What I find annoying is how every alternative we know was quickly dismissed by Book in episode 1, even trilithium, with no further explanation, and when we find out about transwarp it has a 50/50 chance of death slapped on it, again without explanation. I understand wanting to avoid infodumps, but we could really use explanations, especially since the crew is as ignorant as the audience up until they find Starfleet.
But Book isn't, so him rattling off trivialities such as "fission-powered motorcycles just aren't a thing" sounds natural and satisfactory to me.
I think the only outright statement we have had in regard to non-replicatability has been in regard to living things.
And even that isn't categorical: the EMH replicated new neural tissue in "Emanations" with nary a comment, and Worf's new spine appears to have been replicated, too. Presumably Nog's leg or the real eyes Pulaski promised LaForge could emerge from a replicator as well, although other options abound.
It's just that there's a big quantitative leap from the nerves to a live puppy. But not a qualitative one. So it could be a resources thing when replication in theory could defeat death. But also an ethical thing, as our heroes deliberately choose death often enough.
Worst case, maybe the Federation has to build Dyson spheres or Dyson swarms to power dilithium manufacturing plants.
Quite possibly it did, and the yield still doesn't meet the demand.
I think everyone must be recrystallizing their dilithium, and it's one of the few things which should be taken for granted since it was perfectly common in TNG. But, recrystallizing dilithium only means their stockpile is not constantly diminishing through use, while fleet expansion would diminish the supplies. Every ship would be more expensive than the last if we assume a finite dilithium supply, and every loss would be ever more costly.
Book does mention his own recrystallizing doodad, so the writers have that covered as well. We just don't know if recrystallizing means that crystals are forever, or only that a crystal that previously lasted for 0.75 missions under the command of a skipper more conservative than Kirk or Picard now lasts for 4.7 missions in the best of cases.
A bigger deal should have been made about Discovery's dilithium supply since it looks like enough for a hundred ships. The 1701-D only ever had the one crystal, while the 1701 had less than a quarter as much as the Discovery. That spore drive must take a ton of power, but with a modern engine it wouldn't need the vast stockpile.
We're still wondering about the role of the warp core in the spore drive - but not as much as earlier on, because the heroes in "People of Earth" jumped to said planet without their warp core! Most of the dilithium might be sitting idly in that chamber, reserved for the multiple weird experiments that the ship was conducting originally, while the warp drive itself only consumes a tiny fraction (and even less now that the engines have been modernized).
In Voyager, Janeway orders Chakotay to de-replicate a gold watch to recover the energy, so if latinum derives value from energy it stands to reason a person can pay for replicator use by de-replicating latinum.
Gotta wonder about that. Chakotay used up resources that might have been better spent creating a good pair of boots - but dereplicating the watch might never result in the creation of those boots, or the regaining of the resources. Rather, Janeway could have ordered that strictly as a punitive measure: "You now have to burn that nice dress because buying it for me means we can't afford an espresso machine, you bastard!".
Timo Saloniemi
