If EVERYONE beams down to a planet's surface, then how do they get back aboard?
Question?
- Thread starter JeffinOakland
- Start date
This was answered in TAS "The Terratin Incident."
After Kirk was beamed down, the shrinking crew was too small to operate the controls. But they knew that was going to happen ahead of time, so before beaming Kirk down they set "automatic return" to beam him back up ten minutes later. Kirk was beamed back aboard automatically, without the crew having to operate any controls.
So, in other words, the transporter can operate in an automatic mode. Therefore, someone like Spock could no doubt rig the computer to activate the transporter automatically under any number of programmable conditions, assuming that it didn't already have that capability. Programmable conditions should include signaling the ship with a communicator.
The catch is that you'd likely have to set up some critical connections before everyone had beamed down!
cool...thanks. But if they can't rig it to automatic while onboard (for example, they're being forced off), then there's no way to rig it from the planet's surface?
The key question to me is, could the computer answer when you call the ship with a communicator?
If so, and no connections are necessary, you might be able to command the computer to beam you up, if you speak the appropriate passwords.
If not, then you'd have to make the critical connections first, before the last person beamed down.
But if someone takes over the ship, really takes it over, then you'd think they could lock you out. The intruders might not know all the security protocols though.
yeah..you wouldn't think a computer 300 years in the future would necessarily need a person to push a button
If a ship's officer has the security clearance, it might be possible to use a tricorder to access the transporter remotely.
Since the thread title doesn't specify the type of topic (like "Transporter Question" would), some readers with valid ideas might ignore the thread entirely.
Since the thread title doesn't specify the type of topic (like "Transporter Question" would), some readers with valid ideas might ignore the thread entirely.
I would hope that in the 23rd Century that if a starship found itself empty with no crew that the ship's computer wouldn't simply sit there and go "Where did everybody go?...Oh well....I'll just wait here in orbit." Kind of like the Exeter incident. I would hope that the computer would send out some automatic distress call to Starfleet. On a secure channel of course.
In the case of some enemy force removing the crew from the ship. I'd like the ship to take over and tell the intruders to "GET OUT!!" "You have five minutes to depart this ship before the ship's computer opens every door and airlock on board."
In the case of some enemy force removing the crew from the ship. I'd like the ship to take over and tell the intruders to "GET OUT!!" "You have five minutes to depart this ship before the ship's computer opens every door and airlock on board."
If someone flew one of the shuttles down to the planet, and they left the shuttle bay doors open.
This was one thing that ENT got right with the shuttlepods, that could dock to just about any type of ship that had an external hatch.
This was one thing that ENT got right with the shuttlepods, that could dock to just about any type of ship that had an external hatch.
Remember when TOS was made. Although sci-fi writers had long since dreamed up AIs and "self-aware" machines, real computers in the mid-to-late '60s were still pretty darn primitive. That the ship's computer talked—although in a stilted and mechanical way—was "futuristic." Today no one would blink if a sci-fi series included a volitional AI that was casually regarded as a member of the crew, the persona of the ship.
As for the transporter, I think it was Whitfield's MAKING OF STAR TREK that featured a memo concerning a "panic button" on the communicators that would beam someone back aboard. The idea was nuked because it would short circuit too many stories. In reality, self-beaming would probably have all sorts of security protocols—and not mere passwords and firewalls. The transporter room itself would be a massive staging area for off-ship access. Consider the transport room in STARGATE—defensive measures, shielded doors in the event something unwanted made it into the gate room, etc.
The transporter system had been updated since the time of This Side of Paradise, when you couldn't have the entire crew leave the ship.
Then again, TAS isn't canon.
Yep. "This Side of Paradise" makes it clear that once everybody beams down, there's no going back to the ship.
Right.
One would think that a ship empty of people would automatically send a coded distress signal to all the starfleet ships it can reach. To warn them, you know, that something is not quite right.
It was a rougher, more primitive time. Starships were often going missing for years at a time. See "Return of the Archons," "Where No Man Has Gone Before," "The Omega Glory," etc.
More often not, the Enterprise was on its own.
I am not disputing that. I am saying that ships are not supposed to float in space without anyone on board and so then when something like that happens, it would behoove Starfleet to include into the ships computer an automated procedure that would result in a distress signal sent to all ships that could be within range of the emitter. It's definitely better than let the ship go to waste. Not to mention that it could resolve the mystery of the vanishing crew.
Under the influence of some alien spores, perhaps?
Darn you, Uhura!
I forgot it was also mentioned in I, Mudd when Kirk went nutz before Mudd told him that there were android replacements for the crew.
That's not exactly the way the line plays in "I, Mudd", though:
It certainly doesn't contradict the point about beaming in "This Side of Paradise," but it also seems to address many points implicitly, including those pertaining simply to the running of the ship.I said:
In contrast, the relevant line in "This Side of Paradise" is:
That hits the point dead on.This Side of Paradise said:
