Editing FederalSpace:Technology (section)

==== Construction, Manufacturing, Agriculture ====

"Smart buildings" are a given. And I want to see O'Neill Cylinders and Stanfard Toruses a plenty—easy enough to do, when you can beam your parts into orbit.

Economy of scale and specialization still apply, so there are still factories—mostly automated, and incorporating whatever assistance this setting's limited nanotech can provide. "Fabricators" are general-purpose manufacturing units, used by starships and start-up colonies—the equivalent of modern "rapid-prototyping" systems. You still need parts and materials, but a full fabrication complex includes the necessary recycling and refining equipment to make use of raw materials, and parts can be manufactured like anything else. Fabricators do have some specialization, i.e. heavy manufacturing unit, fabrics-and-soft-goods unit, organic recycling and food processing, pharmaceutical synthesis, etc. You can't use the chemical synthesis unit to make a phaser, and you can't use the heavy manufacturing unit to make food. "Replicators" are hobbyist-grade fabricators, even more specialized, designed for small lots—plans and recipes circulate widely on the web. This doesn't kill commerce, because, most people don't have the time, knowledge, or interest in finding plans, replicating a device, testing it, maintaining it, etc., when they could just pay the company to do it all for them. 

I envision some truly massive and high-efficiency agricultural layouts, with food fabricators and small, "tradition" organic lots supplementing.

Given the materials technology, there would be some powerful adhesives, solvents, and lubricants, and I see the use of "construction foam" and "fusion-formed concrete."

Terraforming seems likely but it's slow. This requires some thought: if people have been among the stars for about six centuries, I do want some nice "M-class" planets, but not a wealth of them—they should be valuable! Though terraforming may be most useful for making "almost-but-not-quite" worlds into "good enough" worlds; a Mars or LV-426 may still be uninhabitable after 500 years of work, but a more Earth-like world may be a paradise after 200…

'''Pilgrim:''' For what its worth, the transporter can make terraforming '''much''' easier. For Mars, with a bit of work you can beam down water from a comet, without the worries of planetary bombardment. If you've got the power, heat the water, or beam down steam and methane. 

'''Shadowjack:''' It certainly does, doesn't it? That probably speeds up the scale few a few percentage points… 

The transporter really is our general-purpose device to explain lots of space activity. Some settings have super rockets, or beanstalks, or antigrav—this setting has the transporter. 

===== Commentary =====

'''jsnead:''' It makes post scarcity economies much harder though. ['''Shadowjack:''' That's a feature, not a bug, but I get your point. ;) ] I'd instead go with nanotechnology - just limited nanotechnology. Instead of being able to grow a skyscraper from a seed planted in the ground or other wacky-tech, nanotech doesn't work in a normal environment, it only works in ultra-controlled clean rooms, take it out of there, and the nanites die very fast and can't replicate at all.