22nd-32nd Centrury: Technologies still in use...

[N1N]

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I came across the above and some B5 vs ST chatter in the comments section. TLR There was some comparison to technologies used by the ancient races in B5(Shadows, Vorlons etc) to ST. This got me think, how are the Federation still using old propulsion systems like impulse drives well into the 32nd century? Shouldn't there be a fundamental technology shift?

Material science and programmable matter have improved, but it doesn't seem much else has considering where we left off after Voyagers return.

 

[dupersuper]

"video unavailable"...

 

[LAFR]

Watch on YouTube

 

[at Quark's]

Or perhaps we simply cannot appreciate the differences because they are too far ahead of us.

Could a medieval peasant appreciate the differences between, say, 1950's technology and today? Both have advanced display technologies (TV), incredibly fast transportation (cars and jet airplanes), and telecommunication. It's quite possible that the area we would say most progress has been made in -computing technology- would escape his perception altogether since he has no concept of those.

 

[N1N]

Or perhaps we simply cannot appreciate the differences because they are too far ahead of us.

Could a medieval peasant appreciate the differences between, say, 1950's technology and today? Both have advanced display technologies (TV), incredibly fast transportation (cars and jet airplanes), and telecommunication. It's quite possible that the area we would say most progress has been made in -computing technology- would escape his perception altogether since he has no concept of those.

I don't think that's the problem here. Discovery has travelled 950 yrs into the future and the federation are still using rocket to propel their ships to sublight speeds. Still using warp drive knowing that there are more efficient ways to travel faster. I can't believe they haven't cracked some sort of transwarp technology by the time the 32nd century has rolled around.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I just assume that the technology is almost unrecognisable but the terminology has stuck. Like a time traveller from the 1970s might be disappointed to hear that we still use phones in 2022, but what a phone is has changed drastically.

 

[N1N]

I just assume that the technology is almost unrecognisable but the terminology has stuck. Like a time traveller from the 1970s might be disappointed to hear that we still use phones in 2022, but what a phone is has changed drastically.

I understand what you're trying to say, but what happened to the tech that Voyager brought back, what happened to the tech that led to the USS Relativity(Temporal Transporters etc etc). I know the federation has taken a knock due to the burn, but it just feels like not a lot of progress has been made.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

They've mentioned a few other kinds of FTL and why they can't use them (slipstream needs rare crystals, transwarp conduits are full of debris from the Burn), and time travel technology is banned.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Didn't Disco give Gray a human synth body a la Picard in season 1 and although they said it's not been very successful in years since PIC, it went from Alton Soong's life's work to something they cooked up in a day.

Transporters the size of a commbadge (although retconned in one Disco S4 episode to going through the ship, that definitely wasn't the case in season 3) is a huge deal too.

All that said, Disco barely scratch the surface of what SHOULD be possible, and in fact possible since Kirk's time (transporter as a cure-all and gateway to eternal life, for example)

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Didn't Disco give Gray a human synth body a la Picard in season 1 and although they said it's not been very successful in years since PIC, it went from Alton Soong's life's work to something they cooked up in a day.

Somebody must've left the instructions on how to transfer the Mind's Electrical Patterns from the original body to the new Synthetic host body. But success must've been very low for most people to give up on trying.

It makes sense given how game changing the technology would be if the success rate was too high.

Earth's Global Population has exceeded 7.9 billion people as of November 2021

Lets hypothetically use 1,000,000 attempts per year for a nice round number.
Low Success Rates for transferring the Conciousness from a Biological mind to a Synth mind:
@ 9.000% = 90,000 people having a new lease on life per year
@ 1.000% = 10,000 people having a new lease on life per year
@ 0.100% = _1,000 people having a new lease on life per year
@ 0.010% = ___100 people having a new lease on life per year
@ 0.001% = ____10 people having a new lease on life per year

Transporters the size of a commbadge (although retconned in one Disco S4 episode to going through the ship, that definitely wasn't the case in season 3) is a huge deal too.

