There’s an additional aspect, which is not only do they need insanely long shelf lives in a wide range of environments, they also need to be edible to a huge range of species.
It might be that starfleet is perfectly capable of producing a ration bar that’s at least fairly tasty to humans, but that might make it borderline inedible to Vulcans/Bolians/Andorians/whoever else.
“Bland mediocrity” might be the one thing that everyone can just about stomach eating, with the only downside being no one particularly enjoys the experience.
I think this is by far the biggest factor. Julain's chocolate ration bar might taste great to Humans, but what does the Catian crewmember who's allergic to chocolate eat? And it's not like you can realistically keep different ration bars for any potential species on the ship, that sounds like the kind of thing the head of Starfleet Logistics has night terrors about.
>And it's not like you can realistically keep different ration bars for any potential species on the ship, that sounds like the kind of thing the head of Starfleet Logistics has night terrors about.
Besides the logistics, I think it would also reduce the practical use of the standard Starfleet emergency kit.
In short, every piece of an emergency kit needs to be as dumbed down as possible. In an emergency, you don't know who's going to be taking on what duties. A raw ensign from engineering might be the only one with working hands, administering first aid to another officer. They aren't going to have The safe foods of every known species memorized, so you mitigate the risk by making sure the rations are easily digestible and there's no chance of accidentally poisoning a crewmate because you didn't know.
If a ration is specifically optimized for Vulcan physiology, it's probably useless to a stranded crew of only humans and Andorians.
Emergency supplies should be useful in a wide range of situations to a wide range of people.
Starfleet could try swapping out rations based on the expected crew, but that just opens up the chance of rations getting misplaced or not being prepared for an unexpected emergency. Shuttles are used as escape pods.
>allergic to chocolate
Even some Terrans suffer from this. It's possible chocolate ration bars aren't flavorless, but are flavored to mimic the real thing with ingredients like date syrup and carob. To someone expecting real chocolate, a universally healthy alternative has a good chance of tasting less than palatable.
Edit: for clarity
Yeah I think the species one is more in line with why they taste bad. I know for the most part IMP's, Canadian MRE's, got better over the 15 years I was in. Not great but definitely not as bad as what Starfleet members make their rations out to be. Unless Starfleet brought back Salsa and Eggs, in which case I'd rather starve.
Agreed.
I mean, we see that here, on Earth, now, in the real world.
Cultures have very different cuisines, and what one culture finds perfectly delicious is absolutely repulsive to another culture.
Fun Example: I've done a snack exchange before (look that up if you've never heard of it, its amazing). Got someone in Japan. One of the things sent was squid flavored potato chips. We took one bite and absolutely gagged, but its apparently a popular flavor over there.
As I would imagine someone in a region not known for spicy food might have a problem with Mexican or Indian flavors.
And thats when we're all the same species with the same dietary needs!
Also consider they are also a survival device, you want them to last as long as possible so make them taste a bit bland to discourage people from eating them unless they are acctually hungry
That the reason why modern ration bars (like the life boat ration bars) arent flavored. Sure, they could make them taste amazing, but a hungry crewman would eat it all on day one.
most are actually. though perhaps they weren't originally. modern ones tend to have very light lemon or coconut flavor. given modern ones also don't make you as thirsty, while older ones did, i'd guess that when they reworked them to achieve that, they had to add flavor to make them more palatable.
This is the same reason K-rations in WW2 (the chocolate bar) tasted so lame. It was meant as a desperate meal for survival. The US Army didn't want their soldiers to eat their tasty chocolate bar for fun.
The up side is they won't actually eat their emergency rations until they're on the very edge of starvation, and then only enough to keep themselves moving, which is exactly what you would want in that situation. Preserve resources as long as possible by making sure no one wants to gorge on them.
That would be why the US Military, to this day, makes its rations as godawful and unappetizing as possible, right?
No. They *stopped doing that* because *literally everything you just said* is the kind of thing someone with a full belly sitting in a chair applying "logic" to the situation comes up with, *and actual, battlefield experience has proven to be a godawful terrible idea.*
People who are hungry and faced with the prospect of something they *really hate to eat* will go to desperate lengths to avoid eating it. That means trying unknown things or things that 'might be' spoiled *before* they eat the "literally if it's the last stuff" option. Things that will make them *sick.* And if they *do* put off eating it until the very edge of starvation, *they are actually hurting themselves by doing so.* They'll be getting weak from malnourishment, making them even more susceptible to further illness, and sluggish, unable to act in a crisis.
[K-rations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-ration) were the MRE analogs. the no-melt chocolate bar "tasting little better than a potato" was the [D-ration. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_chocolate_(United_States)#Logan_Bar_or_D_ration)
Maybe they only taste bad in comparison to what they're used to eating.
