Replicator
The machine that makes meals and objects on demand.
In Star Trek, a replicator is a machine that can create and recycle things. At first it simply produced meals on demand, but later series show it making much larger non-food items. Whether a thing is replicated or real sometimes drives the plot.
Quick Facts
- Source
- Star Trek
- Source type
- franchise
- First
- Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Creator
- Gene Roddenberry
- Genre
- Science fiction
- Uses
- Synthesis of organic and inorganic materials via rearrangement of subatomic particles
- Affiliation
- Starfleet
Lore & Background
The word "replicator" was first used in Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the device is a 24th-century successor to the 23rd-century food synthesizer of the original series, which produced food in coloured cubes.
The animated series showed realistic food on request, and the prequel Star Trek: Enterprise, set in the 22nd century, had a more limited protein resequencer.
More in Technology & Artifacts
Elsewhere in Star Trek
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