That actually makes ALOT more logical sense IMO. Tapping into the local friendly Transporter System Network and asking it to transport you to where-ever you want makes WAY more logical sense given how much energy it must take to transport you along with processing the data vs having the Combadge do everything that a traditional Transporter would do.

All that said, Disco barely scratch the surface of what SHOULD be possible, and in fact possible since Kirk's time (transporter as a cure-all and gateway to eternal life, for example)

It's not so much of a cure-all, but a circumstantial repair tool, and it definitely won't grant you eternal life.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It's not so much of a cure-all, but a circumstantial repair tool, and it definitely won't grant you eternal life.

Every teleport reverts your age to the stored pattern, making you immune to ageing and illness. If you die, a copy is resurrected Thomas Riker/William Boimler style. What would stop you?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Every teleport reverts your age to the stored pattern, making you immune to ageing and illness. If you die, a copy is resurrected Thomas Riker/William Boimler style. What would stop you?

I think you're misunderstanding how the Transporter works.

1) The transporter's buffer pattern doesn't revert your age to the stored pattern.
2) The Stored Pattern is just a arrangement of your existing molecules before being teleported.
3) The Transporter phases your existing molecules/atoms and puts them into the stated location so that every molecule/atom goes back into it's original position.
4) The Thomas Riker / William Boimler was a result of outside interference due to anomalies that can't be replicated or recreated on command.

Those are weird one-off incidents. And the copy of the person isn't you, it's a clone of you.

You're not sharing conciousness between two bodies.

At the end of the day, you're still you; the same person, in the same body.

Even if you had a Thomas Riker / William Boimler transporter accident, you just only gained a Identical Twin.

From the moment they are created, they're a different person from you. The original.

Your life experiences will start deviating after they come into existence.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Given that any resurrected copies wouldn't technically be you, but that's irrelevant. It's as close to immortality as can be. And the other examples were proven in "The Lorelai Signal" and "Natural Selection" but never repeated for no good reason whatsoever.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Given that any resurrected copies wouldn't technically be you, but that's irrelevant. It's as close to immortality as can be. And the other examples were proven in "The Lorelai Signal" and "Natural Selection" but never repeated for no good reason whatsoever.

In "The Lorelai Signal".

The opto-aud reveals both sexes of the race from which they are descended, and Theela explains that they came to this planet when their homeworld began to die. They built the temple and all surrounding it, but they did not know that surface radiation which the planet emitted drained humanoid energy. The women's bodies developed a glandular secretion that enabled them to survive and to manipulate certain areas of the male's brains to influence their emotional senses, ultimately draining the men. This caused them to weaken and die. To survive the females must revitalize every 27 years. They are eternal prisoners because they neither age nor die, nor can they bear children.
...
Uhura and one of her security officers locate the urn and destroy it with their phasers, on setting one, releasing the water and the trapped crew members. They are quickly returned to the sickbay of the Enterprise. Chapel tries everything she knows in her attempt to reverse the aging process, but she fails. Spock suggests that the transporter is the key to their age restoration, because it holds the molecular pattern of their original bodies when they beamed down. Although feasible, this procedure has never been attempted before. Spock states that the odds are against them, 99.7 to 1. If it fails, their patterns will break up and scatter in space.

Scott, who, despite still having a severe headache he and the other men still all have, is no longer affected by the alien probe. He transports the four aged crewmen to the planet's surface and prepares to transport them back aboard upon reprogramming the transporter. Despite a brief scare, their transport-transformation is successful.

Back in the temple on the planet, Theela destroys the opto-aud, the probe that lured men to their planet, with a phaser, as part of a prearranged agreement. Uhura explains that a crew of women will bring a ship back to transport the alien women to the first suitable planet, where, according to Dr. McCoy, their physiology will return to normal within a few months, ultimately offering them a better future than immortality.

The transporter only restored the body to its previous state for the men affected on the away team and who were "Prematurely Aged" by the affects of the planet and the Theelans.

It didn't make them any younger, and they were cured of the planets affects of draining humanoid energy.

Spock says it's not guranteed to work, but it got them back to where they were, right before the Away mission.

ST:TNG - Unnatural Selection
Doctor Pulaski is exposed to Genetically Engineered children whose immune system leaves their body and attacks regular folks body, ergo causing them to age.

"Data's analysis is conclusive, and unfortunate. As he explains to the astonished Kingsley and Pulaski, the antibody the children's immune system created to counteract the Thelusian flu does more than attack the virus;
it interacts with normal Human DNA to change sequences which affect the aging process. The children are in fact more than carriers; they're the cause. Since DNA is self-replicating, the effects are irreversible,
and as evidenced by how rapidly the crew of the Lantree were wiped out, any infected person is capable of infecting others."

"Data beams back aboard after a farewell to the now-white-haired Pulaski, who looks around a hundred years old by now, like the equally deteriorated Kingsley. Both women seem to have accepted their terrible fate with
more calm by now, but both still look very depressed. However, after Data is screened for organics and beamed aboard, Picard asks him about another idea. Since the genetic changes are the cause, they could take a sample
of her genetic code and have the transporter reverse the transposition. Chief O'Brien says it will work, but it would be risky, since they will lose her pattern if it doesn't work."

"It takes some doing to get a DNA sample; Pulaski's records have not arrived at the Enterprise from Starfleet Command yet. Riker and Data search her quarters and finally find a hair follicle on her hairbrush. Picard calls
Pulaski. The bridge crew and Picard are shocked by the image of severe deterioration, now looking much older than a hundred years."

"The captain explains the possible solution to the terminal doctor. Pulaski, now totally exhausted, out of time and options, is willing to give it a try. Troi is very shaken and sad, seeing and possibly feeling Pulaski's
terror, despair and unbearable suffering. O'Brien warns Picard that the trip is one-way only; if the procedure doesn't work, Pulaski can't be beamed back to Darwin Station. Picard takes the transporter controls and assumes
full responsibility for the attempt so that O'Brien will not be to blame should something go wrong, to O'Brien's gratitude. After a tense several seconds of controlling the transporter during beam-in, the doctor, restored
to her proper age, appears. Picard admits to her had the procedure not worked he would have had to beam her pattern into space. Pulaski doesn't mind, since she assumes the worst whenever she uses it anyway."

+ Conclusion:
Given enough time, the Transporter can restore a person back to whom they were assuming:
- You didn't lose any matter or enough matter despite your physical state change due to whatever incident/sickness/condition affected you
- If you lost too much matter (arms gets ripped off and disintegrated), you have nothing to restore with. You still need the raw base biological matter.
Other options exist (Regenerating and growing new Limbs), but that takes time (weeks) and you have to retrain your body to adjust to the new limb and re-train your muscle memory.

Given that the Transporter is a "Repair Tool", most people in the future don't see it as a tool to constantly change their body back to a younger state or a "Fountain/Transporter of Youth".
And most people in the future probably don't want to test what will happen if they age many years and try to revert their body a few years back.

How does the Transporter integrate all the new memory engrams into the old body?

What if you gained weight or lost certain things within your body?

There are tons of things that can change in your body over a large span of time in years that the Transporter might not be able to figure out how to solve on the fly.

 

[fireproof78]

Given that any resurrected copies wouldn't technically be you, but that's irrelevant. It's as close to immortality as can be. And the other examples were proven in "The Lorelai Signal" and "Natural Selection" but never repeated for no good reason whatsoever.

That is the way of Trek tech.

 

[blssdwlf]

Given enough time, the Transporter can restore a person back to whom they were assuming:
- You didn't lose any matter or enough matter despite your physical state change due to whatever incident/sickness/condition affected you
- If you lost too much matter (arms gets ripped off and disintegrated), you have nothing to restore with. You still need the raw base biological matter.
Other options exist (Regenerating and growing new Limbs), but that takes time (weeks) and you have to retrain your body to adjust to the new limb and re-train your muscle memory.

