do you think that things will be like star trek one day?

[Little lunch]

I'd greatly prefer The Culture over the Federation.

I have every book he ever wrote under both names. Such a shame there will be no more. :-(

[Endo]

Communicators: Check, in multiple delicious flavors.

Antimatter: Check. CERN's just not really producing it, and we don't have much in the way of powerplants that can harvest the energy from a M/AM reaction. I imagine it would be something like how nuke plants work, just a special steam-engine/turbine.

Replicators: Check. Plastic or metal?

Spaceships: Eh. Working on it, but people are far more concerned with just making our planet work than getting "out there". Cameras are able to fulfill our basic exploration desires for now, and we don't need to send humans to test soil, rock, or atmosphere compositions.

Phasers/lasers/disruptors/etc.: We have shotgun ammo that can tase people. Close enough.

[Whateverist]

No. But I wouldn't mind being wrong.

[abtaylor]

I think humanity will kill itself off somehow before we ever get to that point. Whether it's a nuclear war or a plague, I think we'll self destruct before we ever get that advanced.

[Whateverist]

I was thinking we'd just exhaust the petri dish long before we make it to the next one. Otherwise we'd just become a virus in the universe sucking the life dry where we find it and leaving the dried husks behind us. But we are rather feisty too.

[downbeatplumb]