When my son headed off to engineering school, one of the “must-have” items we sold to my wife was a 3D printer. Two years later it seems like a poor substitute for a toy when compared to the consumer level, state of the art like I’ve attached to this post.
In Privateer Tales, replicators are able to produce just about anything a person has the pattern and materials for. There are limitations but mostly those limitations are related to the size or in some cases the complexity of the resultant object. For example, in Rookie Privateer, Liam pays to have a long section of extremely complex septic filtration tube printed. Since he had the pattern the actual replicating was very inexpensive.
Today, we’re rapidly approaching this type of technology. In 10-30 years we will have the ability and expectation that if we can draw it in 3-space then we should be able to produce it. The change to our society will be profound. If manufacturing any smaller object is both inexpensive and quick, why would we feel the need to hold on to and collect these objects. Ever have a favorite shirt that you just can’t replace because you have no idea who manufactured it? Just replicate it. Pants getting a little snug after Thanksgiving? Replicate a new pair.
My hope is that we will research the flip side of replication which is the reclamation of materials. If i could toss the stuff I don’t want anymore into a material recycler and then use that as the input to a replicator we’d have a sustainable process.
No matter what, it will be fun to see what happens in this space for the foreseeable future.
