What would you do with a transporter?

[at Quark's]

So, suppose you have this incredibly clear dream one night, telling you how to build a transporter, and it turns out you can do so with off the shelf components that are within your financial reach. After a few weeks (or months) of constructing the thing, and doing some (more or less rigorous) testing, it seems you've actually built a working and safe transporter, as far as you can tell.

Now, what do you do with it? Are you going public with it, patent it and become filthily rich? Would you only tell and share it with a few friends? Or do you keep it your own well-kept secret to do with it whatever it is you want to do? (In that case, what would you use it for?) Or do you think no good could come of such an invention and quietly abandon the thing?

(I myself am still undecided what I would do, but it was fun to fantasize about it for a while).

(Edit: replaced 'build' with 'built' in 1st paragraph)

 

[somebuddyX]

Get a big sledgehammer and smash it to bits and never talk about it again. I was thinking how shit people are driving when someone mentions flying cars. Then you give those people a transporter and they'll immediately set about fucking everything up, trying to do real life Thomas Riker, Tuvix, Realm of Fear, E2, Dark Frontier, The Next Phase, Into Darkness, and then the next thing you know the planet's torn to shreds and we're all dead. No thanks.

 

[Oddish]

When politicians I dislike are on stage and in the middle of their assorted debates and speeches, I de-materialize their clothes and replace it with a bright colored polka-dot clown suit, complete with crazy wig.

Of course, the inevitable question is "why the clown suit?" and the answer is... do any of us really want to see those guys naked?

 

[at Quark's]

Curious how the different security services would react if that politician you didn't like happened to be the then-President, while on national or even worldwide broadcast

 

[valkyrie013]

Depends on the tech.. if its one that destroys the object its transporting.. then just material, or your enemys..
but, it honestly depends on range etc. Can I transport to the moon? Mars? Next system over? or to just the corner store? Then if I release it, all the tourist spots will become JAMMED with people.. then there's the people and governments that would just "Disapear" people. Yeah, keep it to myself. In my will give it to people.. after I'm done with it.

 

[The Wormhole]

Beam to places with it.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Beam to places with it.

Pretty much this. I can tour the whole planet each day and be home in time for supper.

I'd also use it as pest control around the home. I've mentioned this before.

Could also beam out those flying triangles from Area 51 and go on a tour of the galaxy!

 

[1001001]

Beam to places with it.

I was going to say "transport things."

 

[at Quark's]

Depends on the tech.. if its one that destroys the object its transporting.. then just material, or your enemys..
but, it honestly depends on range etc. Can I transport to the moon? Mars? Next system over? or to just the corner store? Then if I release it, all the tourist spots will become JAMMED with people.. then there's the people and governments that would just "Disapear" people. Yeah, keep it to myself. In my will give it to people.. after I'm done with it.

For right now, I was assuming the range to be anywhere on this earth, but not (much) beyond that. So perhaps to the ISS, but definitely not the moon. Also with the capability to be transported back to it (if you could transport to, say, China, but still have to get back the oldfashioned way, its use would be limited, after all).

But I could imagine that for a prototype, its range would be much more limited than that, and the beaming procedure much slower. (Didn't Erickson tell us in ENT that his first transport(er) experience took one and a half minute?)

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I'd use it to steal money. So much money. Beam into the bank vault. Fill a duffel bag with cash. Beam out. Rinse and repeat when I run out.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

I'd use it to steal money. So much money. Beam into the bank vault. Fill a duffel bag with cash. Beam out. Rinse and repeat when I run out.

Wouldn't you rather steal (transport) the stuff money can buy?

 

[at Quark's]

I'd use it to steal money. So much money. Beam into the bank vault. Fill a duffel bag with cash. Beam out. Rinse and repeat when I run out.

Even so _spending_ significant amounts of money might still make you suspicious. ('How could that janitor afford a 10 million dollar estate?').

 

[Orphalesion]

Yeah, if it works like on Star Trek (without killing the person transported) I'd sell the invention and become filthy rich.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Wouldn't you rather steal (transport) the stuff money can buy?

First I need enough money to fill a swimming pool like Scrooge McDuck.

I also have a second idea. I’d use it to become rich by becoming a contract killer. With a transporter, no one is safe. Beam into someone’s room when they’re sleeping, bullet in the head, then cash cash cash.

I bet someone out there would offer a lot of money privately to anyone who blew Putin’s head off while he was dreaming.

Also I am a very bad person.

 

[Oddish]

Curious how the different security services would react if that politician you didn't like happened to be the then-President, while on national or even worldwide broadcast

That's why I never tell anyone what I've got. If they know it's me, they find me, lock me up, and take the transporter for themselves.

 

[at Quark's]

First I need enough money to fill a swimming pool like Scrooge McDuck.

I also have a second idea. I’d use it to become rich by becoming a contract killer. With a transporter, no one is safe. Beam into someone’s room when they’re sleeping, bullet in the head, then cash cash cash.

Also I am a very bad person.

I thought of writing a short story about that idea, about a contract killer with the perfect alibi, taunting the detectives.

'So you found some DNA that apparently matches with mine on the crime scene in Paris. This murder was supposed to have taken place around 18:30, right? As it happens, I can testify that I was at a reception in Cape Town that day till 18:00, and I had a dinner appointment at 19:30. I can provide dozens of witness accounts for both of these events, as well as my credit card transactions. Now, would you please care to explain how you think I could have gotten from Capetown to Paris, kill the victim there, and back to Capetown, all in the space of just 1.5 hours? Doesn't that look as if somebody is trying to set me up here?'

 

[Oddish]

If I wanted to strsight up assassinate someone, I'd just beam them up and rematerialize them 1000 miles straight down, where the planetary mantle would incinerate and crush them. Or not rematerialize them at all.

 

[Orphalesion]

If I wanted to strsight up assassinate someone, I'd just beam them up and rematerialize them 1000 miles straight down, where the planetary mantle would incinerate and crush them. Or not rematerialize them at all.

Or beam them into stuff like a solid rock wall, or a boulder, mixing their molecules with the rock itself. We know from Star Trek that this theoretically can happen, and it would be fatal.

 

[at Quark's]

If I wanted to strsight up assassinate someone, I'd just beam them up and rematerialize them 1000 miles straight down, where the planetary mantle would incinerate and crush them. Or not rematerialize them at all.

True, a professional would choose the cleanest way, leaving least traces.

 

[Oddish]

Stephen King's "The Jaunt" is a great story about the potential dark side of instantaneous teleportation. And it might be one reason why I would be reluctant to actually use the gadget on myself.