Had to look this up on Memory Alpha. The base principle for both replicators and transporters is confusingly termed “matter-energy conversion”, yet doesn’t appear to create matter from pure energy. Rather, it seems to use energy to convert matter from/to atomic or subatomic particles (for replicators and transporters, respectively). During the process, the matter is “energized”, and - I’m no expert, but - I’d imagine the subatomic particles in the transporter’s matter stream exhibit energy-like properties.
So replicators do rely on atomic matter stores (often recycled from waste or unnecessary items), and I’d still expect the conversion processes to use a lot of energy, but not as much as creating the raw matter.
Had to look this up on Memory Alpha. The base principle for both replicators and transporters is confusingly termed “matter-energy conversion”, yet doesn’t appear to create matter from pure energy. Rather, it seems to use energy to convert matter from/to atomic or subatomic particles (for replicators and transporters, respectively). During the process, the matter is “energized”, and - I’m no expert, but - I’d imagine the subatomic particles in the transporter’s matter stream exhibit energy-like properties.
So replicators do rely on atomic matter stores (often recycled from waste or unnecessary items), and I’d still expect the conversion processes to use a lot of energy, but not as much as creating the raw matter.
This is sort of what I imagined it would be. Maybe stored as up quarks, down quarks, and elections? Quarks, leptons, and bosons?
I am WAY outta my depth.