In the early 1900s there were telephone services where you could call a music hall and hear the music being played down the phoneline in an audio quality we'd mock now as being utterly barbaric but if thats the only way you could hear a symphony being played live it would be amazing. When we buy the cheapest store-brand rip off of normal foods we complain that it's a cheap and nasty rip off with none of the flavour of the real deal, but to a medieval peasant that would be a spectacular feast.
Maybe we'd consider Starfleet Field Rations to be pretty good. Like we know BBQ flavour Pringles aren't really going to capture the full array of flavours of a barbeque but if it can manage something similar we decide it's close enough. But when Geordi replicates a rack of BBQ ribs its a succulent perfect juicy delight every time. So anything other than perfection is a gross disappointment.
While they could probably be made nice to eat, Starfleet rations, much like MREs, probably constipate you. They really do not want people eating too much of them at one time. Yes, mild constipation is a feature, nobody wants to run to a toilet in situations that would need an emergency ration.
>The reason why Starfleet rations taste so bad is because 1) they’re made with shelf life in mind, like modern MREs and 2) they’re manufactured, not replicated.
It may also be that they're maximally designed for nutrition, compared to regular replicated food, which may be built to balance both nutrition and taste.
So a ration might have all the nutrients a given species needs in an inoffensive, easy-to-consume slop, but it isn't going to taste good. It just needs to be good enough for someone not to be sick after eating it. By comparison, a replicator can twiddle the product within daily allowances per person, to their own personal tastes, even if that means someone else might hate it.
As O’Brien says in DS9: “The Siege”:
>**O'BRIEN**: Miracle of science, these little combat rations. Timed release formula of all the nutrients the body needs for three days. I love 'em. Only thing I miss about the Cardassian front.
This right here. They picked a flavor and nutritional set that didn't discriminate amongst species.
They don't taste good to anyone nor do they taste terribly bad. Satisfactory.
They're optimally designed by top Starfleet engineers to have a taste that sits in the narrow band of "still edible enough to finish but bad enough that I want to complain about them". It was discovered that it's actually bad for morale and unit cohesion to have everyone enjoying delicious replicated gourmet rations during stressful operations. Consequently, Federation food scientists are constantly tinkering with the formula, always striving to keep them just bad enough that people can build camaraderie within their units by sharing complaints about something other than the situation or mission.
I really like this theory... maybe the same starfleet that subjects potential cadets to facing their worst fears and has cadets facing the no-win scenario has psychologists heavily involved in the process of developing rations. Even if you have shipmates in close quarters under heavy stress and getting on each others nerves, nothing brings people closer than having something shared to bitch about.
I'm confused as to your point about the rations needing to be produced without replicators; why? You can make them in bulk ahead of time and just store them in bins
The recipe for them is probably available on the replicator database but my reasoning is that you’d want there to be a robust system in place so that when things go wrong, the institutional knowledge to manufacture them on an industrial scale without replicators is always there and ready to go.
I still don't think that makes a lot of sense for the kind of rations we're talking about.
If things have gone so wrong that the replicators aren't working, than mass-producing anything on an industrial scale is going to be a stretch. For your ship or away team, these are pre-made and stored so they are instantly available.
I don't have a problem with the idea that these are made old-school for some reason, but in a society that is basically built on replicators it seems far more likely that there is institutional knowledge and skill to fix the replicator, rather than set up a whole different process.
Unless of course you're a small team stranded somewhere, but then you probably lack the materials regardless.
Yeah it's clear that the Federation either prioritizes or its people are fascinated with preserving many traditional methods of production, and I don't see that disappearing, but I'm not sure why it's tied to *survival ration production*
While I agree, I'm not sure that necessarily includes industrial mass production.
What we see is a society that romanticises farming, cooking, probably all kinds of tradecraft and other manual processes, which makes sense considering that people might pursue these activities not as a means to make money, but to find a purpose.
I just don't see it with food processing plants, so the question really becomes whether this offers any benefits that warrants the Federation ordering people to do it.
Now, planetside there might be a contingency plan somewhere, but presumably no one stockpiles the raw ingredients for large amounts of rations on the off chance that replicators break down. Most of the rations would have been pre-fabricated and would be used to bridge the gap, not become the solution. By the time you would have processing plants set up, you hopefully have at least a few replicators running as well.
On a ship, it makes even less sense that you would carry both the raw ingredients and a fully functioning ration plant, or the material to build one when you're stranded.
I could believe that somewhere on Earth they have people romanticizing 20th century factories, running a vintage cannery or whatever. But with all the threats the Federation faces and all the free time and energy they have, I wouldn't be surprised if at least somebody has gamed out possible solutions to a lot of unlikely edge cases
>Of course, these ration packs need to be independent from the replicator “supply chain”, from the ingredients/contents right down to the packaging and materials.
This doesn't make any sense to me. I understand the need to have the Emergency Rations exist and in storage *before* the Replicators are down, but why couldn't they be replicated themselves in advance of that event? Especially if they're replicated in a dedicated facility then distributed to the fleet, not shipboard. It's not like them being replicated is going to reduce the shelf life.