Check out TNG's "Lonely Among Us" and DS9's "Our Man Bashir". In both cases, the matter (body) was lost and was still able to re-materialize with energy and a transporter pattern. Interestingly, DS9's transporters were unable to store the pattern (either due to damage or lack of space) and had to shunt them into the holosuite. E-D's transporters kept Picard's pattern for at least an hour.

And also "Relics" where it looked like Scotty kept refreshing his pattern over several decades to mimic suspended animation.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Check out TNG's "Lonely Among Us" and DS9's "Our Man Bashir". In both cases, the matter (body) was lost and was still able to re-materialize with energy and a transporter pattern. Interestingly, DS9's transporters were unable to store the pattern (either due to damage or lack of space) and had to shunt them into the holosuite. E-D's transporters kept Picard's pattern for at least an hour.

And also "Relics" where it looked like Scotty kept refreshing his pattern over several decades to mimic suspended animation.

ST:TNG - Lonely Among Us:

Spoiler: Lonely Among Us

Captain Picard has his body taken over by Alien energy being and gets transported into a cloud/nebula
Picards body is in an Phased Energy state, but somehow he gets back to the transporter and is able to have the process reversed
"After searching for over an hour, the Enterprise still cannot find Picard's energy pattern. Riker, seeing no other option, orders La Forge to set course for Parliament. But, Troi senses Picard. He does not belong with
the rest of the lifeforms in the cloud and needs help. Riker tells La Forge to move the Enterprise into the cloud, so they can find Picard's energy signal. At first, there is no sign of Picard anywhere in the cloud,
but on La Forge's helm console, the circuits re-arrange to form a "P". Data surmises that Picard has found his way into the ship's systems. Data asks Troi and Riker to accompany him to the transporter room."

"P? For 'Picard'?"

"Since Picard's physical pattern is stored in the transporter system, Data attempts to recombine his energy pattern, as he hopes that Picard has worked his way into the transporter. Data energizes and Picard materializes
on the transporter pad. Picard has a vague memory of what happened to him, much like Worf and Crusher. Riker tells Picard that he should head down to sickbay, as Dr. Crusher believes Picard is very tired"

Picard had his atoms turned into a "Phased Energy State" and shunted into the local nebula where the Alien tried to take him.

But Picard, even in his "Phased Energy State", found a way back to "The Enterprise".

Luckily they still had his pattern on file and they reassembled Captain Picard back into the man he was.

That situation with Picard was more about fixing Picard and putting him back to his original self.

As for "Relics", Scotty's trick of refreshing his pattern was 50% successful, his fellow crewman died due to mechanical failure on his side of the Transporter and signal degradation.

But that's one heck of a MacGyvering attempt to survive. Something can be learned from all of that. But that's a method of Suspended Animation, not reverting you back to your youthful self.

DS9 was about shunting the physical matter and the data somewhere, it just happened to be in the Holosuite since they were running low on memory on the station and had to commander the Holosuite.

 

[blssdwlf]

That situation with Picard was more about fixing Picard and putting him back to his original self.

As for "Relics", Scotty's trick of refreshing his pattern was 50% successful, his fellow crewman died due to mechanical failure on his side of the Transporter and signal degradation.

But that's one heck of a MacGyvering attempt to survive. Something can be learned from all of that. But that's a method of Suspended Animation, not reverting you back to your youthful self.

DS9 was about shunting the physical matter and the data somewhere, it just happened to be in the Holosuite since they were running low on memory on the station and had to commander the Holosuite.

The point being is that in two of those cases, Picard had no body and the DS9 crew didn't have bodies either which would indicate that the transporter repair trick isn't dependent on having a physical body to do it with. For Scotty, he effectively was keeping himself youthful (by not aging) by resetting back to his starting transporter pattern.

