Ending Beam Up in City on Edge if Forever

[ZapBrannigan]

If we want to be sensible, I suppose a communicator would just act as a localised quantum scanner to send data back to the ship but that would mean you couldn't beam anyone up without one. Blakes 7 used this type of device . It's very logical and you can then understand the role of the transporter room as opposed to someone on the bridge flipping a switch and beaming everyone in a twenty foot radius to a random location . It is possible that the primary function of the transporter room is decontamination I suppose but they rarely seem to care about that since they cut out the sensual gel massage.

I would say it's the confinement beam that keeps the person in transit so you can beam up as many people as you have beam emitters, regardless of where you rematerialise them. It is tough to see how any device could maintain its own confinement beam while in transport though. :-/

Yes, but that isn't what I'm talking about. Mr. Data's brooch in Nemesis was supposed to be a complete, self-contained transporter system-- a machine that de-materializes itself, and you with it, beams you to Point B, and then re-materializes itself and you. And that's absurd.

It's like asking a shark to open wide, swallow itself, and vanish. It's like asking a vacuum cleaner to suck itself up and vanish. And that's not even to mention the problem of a de-materialized device still able to perform the function of re-materializing things.

OTOH, I'm totally onboard with site to site transport, where the Transporter room locks onto you down on the planet and beams you directly to sickbay, let's say. The machine can do that just by using its beam up and beam down functions and skipping the middle-man pad.

 

[Pauln6]

Yes, but that isn't what I'm talking about. Mr. Data's brooch in Nemesis was supposed to be a complete, self-contained transporter system-- a machine that de-materializes itself, and you with it, beams you to Point B, and then re-materializes itself and you. And that's absurd.

It's like asking a shark to open wide, swallow itself, and vanish. It's like asking a vacuum cleaner to suck itself up and vanish. And that's not even to mention the problem of a de-materialized device still able to perform the function of re-materializing things.

OTOH, I'm totally onboard with site to site transport, where the Transporter room locks onto you down on the planet and beams you directly to sickbay, let's say. The machine can do that just by using its beam up and beam down functions and skipping the middle-man pad.

Yeah I just mean that even if you push transporter logic Data's brooch can still only work if it is remotely hacking another transporter.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

What if the brooch actually has within it two transporters, A and B?

First, transporter A beams transporter B out of the brooch and to the destination. Then, transporter B beams the rest of the brooch, including transporter A, and the wearer to the destination, at which point transporter B is reintegrated with the rest of the brooch.

Why can't that work?

 

[Pauln6]

What if the brooch actually has within it two transporters, A and B?

First, transporter A beams transporter B out of the brooch and to the destination. Then, transporter B beams the rest of the brooch, including transporter A, and the wearer to the destination, at which point transporter B is reintegrated with the rest of the brooch.

Why can't that work?

I suppose the issue for me would be energy required. Ship transporter has warp engines . Can you fit enough energy for transport of two devices in something that small?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I suppose the issue for me would be energy required. Ship transporter has warp engines . Can you fit enough energy for transport of two devices in something that small?

That's one of my big problems with the brooch being a personal transporter. The power source has to be preposterously small.

Yeah I just mean that even if you push transporter logic Data's brooch can still only work if it is remotely hacking another transporter.

That's the only way it makes any sense.

 

[Marsden]

Maybe it doesn't make sense because the director of that feature didn't know anything about Star Trek.

He was more of a "By the way, which one's Pink?" kind of guy.

 

[plynch]

Since people only beam occasionally, an operator only needs to be at the console occasionally; no long shift, thus no chair needed.

 

[johnnybear]

I thought an officer or operative was always stationed in the transporter room?
JB

 

[Timo]

The question of transporter power requirements is a complicated one. One might assume fantastic energies would be involved, but Dona Ragar in "The Hunted" powers up a transporter console with his hand phaser... Does this reflect the massive energies stored in hand phasers (capable of moving half a dozen people to orbit if hooked up to a shuttlecraft engine in "The Galileo Seven") or suggest Ranar merely powered up the console rather than the transporter? On the other hand, even a transporter that has been blown up can still complete the process, or nearly so, in "Dramatis Personae". Perhaps only the act of pushing a victim into "phase space" requires active effort, and the poor sap is destined to emerge from that alternate realm on his own sooner or later, like a piece of cork pushed underwater?

Then there's the case of the undamaged transporter in a damaged ship - typically, the transporter is the very last piece of equipment to quit working when power is lost, say, in ST4 (only bested by the cloaking device, another allegedly but not canonically energy-hungry system).

The wristwatch-sized "transporter" Tom Paris has in "Non Sequitur" is no doubt but a remote control to a transporter network, rather than an entire transporter system unto itself. (It is suggested to be a special remote, keyed in to otherwise locked-up Starfleet pads - if Paris and the other Maquis merely needed a transporter, any transporter, for accessing those places, they could just use the ubiquitous units in the ubiquitous small ships that litter the Trek universe.)