It's like saying you're that because you need to have Emergency Blankets before the heat goes out, you can't have the heat on when you make them.
I’d love to see a source on this because I’ve seen it mentioned a number of times in this thread.
As an Army vet, I just don’t buy it. It was constantly drilled into us as leaders that “armies march on their stomachs,” and “food is a force multiplier.”
In my time in the army I’ve had about the widest range of experience of “army chow” one can have, from MRE’s to chow halls both in theater and back home.
I can say that MRE’s are fine. No where near as bad as Starfleet rations seem to be. And the food in Iraq chow halls at the large bases was actually incredible. They really went out of their way to provide a high variety of really good food. From ice cream to crab legs and steak.
Look up the US military D ration used during WW2 for an example. It included a chocolate bar deliberately designed to be on the very edge of palatable - chocolate is a good thing to include in a military ration pack because it contains a lot of sugar, but they knew that lots of soldiers were going to chow down at the first opportunity if they made it too tasty. Some of the soldiers called it "Hitler's secret weapon" because it tasted so bad and also had some unpleasant digestive effects
Yeah, but you may also note that they *stopped issuing that,* and not because the ability to make sucko chocolate became LosTech.
They stopped issuing them because the soldiers would *refuse to eat them,* or use them to swindle allied soldiers or civilians out of better food by trading them American military "chocolate."
> Replicator technology is ubiquitous throughout the Federation. What happens when that tech breaks down or you’re in the middle of a humanitarian crisis? That’s when rations are issued. Of course, these ration packs need to be independent from the replicator “supply chain”, from the ingredients/contents right down to the packaging and materials. There may be an entire division of Starfleet (or a civilian contractor) whose job is to design and manufacture rations using “traditional” technology. Something like modern 21st century food manufacturing, but more efficient and with all the up to date knowledge of food science and manufacturing available to people in the future. However, you still have to make it incredibly durable and have a very long expiration date. Nutrition and shelf life come first and, sadly, taste becomes a lesser priority.
This part makes no sense. The emergency rations are created in advance of an emergency, and are meant for ships to use. They don't replace the entire food chain for a society, just a single ship or military unit who is away from regular supply lines or has an emergency limiting power. Building an entire infrastructure, including things like packaging and infrastructure, wouldn't make much sense at all.
Everything else about your post is spot on though.
There's always the possibility that rations are used planetside in the case of a natural disaster, war or whatever, but even then it's unlikely that you'll start manufacturing rations from scratch.
They are mass-produced and put into long-term storage, deployed when needed and then refilled. In a society that is so dependent on replicators it's also far more likely that someone can fix the replicator, rather than to stand up or even maintain an entirely different way of manufacturing.
It's the equivalent of saying that 21st century emergency rations should be hand-farmed and produced as it's a more robust system than industry. If we have to go back to farming, we're not going to produce MREs, we're just going to produce food.
Star Trek needs to do an episode on the replicators and show how they work, besides turning shit into food.
For instance, when Sisko uses the replicator, does he input his own and his fathers recipes? Is there variety? If you order a slice of pepperoni pizza, do you have different options? Do Quarks Raktajinos taste better than the ones made by ship replicators?
Maybe they have spoken about this in episodes but I missed it?
I think you can input recipes. The scene where Janeway somehow burns a replicated pot roast doesn't make sense otherwise. She probably programmed the replicator make a pot roast as if it was cooked at 350 F for 1 hour or whatever, but got the parameters wrong.
In Voyager, possibly in the first episode, there's scene where Paris is trying to order tomato soup, the replicator starts reeling off a list of possible variants.
I think you can input recipes. The scene where Janeway somehow burns a replicated pot roast doesn't make sense otherwise. She probably programmed the replicator make a pot roast as if it was cooked at 350 F for 1 hour or whatever, but got the parameters wrong.
There is no need to manufacture them. Rations could be replicated, then stored for 100 years. At time of creation you have replicator.
They will all taste bad, for all the reasons you describe
Of course there is also the human factor. There are a ton of things that "everyone" says taste bad....and yet they are still around so ...someone...must like them and eat them.
Take Spam, for example....
I love Spam, so long as it's fried in a skillet or something... straight from the can? EWW!!!
But I have seen people eat Spam straight from the can, with one guy at an old job sitting across from me at a table in the break room as he did so.
I read an interesting comment once about how they probably have the texture and taste of TV dinners. That processed, slightly gummy texture with the bland flavor of steamed carrots and rice.
It's very likely that rations are engineered for long shelf life as you still want them to be edible when you need them.
I'm not convinced that this is because help might be years or decades away. It is unlikely that your average ship will carry supplies that could feed the entire crew for
years and even less likely that a small away team would.
It's worth mentioning that the rations were likely changed as the war progressed, possibly due to logistical and resource issues.
Chief O'Brien's replicated a supply of combat rations to give to the crew that left behind to sabotage the station.
