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Teleporting holograms

Radiophonic

Ensign
Newbie
Hello!

I'm so happy I found this place, lots and lots of interesting stuff here :)
I just finished Voyager for the second third time since 2000 and I have a question about the Doctor and the transporter, on some episodes when they beam him to and from the ship, he's being dematerialized just like when teleporting a normal human/non human being.
Isn't it a very illogical porttrayal of the actual procedure? He's made of photons, so why should he be dematerialized and stored in the pattern buffer when he's already stored in Voyagers database and being projected by the holo emitters?
 
One of the many issues with the EMH (I'm amazed the computer had enough memory for his ego). I'd assume that the mobile emitter made him a "hard light" hologram (to borrow a notion from Red Dwarf) which gave him more substance--after all the emitter would need something to affix too. With this in mind he'd need transported just like anyone else on the crew.
 
One of the many issues with the EMH (I'm amazed the computer had enough memory for his ego). I'd assume that the mobile emitter made him a "hard light" hologram (to borrow a notion from Red Dwarf) which gave him more substance--after all the emitter would need something to affix too. With this in mind he'd need transported just like anyone else on the crew.

But even in a hardlight state, the transporter only need to lock on his emitter and not his matrix.
A waste of computer resources if you ask me :)
 
One of the many issues with the EMH (I'm amazed the computer had enough memory for his ego). I'd assume that the mobile emitter made him a "hard light" hologram (to borrow a notion from Red Dwarf) which gave him more substance--after all the emitter would need something to affix too. With this in mind he'd need transported just like anyone else on the crew.

Also, I consider all holograms to be ”hardlight”.
There is no hologram interior, they’re just photonic shells.
 
One of the many issues with the EMH (I'm amazed the computer had enough memory for his ego). I'd assume that the mobile emitter made him a "hard light" hologram (to borrow a notion from Red Dwarf) which gave him more substance--after all the emitter would need something to affix too. With this in mind he'd need transported just like anyone else on the crew.
Forget the ship’s computer memory! That emitter must’ve had 999 thousand terraquqds, since it could hold the Doctor’s entire program, whereas Torres had to remove like 100 terraquads when the Doc was sent to the Prometheus. Talk about a giant USB stick that can fit in a pocket!
 
Also, I consider all holograms to be ”hardlight”.
There is no hologram interior, they’re just photonic shells.

If that is so, then why does the EMH take the trouble to create a holographic body layer by layer for Denara Pel in Lifesigns (first skeleton, then organs, then musculature, epidermis and finally, clothing? Was that an exceptional case because that body needed to be used by an actual biological consciousness? Or was it just to give us a visually interesting scene :)

Forget the ship’s computer memory! That emitter must’ve had 999 thousand terraquqds, since it could hold the Doctor’s entire program, whereas Torres had to remove like 100 terraquads when the Doc was sent to the Prometheus. Talk about a giant USB stick that can fit in a pocket!

Given that the mobile emitter contains technology 500 years more advanced than anything Voyager's got, I find it not too implausible. But... wouldn't the fact that you can transport it imply that you can replicate it?
 
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If that is so, then why does the EMH take the trouble to create a holographic body layer by layer for Denara Pel in Lifesigns (first skeleton, then organs, then musculature, epidermis and finally, clothing? Was that an exceptional case because that body needed to be used by an actual biological consciousness? Or was it just to give us a visually interesting scene :)



Given that the mobile emitter contains technology 500 years more advanced than anything Voyager's got, I find it not too implausible. But... wouldn't the fact that you can transport it imply that you can replicate it?

That scene was just pure visual candy for the viewers. And in that particular scene it was as you said, for medical purposes.

I’m fairly sure the Doctor is not walking around with a holographic digestive system :)

As for the replicating the emitter, there seems to be an unspoken barrier between replicating and transporting. I can’t remember if they ever combined these systems for the benefit of the other.
 
But that was an accident right?
Like with Tuvix, then why not duplicate with the transporter instead of using replicator resources when they need more of the same stuff?
 
Because remembering that anything exists that can change the development of a civilization as drastically as Warp Drive can, is forbidden. Like age-reversing transporters, telekinesis-granting drugs, android vending machines, and so on...
 
There is an obvious plothole, in that the Doctor's programme can't be duplicated, but can be transported (which involves temporary copying to the transporter hard drive).
But it's a long-standing one, given that the transporter can transfer people, but can't duplicate them (except for a few episodes which are then ruled to be freak, unrepeatable, circumstances).
So the issue with the EMH's RE has to be classed with all the other transporter issues: just because, ok?
 
There is an obvious plothole, in that the Doctor's programme can't be duplicated, but can be transported (which involves temporary copying to the transporter hard drive).
But it's a long-standing one, given that the transporter can transfer people, but can't duplicate them (except for a few episodes which are then ruled to be freak, unrepeatable, circumstances).
So the issue with the EMH's RE has to be classed with all the other transporter issues: just because, ok?


Fair enough
 
The official reason you can't replicate anything you can transport is that the transporter pattern is too large to be stored, it can only be 'buffered' which seems to be some kind of way to actively cycle the information, which 'degrades' if you wait too long to extract the information.
 
Some things can't be replicated:
-People
-Gold Pressed Latinum
-mobile emitters from the future
-hot, plain tomato soup

Other things can
-Coffee
-spare parts
-pizza
-puppies

Some things just can't be replicated. And if the transporter is creating a duplicate every time, that would mean that you are killed each time you use it. I really don't think it's intended to work that way.
 
Really they should have done the transporter effect in miniature with just the mobile emitter being dematerialised and the Doctor's body fizzling out separately.
 
It would be even cooler, if whenever the Doc was going on an away mission, someone would just carry him in their pocket until they get to the destination.
 
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