Lol yes i know they beamed onto a ship at warp in the movie. I just assumed nobody else would be stupid enough to try it. NuScotty said he had successfully beamed something to one of our outer planets didn't he, several billion miles at least and that was before he had the transwarp equation? I do agree that a maximum safe distance of about 500,000km would have been a sensible limit otherwise your starships have to be in quite a low orbit or sitting right next to a ship to effect any kind transport. I think you are right about the term 'transwarp'. I was getting confused because they were also beaming onto a ship at warp.
No, he didn't. http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie11.htm Half a million klicks is a bit excessive. "Standard orbit" is generally assumed to be only a few hundred km in altitude, and geosynchronous orbit of Earth is only 35,000 km. It's right there in the dialogue:
Well remember what Scotty said in the story: Spoiler: Lines from the "Truth About Tribbles" "Good! Now remember, I've got to bounce the little bastard's molecules off a couple of relays to make it all the way to Earth, so it might take a little time! You're sure no one'll interrupt us?" I take this as that maybe somebody could cut off a relay or stop re-materialization (actually killing or destroying the subject). So that I believe is the limitations imposed. Sure it's fast, but even the slightest mistake can be positively deadly, a ship is far safer and even more versatile in many situations..
See, i don't see how it's possible to maintain any kind of annular confinement beam in such circumstances. It's the transporting ship that maintains the beam.. A communications relay should not be able to do it. You should end up with mush at the end of the process. The other issue is scanning. It's not an issue in the comic with another officer seated at another transporter because they can intercept the signal. Remember in TOS, they were reluctant to beam within a ship because of the possibility of transporting into a bulkhead? Transporter sites used to be wide open spaces that the ship could scan carefully. Quite apart from the fact that Enterprise was going at warp, I could not fathom how Scotty in the movie could scan the ship at such a great distance with enough accuracy to transport safely (still, in for a penny). This does produce a massive bar to long distance transporting - without a receiving platform to guide you in, it's basically suicide. Also I don't see how a ship could quantum scan you to retrieve you at such great distances - you'd need a sending platform to get back too surely? It seems that the confinement beam and scanning issues have been brushed under the carpet to keep technobabble at a minimum for now... and possibly to let the writers do silly stuff :P
Well, that was supposedly the reason they locked onto the engineering deck, because it was the roomiest part of the ship and thus the safest to beam into. That's explained in the novelization, though it was cut out of the final film (if it was ever actually in the script at all). And as you'll recall, it wasn't quite a safe transport, because Scotty materialized inside a coolant pipe. He was lucky he beamed into liquid, something that could be pushed out of the way by the ACB, instead of a solid bulkhead. (So in that sense, the film did demonstrate that it was a hazardous undertaking, not something you'd want to do routinely. I should've given the screenwriters more credit.)
When you look at the distance involved, the engineering deck really isn't very big at all compared to the surrounding vacuum of space. Mind you, Federation ships carry beacons, I suppose it's possible to lock onto that from a Federation outpost and extrapolate the coordinates of the brewery in relation to the beacon. But yes they were VERY lucky!
^Well, it wasn't luck. Sure, it was a virtually impossible feat of computational accuracy, but remember: Spock was the one who programmed the coordinates.
Yes but they were very lucky to have Spock! I never really had a problem with them using beaming while at warp as a dangerous manoeuvre. My issue has always been with the massively expanded distances. Now if they are using subspace transporting like in TNG I can get on board as long as they show why it's more dangerous and unreliable in due course.
To help Scotty explain why he was performing an unsanctioned, unsafe experiment on a life form in contravention of both security and quarantine protocols at his court martial. Presumably he will have some mitigating factors in his defence to explain why he felt experimenting on a multi-cellular life form was acceptable when this kind of cruel animal experimentation was abandoned in the 21st century and why he hadn't learned this lesson after killing a dog. Why else?
Well, Scotty seems convinced the dog will eventually rematerialize. And, according to the novelization... it did.
Lol - I'm traumatised by them extending the range of the transporter and now you want them to let patterns retain their coherence in the matter stream for 6 months? Even so, if you kick a dog, you can still be prosecuted for animal cruelty even if you don't break any of its bones. Scotty's casual disregard for animal welfare is appalling! Even Kruge loved his targ.
In Scotty's defense, he was probably certain it would work. You don't just take the beloved pet of a noted historical figure who commanded one of Starfleet's first deep space explorers, saved Earth from destruction, amd helped found the Federation and send it through an experimental new form of beaming unless you are absolutely certain it's going to work. Even after it failed, he did feel bad about it, so it's not like he's an animal hater or anything.
^Objection, assumes facts not in evidence. Why does everyone assume "Admiral Archer" means an impossibly old Jonathan Archer when it's about a zillion times more likely to be his child or grandchild?
Because the unspoken rule in Trek tends to be that unless it is established in canon that there is offspring of a character that any invocation of that characters name is almost always referring to the original character.
On the other hand, I don't think I've ever known anyone to assume that the Captain Sulu who sponsored Chakotay's entry into Starfleet Academy, as mentioned in "Tattoo," was Hikaru Sulu. Jeri Taylor's Pathways made it his grandson Hiromi, while Christie Golden's "Seduced" in Tales from the Captain's Table made it Demora Sulu (and explained away the canonical use of a male pronoun).
I would assume fans think "Admiral Archer" is indeed an elder Jonathan because of the mention of the beagle. We know of Porthos. Now it obviously could have been a different beagle that Admiral Archer owned, but a beagle nonetheless. Plus in The Next Generation we saw an incredibly aged Leonard McCoy and it has been established that life expectancy in Star Trek is somewhat extended than what we have currently. I read the latest issue...thought it was pretty good, an interesting take on an old classic. Also was it just me, or did the art look slightly different in this issue?
Now we know who sabotaged the transporter buffer incident that lead to TNG's "Relics" revenge. Woof! so unspoken none of us have ever heard about it before.
Stargate always found need for starships, despite having instant and safe travel to many thousands of worlds throughout the galaxy (and beyond) Also, a transporter is pretty useless when you want to go star charting, or investigate some space phenomena or other.