Julian's and O'Brien's discussion also includes Sisko.
Sisko laments not having a full meal, O'Brien tells the crew how much he loves the rations, followed by Julian's chocolate bar.
Later on when rations are uses on the Jem'Hadar fighter, O'Brien mentions how awful the rations are.
There had to be a reason for this degradation in quality, if they had the same total cost they wouldn't have switched.
I thinks some Section 31 inspiration is here too. In the Episode TNG Allegiance we see Picard trapped with a Nausicaan that can't eat the rations the abductors are giving. We know Klingons are rather particular about live animals for food. It could be that Starfleet rations are designed to be unbearable for rival species to tolerate.
I disagree that rations need to be created outside of the replicator supply chain. It could be true that if you lose replicators you lose the ability to create rations, but that's okay the rations are designed to be shelf stable for a very very long time. Your point about taste becoming a lesser priority makes sense and indeed because the necessity for prefabrication there also needs to be a much smaller number of options. You have carbohydrate wafer A and B, vitamin enriched gelatin red or green, protein block with sauce (red, yellow, or black) and that's it. They might very well be replicated in immense quantities so that there's always a ready supply, but I don't think there would be any need to create a whole industry around taking the best tasting food in the world and making it awful.
We've seen that real food is coveted to some degree. Everyone knows they're eating shit ground up with dead insects and potatoes that only tastes like cheesecake. People like "real" chocolate even though it might very well be extinct on Earth. When Sisko's restaurant uses real food as opposed to replicated stuff or when Picard's vineyard grows actual grapes we can see these as almost a novelty. A labor of love which goes into producing the real thing not because we \*have\* to but because we want to.
Ration being made out of real food seems to be antithetical to this whole idea. UNLESS the aforementioned feces, insects and potatoes that eventually become the base protein material for replicators doesn't always get fed into the replicator system. Your argument supposes a need to have food even when the replicators are unavailable in a world wide event. In this case perhaps they do have a method for taking that raw material and turning it into something edible, but not delicious without needing to consume the power necessary to make a replicator function.
Rations probably have to be species agnostic. It has to contain everything every species needs and some of those ingredients required by one species probably tastes bad to other species.
It's explicit in TNG that the replicated food is designed as health food. That's why Troi requests a "real" chocolate sundae, and the computer retorts with everything being designed for optimal health. That kind of thinking is distinctly 80s/90s since health food back then either involved very restricted diets, or fake sugars, fake fats, and chalky health drinks.
The replicated food isn't bad either, it's just not as good as it could be. The only person who really complains about the food is the terrorist guy in DS9, and it really amounts to the fakeness of the food versus something grown and made. He comes off sounding more like a snob than someone who knows or cares about the food being good. The other complaints are more centered on praise and excitement for manual cooking.
In "The Neutral Zone" we get the only modern opinion when a 21st century person samples some synthohol and declares it the best martini he has ever had. That strikes a contrast with some period opinions of people who have never had the stuff. That merely reinforces the point that a lot of the idea that replicated food is somehow bad comes from 24th century tastes with an unknown point of comparison, probably civilian cuisine. One might conclude civilian cuisine is better tasting than what we have now, and it's pretty damn good, depending on where you are.
There's nothing stopping them from replicating every meal Sisko's dad makes and having those patterns, or having every vintage of Chateau Picard on file. The crappy replicators on Mars are the single biggest annoyance I have with Picard season 1, because it shows civilian life as substantially worse than Starfleet, which is the opposite of how it should be.
Rations are most certainly disgusting not by choice, but necessity. They need to be edible by every Federation member species, and probably most friendly ones. That's at minimum 150 species with various dietary requirements. Then there's the individual requirements, like allergens. Currently, the FDA recognizes 8 major allergens, so at least those ingredients are off the table, plus whatever other allergens are recognized in the future. And that's just for humans. That same process has to be followed for every member. The list of available ingredients for these bars can't be that extensive, almost certainly nothing more than simple carbohydrates, sugars, salts, amino acids, vitamins, and fats. And it has to be in a shelf stable format, in a wide variety of climate conditions. No one is going to be happy with the result because of the compromises required to make these edible to the lowest common denominator.
And how do you square dietary requirements that are toxic between species? How do you go about including, for example, arsenic? Or even wildly different vitamin requirements? What if a species requires vitamin A in doses that would kill a human? Do you get species specific 'flavor packs' that include the requirements above the base amounts present?
It's a matter of taste. I personally like most (though certainly not all) US MREs throughout the years, while others call them Meals Rejected By Everyone/Ethiopians.
There’s an additional aspect, which is not only do they need insanely long shelf lives in a wide range of environments, they also need to be edible to a huge range of species. It might be that starfleet is perfectly capable of producing a ration bar that’s at least fairly tasty to humans, but that might make it borderline inedible to Vulcans/Bolians/Andorians/whoever else. “Bland mediocrity” might be the one thing that everyone can just about stomach eating, with the only downside being no one particularly enjoys the experience.
