy, a raw base material, or both. You can't create something out of nothing so you would need a significant supply chain to produce your fleet.
If it were that easy, every rogue organization in the galaxy would have already done it before you.
Yep, raw material and a net energy loss.
The Federation might have both in abundance, but I highly doubt that much energy consumption is allowed.
Could I replicate charged batteries, then plug them in? Or would it take more energy to make the battery than you could get out of it? After all a battery is just a chemical reaction.
Of course you could. The process will take more energy than replicating a drained battery too.
My understanding is that replicators restructure atoms. In which case an asteroid would be plenty of material for a ship, even if some of it is lost in the process.
OK cool, now if only you had a ship to go get the asteroid so you could make a ship. My last point still stands though, if it were really that easy...
Sisko built a ship that could travel between planets and it didn't even have an engine....
Nothing. Nick Locarno basically did that, and it ended TREMENDOUSLY WELL. 😉
Granted it was only one ship; the rest were mutinies.
the protostar can replicate a whole shuttlecraft so sky is the limit (not really I guess)