So, if a transporter pattern can be held indefinitely, you could clone yourself a body based on when the pattern was recorded. I do believe the writers however put in some caveats to where you'd still need your surviving neural energy to make your body whole. All IMHO

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The point being is that in two of those cases, Picard had no body and the DS9 crew didn't have bodies either which would indicate that the transporter repair trick isn't dependent on having a physical body to do it with. For Scotty, he effectively was keeping himself youthful (by not aging) by resetting back to his starting transporter pattern.

With Picard's case, his body was transitioned to a "Phased Energy State" which is what the Transporter does anyways to beam you over such long distances in a near instantaneous amount of time.

How else do you think the transporter rips you apart, atom-by-atom, and reassembles you back again?

That phased energy is your atoms.

So the Transporter needed Picards specific Phased Energy, not just any old random one will do.

So, if a transporter pattern can be held indefinitely, you could clone yourself a body based on when the pattern was recorded. I do believe the writers however put in some caveats to where you'd still need your surviving neural energy to make your body whole. All IMHO

The Transporter doesn't make new matter, it just takes the existing matter and slightly changes the phase of your atoms into a semi-energy "Phased State" to allow it to be beamed wherever you tell the Transporter to do so.


As for Scotty in the TNG episode "Relics". Scotty Jerry Rigged the Transporter in a strange configuration.

Spoiler: ST:TNG episode "Relics"

The Enterprise locates the Jenolan, having crashed on the surface of the sphere. Surprisingly, several small power readings are still emanating from the crashed ship and life support systems are still operating, on minimal levels. Riker, Lieutenant Commander La Forge and Lieutenant Worf beam aboard the Jenolan and find that, although some of the ship's systems are still functioning, there are no apparent signs of life. However, La Forge discovers that the transporters have been reconfigured in a strange manner – power has been drawn from the auxiliary systems (they were a regenerative power source) and pattern buffers locked to cycle in a Level 4 diagnostic mode. Riker works out that by leaving the transporter in the diagnostic mode, it rerouted the matter array through the pattern buffer. Furthermore, La Forge finds a pattern is still in the buffer and, amazingly, it has suffered almost no degradation, less than 0.003%. Riker wonders if someone could survive in the transporter buffer for seventy-five years and La Forge finds out by rematerializing the stored pattern. Captain Montgomery "Scotty" Scott materializes on the transporter pad, his left arm in a makeshift sling of torn uniform cloth.

After Scott thanks La Forge and Riker for rematerializing him, he runs over to the transporter console and attempts to retrieve a second pattern, that of Ensign Matt Franklin, but unfortunately, unlike the phase inducer that kept Scott's pattern intact, the phase inducer responsible for doing the same for Franklin's pattern has failed – although Scott has La Forge boost the gain on the matter stream, the pattern has degraded by 53% – too much for him to be rematerialized when the transporters cannot compensate. Riker offers his condolences and introduces La Forge and himself to Scott. When Riker explains that they came from the starship Enterprise, Scott reacts understandably, believing he was saved by a crew led by Jim Kirk in the decommissioned USS Enterprise-A, and asks how long he was in the pattern buffers. Worf interrupts the conversation and Riker introduces the security officer to Scott. Learning that there is a Klingon officer serving in Starfleet, Scott realizes that he has been in the buffer for an extremely long time.

The downside of using the Transporter as a Stasis machine is if there is any hardware failures, and we all know hardware likes to fail at the most inopportune time, "Murphy's Law", then the persons pattern could be lost like with poor Ensign Matt Franklin who had his pattern degraded by 53% because his "Phase Inducer" failed over the 75 year period.

While the Jerry Rigged Transporter might be a effective way of freezing your body over a long period of time, there are so many things that can go wrong that it should be a last ditched solution.

It's only good for pausing your body while time passes, it's not good for going back to a more youthful state, and it's incredibly dangerous to use/implement.


In ST:ENT "DeadStop", when the Alien Repair Station replicators tried to replicate Travis Mayweather, it could make a cloned copy that is atomically perfect, but couldn't even create the most basic living micro organism.