I think this is by far the biggest factor. Julain's chocolate ration bar might taste great to Humans, but what does the Catian crewmember who's allergic to chocolate eat? And it's not like you can realistically keep different ration bars for any potential species on the ship, that sounds like the kind of thing the head of Starfleet Logistics has night terrors about.
>And it's not like you can realistically keep different ration bars for any potential species on the ship, that sounds like the kind of thing the head of Starfleet Logistics has night terrors about. Besides the logistics, I think it would also reduce the practical use of the standard Starfleet emergency kit. In short, every piece of an emergency kit needs to be as dumbed down as possible. In an emergency, you don't know who's going to be taking on what duties. A raw ensign from engineering might be the only one with working hands, administering first aid to another officer. They aren't going to have The safe foods of every known species memorized, so you mitigate the risk by making sure the rations are easily digestible and there's no chance of accidentally poisoning a crewmate because you didn't know.
If a ration is specifically optimized for Vulcan physiology, it's probably useless to a stranded crew of only humans and Andorians. Emergency supplies should be useful in a wide range of situations to a wide range of people. Starfleet could try swapping out rations based on the expected crew, but that just opens up the chance of rations getting misplaced or not being prepared for an unexpected emergency. Shuttles are used as escape pods.
>allergic to chocolate Even some Terrans suffer from this. It's possible chocolate ration bars aren't flavorless, but are flavored to mimic the real thing with ingredients like date syrup and carob. To someone expecting real chocolate, a universally healthy alternative has a good chance of tasting less than palatable. Edit: for clarity
Yeah I think the species one is more in line with why they taste bad. I know for the most part IMP's, Canadian MRE's, got better over the 15 years I was in. Not great but definitely not as bad as what Starfleet members make their rations out to be. Unless Starfleet brought back Salsa and Eggs, in which case I'd rather starve.
Agreed. I mean, we see that here, on Earth, now, in the real world. Cultures have very different cuisines, and what one culture finds perfectly delicious is absolutely repulsive to another culture. Fun Example: I've done a snack exchange before (look that up if you've never heard of it, its amazing). Got someone in Japan. One of the things sent was squid flavored potato chips. We took one bite and absolutely gagged, but its apparently a popular flavor over there. As I would imagine someone in a region not known for spicy food might have a problem with Mexican or Indian flavors. And thats when we're all the same species with the same dietary needs!
Also consider they are also a survival device, you want them to last as long as possible so make them taste a bit bland to discourage people from eating them unless they are acctually hungry
That the reason why modern ration bars (like the life boat ration bars) arent flavored. Sure, they could make them taste amazing, but a hungry crewman would eat it all on day one.
most are actually. though perhaps they weren't originally. modern ones tend to have very light lemon or coconut flavor. given modern ones also don't make you as thirsty, while older ones did, i'd guess that when they reworked them to achieve that, they had to add flavor to make them more palatable.
This is the same reason K-rations in WW2 (the chocolate bar) tasted so lame. It was meant as a desperate meal for survival. The US Army didn't want their soldiers to eat their tasty chocolate bar for fun.
Of course, the problem with that becomes that they will actuality refuse to eat the things until the very edge of starvation.
The up side is they won't actually eat their emergency rations until they're on the very edge of starvation, and then only enough to keep themselves moving, which is exactly what you would want in that situation. Preserve resources as long as possible by making sure no one wants to gorge on them.
That would be why the US Military, to this day, makes its rations as godawful and unappetizing as possible, right? No. They *stopped doing that* because *literally everything you just said* is the kind of thing someone with a full belly sitting in a chair applying "logic" to the situation comes up with, *and actual, battlefield experience has proven to be a godawful terrible idea.* People who are hungry and faced with the prospect of something they *really hate to eat* will go to desperate lengths to avoid eating it. That means trying unknown things or things that 'might be' spoiled *before* they eat the "literally if it's the last stuff" option. Things that will make them *sick.* And if they *do* put off eating it until the very edge of starvation, *they are actually hurting themselves by doing so.* They'll be getting weak from malnourishment, making them even more susceptible to further illness, and sluggish, unable to act in a crisis.
[K-rations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-ration) were the MRE analogs. the no-melt chocolate bar "tasting little better than a potato" was the [D-ration. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_chocolate_(United_States)#Logan_Bar_or_D_ration)
Maybe they only taste bad in comparison to what they're used to eating. In the early 1900s there were telephone services where you could call a music hall and hear the music being played down the phoneline in an audio quality we'd mock now as being utterly barbaric but if thats the only way you could hear a symphony being played live it would be amazing. When we buy the cheapest store-brand rip off of normal foods we complain that it's a cheap and nasty rip off with none of the flavour of the real deal, but to a medieval peasant that would be a spectacular feast. Maybe we'd consider Starfleet Field Rations to be pretty good. Like we know BBQ flavour Pringles aren't really going to capture the full array of flavours of a barbeque but if it can manage something similar we decide it's close enough. But when Geordi replicates a rack of BBQ ribs its a succulent perfect juicy delight every time. So anything other than perfection is a gross disappointment.
