What's the most improbable aspect of the Trek universe?

[Mikey]

Falling debris or a hole in the bridge is a messy way to kill off the bridge crew. A handy exploding panel is much nicer.

So, they're like seppuku panels?

[thelordharry]

The 'sensors' and 'scanners' of Trek always seem a bit far fetched to me (I feel stupid for saying that, what with Warp Drive, Matter Teleportation, solid matter Holodecks etc but go with me on this one ) Being able to scan for stuff impossible distances away and getting an accurate reading, down to how many lifeforms on a far-away planet? The Tri-corders are another cracker. This little box that somehow scans things and can instantly tell you everything you could possibly know about any situation.

On the subject of tri-corders, wasn't there a VOY episode where Chakotay is fiddling with a tri-corder that's broken or he's trying to calibrate it and someone says something to him about how it works? Might have dreamt it... Any canon on how they work?

[steamrunner]

Thanks, Rochey - I really appreciate it!

The Memory Alpha article on the Universal Translator is here.

[The piman]

another thing are those healer gadgets the doctors use to pretty much heal a smaller sized wound by just moving the beam of the gadget over the wound. ???

[Mark]

Sure....they're beaming the wound closed.

[Reliant121]

Maybe not beaming but...could it be possible to replicate human tissue?

[Tsukiyumi]

...could it be possible to replicate human tissue?

Considering their inability to replicate blood, I'd have to say it's unlikely.

[Sonic Glitch]

...could it be possible to replicate human tissue?

Considering their inability to replicate blood, I'd have to say it's unlikely.

Could it be some sort of Magic Field which stimulates cell growth? That's kind of what I assumed

[Graham Kennedy]

It's been said before that you can't replicate living organisms, and that includes bacteria, etc. There was even an Enterprise ep where Mayweather was replaced with a replicated identical body as a ruse to kidnap him, and Phlox twigged to it because some "friendly bacteria" thing he'd injected a few days earlier were all lifeless in the replicated body.

Whether it's a fundamental limitation or something they will overcome eventually, who can say. I can't see writers anytime soon depicting a society that can duplicate living people at the touch of a button. Too big a can of worms.

[Captain Seafort]

It's been said before that you can't replicate living organisms, and that includes bacteria, etc. There was even an Enterprise ep where Mayweather was replaced with a replicated identical body as a ruse to kidnap him, and Phlox twigged to it because some "friendly bacteria" thing he'd injected a few days earlier were all lifeless in the replicated body.

Whether it's a fundamental limitation or something they will overcome eventually, who can say. I can't see writers anytime soon depicting a society that can duplicate living people at the touch of a button. Too big a can of worms.

If they can't duplicate people, then what exactly is Thomas Riker doing wandering around breathing?

[Sonic Glitch]

It's been said before that you can't replicate living organisms, and that includes bacteria, etc. There was even an Enterprise ep where Mayweather was replaced with a replicated identical body as a ruse to kidnap him, and Phlox twigged to it because some "friendly bacteria" thing he'd injected a few days earlier were all lifeless in the replicated body.

Whether it's a fundamental limitation or something they will overcome eventually, who can say. I can't see writers anytime soon depicting a society that can duplicate living people at the touch of a button. Too big a can of worms.

If they can't duplicate people, then what exactly is Thomas Riker doing wandering around breathing?

[Graham Kennedy]

Riker was a freak accident caused by the conditions on the planet, and not replicatable by Federation technology. And he was duplicated with a transporter, not a replicator. According to the TMs, the thing that stops replicators creating living stuff is that they operate on a lower "resolution" when putting it all back together, so you get atoms not where they are meant to be. Doesn't matter much if you are creating a phaser or a steak, does if you are creating a person.

[Mark]

It's been said before that you can't replicate living organisms, and that includes bacteria, etc. There was even an Enterprise ep where Mayweather was replaced with a replicated identical body as a ruse to kidnap him, and Phlox twigged to it because some "friendly bacteria" thing he'd injected a few days earlier were all lifeless in the replicated body.

Whether it's a fundamental limitation or something they will overcome eventually, who can say. I can't see writers anytime soon depicting a society that can duplicate living people at the touch of a button. Too big a can of worms.

If they can't duplicate people, then what exactly is Thomas Riker doing wandering around breathing?

The transporter is the key to everything

[Mikey]

...could it be possible to replicate human tissue?

Considering their inability to replicate blood, I'd have to say it's unlikely.

Could it be some sort of Magic Field which stimulates cell growth? That's kind of what I assumed

Kinda what I thought, too - some way to hyperstimulate mitosis.

[Sionnach Glic]

It could be that the UFP's limitation is that it can't intentionally replicate human tissue. Thus things like Thomas Riker are once-off anomalies, caused by conditions that were unexpected and difficult (or perhaps impossible) to reproduce.