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star trek - Why would Vulcans be vegetarian in an era with replicators?


Most vegetarians on Earth abstain from meat because of the treatment of animals as a result of mass proceessing. However in a universe with replicators, there is no ill treatment. A replicator simply aligns the molecules in such a way as to create a version of the food.



No animals were harmed in the replication of this cheese burger.




The proliferation of replicator technology has probably made the use of real livestock all but extinct. Additionally given the nutritional advantage of meats being a complete protein, it doesn't seem logical to arbitrarily deny that source of food.


Why are Vulcans (or anyone) vegetarians in the Star Trek universe?



Answer



Pre-continuity split, 'Star Trek' (2009), Vulcans were culturally vegetarians. This was not a religious choice; it was a cultural one. The move toward a vegan lifestyle was part of their overall tenet of abstaining from acts of violence and the embrace of logic as a preeminent lifestyle.




  • The leader and creator of the logical tenets Surak (as presented in Diane Duane's Spock's World) which states: "Ideally, do no harm... As far as possible, do not kill. Can you return life to what you kill?"




  • While Spock was seen to eat meat when he was trapped with Zarabeth, 5,000 years in the past in the TOS episode, All Our Yesterdays, his choices for food were both limited and in this case, it was logical that he eat meat if he were to survive.





  • He indicated there was a change in his mental state when processed into the past, which might have accounted for his desire to eat meat and enjoy it. It was mentioned the device would transform the participants into being suited for survival in the periods they were sent to.





As far as replicated meat goes, I suspect each culture's approach to the status of eating meat would be based on how or why that culture chooses not to eat meat in the first place.




  • Many of Earth's religious cultures forbade the eating of certain meats because they were potentially unclean or dangerous if not properly cooked. After a time, the reason may be lost to antiquity and simply be part of the religion.





  • If a space-faring culture found itself presented with meat that was made from the replicator's transformation of biomass, free of contaminants, it would have to decide if this would violate its tenets of meat consumption and the rationales for not eating meat in the first place.




  • If human religions were any indication, I would suspect religious reasons for not eating meat would continue even in an era where meat was nothing more than a synthetically created, mathematically modeled, series of constructed proteins designed to resemble meat.




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