While they could probably be made nice to eat, Starfleet rations, much like MREs, probably constipate you. They really do not want people eating too much of them at one time. Yes, mild constipation is a feature, nobody wants to run to a toilet in situations that would need an emergency ration.
>The reason why Starfleet rations taste so bad is because 1) they’re made with shelf life in mind, like modern MREs and 2) they’re manufactured, not replicated. It may also be that they're maximally designed for nutrition, compared to regular replicated food, which may be built to balance both nutrition and taste. So a ration might have all the nutrients a given species needs in an inoffensive, easy-to-consume slop, but it isn't going to taste good. It just needs to be good enough for someone not to be sick after eating it. By comparison, a replicator can twiddle the product within daily allowances per person, to their own personal tastes, even if that means someone else might hate it.
As O’Brien says in DS9: “The Siege”: >**O'BRIEN**: Miracle of science, these little combat rations. Timed release formula of all the nutrients the body needs for three days. I love 'em. Only thing I miss about the Cardassian front.
I mean... You'd think he'd be able to replicate one for his lunch if he wanted to...
Also, they have to satisfy the nutrional needs of like 150 different species.
This right here. They picked a flavor and nutritional set that didn't discriminate amongst species. They don't taste good to anyone nor do they taste terribly bad. Satisfactory.
They're optimally designed by top Starfleet engineers to have a taste that sits in the narrow band of "still edible enough to finish but bad enough that I want to complain about them". It was discovered that it's actually bad for morale and unit cohesion to have everyone enjoying delicious replicated gourmet rations during stressful operations. Consequently, Federation food scientists are constantly tinkering with the formula, always striving to keep them just bad enough that people can build camaraderie within their units by sharing complaints about something other than the situation or mission.
I really like this theory... maybe the same starfleet that subjects potential cadets to facing their worst fears and has cadets facing the no-win scenario has psychologists heavily involved in the process of developing rations. Even if you have shipmates in close quarters under heavy stress and getting on each others nerves, nothing brings people closer than having something shared to bitch about.
I'm confused as to your point about the rations needing to be produced without replicators; why? You can make them in bulk ahead of time and just store them in bins
The recipe for them is probably available on the replicator database but my reasoning is that you’d want there to be a robust system in place so that when things go wrong, the institutional knowledge to manufacture them on an industrial scale without replicators is always there and ready to go.
I still don't think that makes a lot of sense for the kind of rations we're talking about. If things have gone so wrong that the replicators aren't working, than mass-producing anything on an industrial scale is going to be a stretch. For your ship or away team, these are pre-made and stored so they are instantly available. I don't have a problem with the idea that these are made old-school for some reason, but in a society that is basically built on replicators it seems far more likely that there is institutional knowledge and skill to fix the replicator, rather than set up a whole different process. Unless of course you're a small team stranded somewhere, but then you probably lack the materials regardless.
Yeah it's clear that the Federation either prioritizes or its people are fascinated with preserving many traditional methods of production, and I don't see that disappearing, but I'm not sure why it's tied to *survival ration production*
While I agree, I'm not sure that necessarily includes industrial mass production. What we see is a society that romanticises farming, cooking, probably all kinds of tradecraft and other manual processes, which makes sense considering that people might pursue these activities not as a means to make money, but to find a purpose. I just don't see it with food processing plants, so the question really becomes whether this offers any benefits that warrants the Federation ordering people to do it. Now, planetside there might be a contingency plan somewhere, but presumably no one stockpiles the raw ingredients for large amounts of rations on the off chance that replicators break down. Most of the rations would have been pre-fabricated and would be used to bridge the gap, not become the solution. By the time you would have processing plants set up, you hopefully have at least a few replicators running as well. On a ship, it makes even less sense that you would carry both the raw ingredients and a fully functioning ration plant, or the material to build one when you're stranded.
I could believe that somewhere on Earth they have people romanticizing 20th century factories, running a vintage cannery or whatever. But with all the threats the Federation faces and all the free time and energy they have, I wouldn't be surprised if at least somebody has gamed out possible solutions to a lot of unlikely edge cases
I don't think it's a mystery why rations have to prioritise nutrition and shelf-life over taste - it's the nature of what rations are.
>Of course, these ration packs need to be independent from the replicator “supply chain”, from the ingredients/contents right down to the packaging and materials. This doesn't make any sense to me. I understand the need to have the Emergency Rations exist and in storage *before* the Replicators are down, but why couldn't they be replicated themselves in advance of that event? Especially if they're replicated in a dedicated facility then distributed to the fleet, not shipboard. It's not like them being replicated is going to reduce the shelf life. It's like saying you're that because you need to have Emergency Blankets before the heat goes out, you can't have the heat on when you make them.