But the button in ST:NEM...? Well, I'd actually argue there's a case for it being a remote control rather than a real transporter, in the plot of the movie itself. When everything else fails in the final battle, everything else fails - every single transporter aboard the vast hero ship becomes equally useless in an instant, even though the ship still retains general power. Odds are, then, that a key resource other than the actual diverse collection of transporter platforms (personnel, cargo, shuttlecraft, Captain's Yacht, whatnot) fails here. And this key resource could plausibly be compensated for by a coin-sized device, say, a beacon that helps failed sensors obtain a lock. Such a role would not be at odds with what Data previously establishes about the device while helping Picard escape from Nero's ship, either.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FormerLurker]

I thought an officer or operative was always stationed in the transporter room?
JB

In the room, but not necessarily at the controls. Much of what they do is make certain the machinery is in good working order, and perhaps some supply requisition and stowing.

Picard escape from Nero's ship

Nero?

 

[Timo]

Ah, the generic hairless insane villain of the week.

(If you let me slip into something more Freudian, it doesn't help matters that "nero" in my native tongue means "genius", typically used in the deriding sense nowadays, and perfectly sums up both the baldies...)

One does wonder why the transporter room should be constantly manned. "Readiness" is fine while in orbit, or while making a deep space rendezvous. Outside those instances, though... It's not as if unexpected guests would usually arrive via the transporter room, so the officer isn't a gatekeeper. And "maintenance" ought to be occasional or scheduled, not constant (hopefully!).

Then again, is the room manned? Typically, the camera only goes there when the heroes do, and the heroes would give advance warning for the transporter officer to put down his or her raktajino or mandolin and hurry up to the duty station.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[GNDN18]

One does wonder why the transporter room should be constantly manned.

KIRK: I can't get through there. Nothing serious. Don't leave the transporter room unattended.
SCOTT: Wilson will be right back, sir.

Because if you leave the transporter room unattended, a duplicate Kirk will beam in.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Because if you leave the transporter room unattended, a duplicate Kirk will beam in.

You also should never turn your back on the transporter pad, even while you're manning the TR. See "Dagger of the Mind."

 

[Pauln6]

Ah, the generic hairless insane villain of the week.

(If you let me slip into something more Freudian, it doesn't help matters that "nero" in my native tongue means "genius", typically used in the deriding sense nowadays, and perfectly sums up both the baldies...)

One does wonder why the transporter room should be constantly manned. "Readiness" is fine while in orbit, or while making a deep space rendezvous. Outside those instances, though... It's not as if unexpected guests would usually arrive via the transporter room, so the officer isn't a gatekeeper. And "maintenance" ought to be occasional or scheduled, not constant (hopefully!).

Then again, is the room manned? Typically, the camera only goes there when the heroes do, and the heroes would give advance warning for the transporter officer to put down his or her raktajino or mandolin and hurry up to the duty station.

Timo Saloniemi

There are all sorts of issues with key areas of the ship not being manned in a universe where potential enemies can pop in with explosives (or just beam in the bomb on its own). in my head canon, warp fields make it dangerous to beam onto a ship without linking to a transporter pad so it generally has to be an agreed process. The ship's sensors should detect an incoming transporter and automatically sound an alert and erect a security force field at the site (like when Ilia probe beamed on board) if anyone tries a unilateral transport.

If there are multiple transporter rooms then only one might be manned at all times (unless there is a red alert). Or a technician might run diagnostic tests on the offline units and trot along to the active unit when required.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Because if you leave the transporter room unattended, a duplicate Kirk will beam in.

I think that rule to keep the room attended would apply mainly when a landing party is out, or something is going on that might require an emergency beaming.

 

[Commander Luskeen]

also why did they take Uhura and Scotty along? the mission was just to find and bring back McCoy so they should have just sent security guards.

 

[Commishsleer]

also why did they take Uhura and Scotty along? the mission was just to find and bring back McCoy so they should have just sent security guards.

Something weird was happening on the planet (Time displacement wave thingys) , Kirk wanted his best people on it.

There was no immediate danger to the Enterprise so why not have your best people on it. I probably would have had a bunch of scientists there too. But thats just me..

 

[Steven P Bastien]

also why did they take Uhura and Scotty along? the mission was just to find and bring back McCoy so they should have just sent security guards.

Friends of McCoy might have better luck talking to him when he is in a bad mental state.

 

[ChasFink]

Yep it's true! The TOS transporter room was the coolest of any used in the franchise!

Personally, I think the coolest transporter room was the one on the Enterprise D that was part of "Star Trek: The Experience" at the Las Vegas Hilton. That one actually transported me out of a hokey simulator ride onto a Federation starship!

 

[Pauln6]

also why did they take Uhura and Scotty along? the mission was just to find and bring back McCoy so they should have just sent security guards.

Possibly Scotty to check out alien engineering. Uhura just seems to be the officer in charge of the security team. Originally Uhura would have been Rand, who would still have been senior enough to support supervise non-offiicer guards. Familiar faces might stand more chance of calming McCoy as well. Remember how successful Uhura was at calming Sulu ;-p