Hey yall! I’m stoned af and watching star trek on a weekend, naturally. I lost my place since last weekend in TNG season 3, but I knew that I wasn’t far in so I just watched all the intros until I found where I left off. Episode 8 “the price”, Troi gets frustrated with the replicator for wanting a “real” chocolate sundae. This raised a question for me, wouldn’t food replicators be intelligent enough to simulate the process of “the standard” ingredients being processed into the recipe? Like I thought that was the point of being able to say “Earl grey tea, hot”. Like wouldn’t she just have to say “betazoid chocolate sundae” or whatever?
EDIT: SECOND QUESTION: Say you have a family recipe cookbook or whatever and the comfort food is in that cookbook, couldn’t you just say “simulate the process of making the recipe from this cookbook”?
The Technical Manual explanation is that replicators save storage space by using statistical averaging techniques in the molecular patterns, resulting in single-bit “errors” that some people swear they can taste.
The averaging is the difference between a replicator and the absolute precision of a transporter.
The transporter has the level of precision and memory capacity to perfectly replicate real food.
The replicator is just a close approximation. It’s controlled for food safety and nutrition but the sense of smell and taste may be able to distinguish the food from a precise duplication.