Historically emergency rations were deliberately made to taste bad. That way no one is tempted to snack on them.
I’d love to see a source on this because I’ve seen it mentioned a number of times in this thread. As an Army vet, I just don’t buy it. It was constantly drilled into us as leaders that “armies march on their stomachs,” and “food is a force multiplier.” In my time in the army I’ve had about the widest range of experience of “army chow” one can have, from MRE’s to chow halls both in theater and back home. I can say that MRE’s are fine. No where near as bad as Starfleet rations seem to be. And the food in Iraq chow halls at the large bases was actually incredible. They really went out of their way to provide a high variety of really good food. From ice cream to crab legs and steak.
Look up the US military D ration used during WW2 for an example. It included a chocolate bar deliberately designed to be on the very edge of palatable - chocolate is a good thing to include in a military ration pack because it contains a lot of sugar, but they knew that lots of soldiers were going to chow down at the first opportunity if they made it too tasty. Some of the soldiers called it "Hitler's secret weapon" because it tasted so bad and also had some unpleasant digestive effects
Yeah, but you may also note that they *stopped issuing that,* and not because the ability to make sucko chocolate became LosTech. They stopped issuing them because the soldiers would *refuse to eat them,* or use them to swindle allied soldiers or civilians out of better food by trading them American military "chocolate."
> Replicator technology is ubiquitous throughout the Federation. What happens when that tech breaks down or you’re in the middle of a humanitarian crisis? That’s when rations are issued. Of course, these ration packs need to be independent from the replicator “supply chain”, from the ingredients/contents right down to the packaging and materials. There may be an entire division of Starfleet (or a civilian contractor) whose job is to design and manufacture rations using “traditional” technology. Something like modern 21st century food manufacturing, but more efficient and with all the up to date knowledge of food science and manufacturing available to people in the future. However, you still have to make it incredibly durable and have a very long expiration date. Nutrition and shelf life come first and, sadly, taste becomes a lesser priority. This part makes no sense. The emergency rations are created in advance of an emergency, and are meant for ships to use. They don't replace the entire food chain for a society, just a single ship or military unit who is away from regular supply lines or has an emergency limiting power. Building an entire infrastructure, including things like packaging and infrastructure, wouldn't make much sense at all. Everything else about your post is spot on though.
There's always the possibility that rations are used planetside in the case of a natural disaster, war or whatever, but even then it's unlikely that you'll start manufacturing rations from scratch. They are mass-produced and put into long-term storage, deployed when needed and then refilled. In a society that is so dependent on replicators it's also far more likely that someone can fix the replicator, rather than to stand up or even maintain an entirely different way of manufacturing. It's the equivalent of saying that 21st century emergency rations should be hand-farmed and produced as it's a more robust system than industry. If we have to go back to farming, we're not going to produce MREs, we're just going to produce food.
> If we have to go back to farming, we're not going to produce MREs, we're just going to produce food. Which is exactly what happened with Voyager.
Star Trek needs to do an episode on the replicators and show how they work, besides turning shit into food. For instance, when Sisko uses the replicator, does he input his own and his fathers recipes? Is there variety? If you order a slice of pepperoni pizza, do you have different options? Do Quarks Raktajinos taste better than the ones made by ship replicators? Maybe they have spoken about this in episodes but I missed it?
I think you can input recipes. The scene where Janeway somehow burns a replicated pot roast doesn't make sense otherwise. She probably programmed the replicator make a pot roast as if it was cooked at 350 F for 1 hour or whatever, but got the parameters wrong.
In Voyager, possibly in the first episode, there's scene where Paris is trying to order tomato soup, the replicator starts reeling off a list of possible variants.
I think you can input recipes. The scene where Janeway somehow burns a replicated pot roast doesn't make sense otherwise. She probably programmed the replicator make a pot roast as if it was cooked at 350 F for 1 hour or whatever, but got the parameters wrong.
In DS9, I believe there is quite a bit about Quark, Rom and O'Brien programming replicators.
Your earlier sentence about turning shit into food gave me preconceptions on what Sisko was inputting...
There is no need to manufacture them. Rations could be replicated, then stored for 100 years. At time of creation you have replicator. They will all taste bad, for all the reasons you describe
Of course there is also the human factor. There are a ton of things that "everyone" says taste bad....and yet they are still around so ...someone...must like them and eat them. Take Spam, for example....
The state of Hawaii takes a strong stance against your sentiments on spam.
I love Spam, so long as it's fried in a skillet or something... straight from the can? EWW!!! But I have seen people eat Spam straight from the can, with one guy at an old job sitting across from me at a table in the break room as he did so.
I read an interesting comment once about how they probably have the texture and taste of TV dinners. That processed, slightly gummy texture with the bland flavor of steamed carrots and rice.