Spoiler: ST:ENT "Dead Stop" spoilers

Sato enters sickbay to say goodbye to Mayweather as Phlox performs the autopsy. He lets her say what she needs to, but then sees something odd on the monitor. Meanwhile, Archer goes to Reed in Mayweather's quarters, but no more information is to be found. Phlox calls him to sickbay to reveal that the body is not Mayweather's, but that of a near-perfect replica: even if Mayweather was dead, there would still be microorganisms (from a Rigelian fever vaccine recently administered ship-wide after a crewmember was infected with the disease) living in the bloodstream, but they are also dead. Since they thrive on isolytic energy, the shock that killed Mayweather would have, if anything, increased their number. Doctor Phlox suggests that replicating living organisms is beyond the abilities of the station.

The replicator can't make living biological organisms or living biological tissue.

So don't think of trying to shunt the Replicator in to solve the missing matter issue.

The special biological tissue that makes you "Alive" is unique to "You".

It's not something that can be replicated or duplicated under normal circumstances.

And yes, there was that weird Transporter Accident that duplicated Will Riker into Thomas Riker and Brad Boimler into "William Boimler".

But that isn't something that is controllable and all that does is create a clone of you.

That still wouldn't be "you" at the end of the day.

 

[blssdwlf]

With Picard's case, his body was transitioned to a "Phased Energy State" which is what the Transporter does anyways to beam you over such long distances in a near instantaneous amount of time.

Where is that said? Was this "phased energy state" stated in any specific TNG or DS9 or Voyager episode?

How else do you think the transporter rips you apart, atom-by-atom, and reassembles you back again?

Star Trek has been rather inconsistent on how this is presented so who knows.

So the Transporter needed Picards specific Phased Energy, not just any old random one will do.

First Officer's log, supplemental. More than an hour has passed since the Captain beamed out, energy only.
Every effort has been made to determine his whereabouts.
...
RIKER: The entity, has it abandoned him?
TROI: No, but the combination wasn't possible out there. He's in trouble, sir. We have to beam him back.
RIKER: Beam him back as what? He's nothing but energy now.
...
DATA: Sir, the entity was caught in the ship's circuitry. The Captain might try to get in the same way if he's in trouble.
DATA: He's in the ship's circuitry. Come to the Transporter room, please. There might be a way, sir. Hurry!
...
RIKER: Is it a wild theory, Data?
DATA: I knew we had to have the Captain's physical pattern here, sir. He was the last one to beam out.
RIKER: Is what you're thinking possible?
DATA: Unknown at this time, sir. I hope the Captain remembers his physical pattern is here. If he has, his energy has moved into the transporter relays by now.
RIKER: I wish we had some sign that he's in here. I guess we have no choice but to risk it.
DATA: Energising, sir.
PICARD: What the devil am I doing here?
RIKER: Sounds like our Captain.
TROI: But confused. This Picard pattern was formed before he went out there.​

The Transporter doesn't make new matter, it just takes the existing matter and slightly changes the phase of your atoms into a semi-energy "Phased State" to allow it to be beamed wherever you tell the Transporter to do so.

In "Lonely Among Us" the dialogue clearly states that the transporter didn't have any of Picard's matter to start with since he was brought back starting as energy only and the transporter had to use his physical pattern to recreate his physical form, albeit it's not the Picard that came back.

As for Scotty in the TNG episode "Relics". Scotty Jerry Rigged the Transporter in a strange configuration.

It's only good for pausing your body while time passes, it's not good for going back to a more youthful state, and it's incredibly dangerous to use/implement.

Give that Scotty's situation was dire and they were low on food it made sense for him to effectively freeze his aging. But in a safe location like Earth in a lab using this technique he could preserve his pattern in a protected storage and after living another 10 years go back and restore his physical body to his stored pattern. Sure, he might forget the 10 years he just lived but he would have de-aged 10 years.