Scanfab

Scanfab (SCANning and FABrication) machines evolved from the 3D printers of the early 21st century. Advances in particle physics permitted the development of subatomic resolution scanning systems, capable of rendering the entire subatomic structure of anything placed within the scanning vessel. At first limited to research institutions and with the capacity to scan only the tiniest of objects, subatomic scanners ultimately decreased in price and complexity, and increased in size, especially as the military and manufacturing sectors found great use for them.

Coupled with a subatomic-resolution fabrication system (which took longer to develop), these scanning systems brought about the ability to render an atomically perfect 3D copy of anything. The fabrication systems themselves were used to build everything that man could imagine. As these systems grew cheaper and more accessible, corporations the world over could instantly manufacture whatever they wanted, provided they had its matrix on file.

Human Matrix Controversy
It was not until the very real threat of global destruction that scientists seriously considered the use of a scanfab on a human subject. The ethics of copying a fully developed human being were hotly debated. What rights would the newly-copied person have? Would it be a person? Did it have a soul? Would it be a different person that the original? How would one address such a person?

Due to the concerns raised by the scientific community, the United Nations banned the fabrication of human matrices almost immediately. Humans were permitted to be scanned, but, to avoid all of the difficult ethical questions, entire human matrices were not to be fabricated. Although human matrices were used for years in medical science (to create healthy tissue to replace injured body parts, for example), the fabrication of an entire human body was forbidden until the announcement of UNHOPE in 2094.

Scanfab + Tayanur: Man's Salvation?
As a critical element of UNHOPE, the UN lifted the ban on human matrix fabrication, provided, however, than no human matrix would be fabricated on Earth. People were to be scanned, and their matrix transmitted by Tayanur off-world, where it would be fabricated to ensure the survival of the species. While those left behind on Earth would surely die in the coming days, their fabricated reproduction would live on, wherever it ultimately arrived.

Ultimately, it was the combination of Scanfab technology and Tayanur communications that would provide the only feasible method of saving mankind from the destruction of Earth at the turn of the 22nd century. By scanning people on Earth, and transmitting their matrices via Tayanur to off-world fabrication sites, mankind could survive without the vast fleet of spacecraft necessary to physically transfer every person off of the dying planet.

Scanfab via Tayanur catapulted man’s adventures into the solar system, and beyond. Using a network of Tayanur transmission satellites, both around the Earth, and accelerating away from it, remote fabrication vehicles could be controlled, and directed to fabricate items for use in off-world colonization and construction. These technologies worked in tandem to create habitable zones on the Moon and Mars in advance of human arrival by traditional spaceflight. Ventures both public and private sought to make their mark on any object capable of surviving human interaction.