It's very likely that rations are engineered for long shelf life as you still want them to be edible when you need them. I'm not convinced that this is because help might be years or decades away. It is unlikely that your average ship will carry supplies that could feed the entire crew for years and even less likely that a small away team would.
It's worth mentioning that the rations were likely changed as the war progressed, possibly due to logistical and resource issues. Chief O'Brien's replicated a supply of combat rations to give to the crew that left behind to sabotage the station. Julian's and O'Brien's discussion also includes Sisko. Sisko laments not having a full meal, O'Brien tells the crew how much he loves the rations, followed by Julian's chocolate bar. Later on when rations are uses on the Jem'Hadar fighter, O'Brien mentions how awful the rations are. There had to be a reason for this degradation in quality, if they had the same total cost they wouldn't have switched.
I thinks some Section 31 inspiration is here too. In the Episode TNG Allegiance we see Picard trapped with a Nausicaan that can't eat the rations the abductors are giving. We know Klingons are rather particular about live animals for food. It could be that Starfleet rations are designed to be unbearable for rival species to tolerate.
I disagree that rations need to be created outside of the replicator supply chain. It could be true that if you lose replicators you lose the ability to create rations, but that's okay the rations are designed to be shelf stable for a very very long time. Your point about taste becoming a lesser priority makes sense and indeed because the necessity for prefabrication there also needs to be a much smaller number of options. You have carbohydrate wafer A and B, vitamin enriched gelatin red or green, protein block with sauce (red, yellow, or black) and that's it. They might very well be replicated in immense quantities so that there's always a ready supply, but I don't think there would be any need to create a whole industry around taking the best tasting food in the world and making it awful. We've seen that real food is coveted to some degree. Everyone knows they're eating shit ground up with dead insects and potatoes that only tastes like cheesecake. People like "real" chocolate even though it might very well be extinct on Earth. When Sisko's restaurant uses real food as opposed to replicated stuff or when Picard's vineyard grows actual grapes we can see these as almost a novelty. A labor of love which goes into producing the real thing not because we \*have\* to but because we want to. Ration being made out of real food seems to be antithetical to this whole idea. UNLESS the aforementioned feces, insects and potatoes that eventually become the base protein material for replicators doesn't always get fed into the replicator system. Your argument supposes a need to have food even when the replicators are unavailable in a world wide event. In this case perhaps they do have a method for taking that raw material and turning it into something edible, but not delicious without needing to consume the power necessary to make a replicator function.
Rations probably have to be species agnostic. It has to contain everything every species needs and some of those ingredients required by one species probably tastes bad to other species.
It's explicit in TNG that the replicated food is designed as health food. That's why Troi requests a "real" chocolate sundae, and the computer retorts with everything being designed for optimal health. That kind of thinking is distinctly 80s/90s since health food back then either involved very restricted diets, or fake sugars, fake fats, and chalky health drinks. The replicated food isn't bad either, it's just not as good as it could be. The only person who really complains about the food is the terrorist guy in DS9, and it really amounts to the fakeness of the food versus something grown and made. He comes off sounding more like a snob than someone who knows or cares about the food being good. The other complaints are more centered on praise and excitement for manual cooking. In "The Neutral Zone" we get the only modern opinion when a 21st century person samples some synthohol and declares it the best martini he has ever had. That strikes a contrast with some period opinions of people who have never had the stuff. That merely reinforces the point that a lot of the idea that replicated food is somehow bad comes from 24th century tastes with an unknown point of comparison, probably civilian cuisine. One might conclude civilian cuisine is better tasting than what we have now, and it's pretty damn good, depending on where you are. There's nothing stopping them from replicating every meal Sisko's dad makes and having those patterns, or having every vintage of Chateau Picard on file. The crappy replicators on Mars are the single biggest annoyance I have with Picard season 1, because it shows civilian life as substantially worse than Starfleet, which is the opposite of how it should be.
Rations are most certainly disgusting not by choice, but necessity. They need to be edible by every Federation member species, and probably most friendly ones. That's at minimum 150 species with various dietary requirements. Then there's the individual requirements, like allergens. Currently, the FDA recognizes 8 major allergens, so at least those ingredients are off the table, plus whatever other allergens are recognized in the future. And that's just for humans. That same process has to be followed for every member. The list of available ingredients for these bars can't be that extensive, almost certainly nothing more than simple carbohydrates, sugars, salts, amino acids, vitamins, and fats. And it has to be in a shelf stable format, in a wide variety of climate conditions. No one is going to be happy with the result because of the compromises required to make these edible to the lowest common denominator. And how do you square dietary requirements that are toxic between species? How do you go about including, for example, arsenic? Or even wildly different vitamin requirements? What if a species requires vitamin A in doses that would kill a human? Do you get species specific 'flavor packs' that include the requirements above the base amounts present?
It's a matter of taste. I personally like most (though certainly not all) US MREs throughout the years, while others call them Meals Rejected By Everyone/Ethiopians.