Does the transporter make a sound in-universe?

[tonk'peh]

This is driving me crazy. I'd always assumed the transporter sound was diegetic (the characters can hear it), but now I'm not sure. I'm a new Trek fan, only on season 3 of TNG, and there are so many moments in TNG when a character doesn't react to an object or person who transported until they see it. Is there any evidence to the contrary (e.g. someone reacts specifically to the transporter *sound*?).

Thanks for the help!

 

[Tosk]

According to T'Pol in Enterprise, they hear the sound too.

"The sound of the transporter alone would alert the guards. They'd start firing before the team was fully resequenced."

Also, Gillian Taylor hears the transporter in Star Trek 4 I think.

Hope you're enjoying TNG!

 

[at Quark's]

I don't know the answer to that, but if we entertain the option that it isn't (transport is soundless in-universe), then the optical effects might as well be invisible.

Though I don't really buy that, it would explain why every series seems to have its own transporter effect, if they're just being added for our benefits but not really there in-universe.

 

[F. King Daniel]

In the novel The Final Reflection, the Klingons are weirded out that Federation transporters make a noise. In TOS the one time we see a Klingon transporter it's silent (although accompanied by a musical sting)

 

[Christopher]

Interesting question. I wondered it myself as a kid; I was used to watching cartoons that had non-diegetic sound effects like the whistle of a falling person or object, so I was open to the possibility that the transporter sound might be a "sweetener" like that. Good to learn that I'm not the only person to wonder that.

Whether characters react to the sound of a transporter seems to depend on the writers/directors of individual episodes. Sometimes they treat it as silent, sometimes not. If there's any kind of pattern to it, my impression is that TOS/TAS tended toward assuming it was silent, while later creators assumed the iconic sound was diegetic and wrote accordingly.

It's hard for me to believe that pushing a volume of air aside and assembling billions of subatomic particles into a human body would be noiseless, let alone doing the reverse. If anything, it might be extremely loud, given the high energies required to dissolve molecular bonds. I'm thinking of the way things sound when they're pulverized or rapidly vaporized -- it's much more violent-sounding than a gentle hum.

If we were talking about the kind of instant teleportation that advanced aliens often used on TOS, like the Metrons or Trelane teleporting Kirk off the bridge in a jump cut, there would logically be a loud thunderclap-type sound as the air rushed into the vacant space, or as the air at the destination was forced out by the subject's arrival (equivalent to how the sound of thunder is created by the intense heat of a lightning bolt causing the air to expand abruptly). But we almost never actually hear that done, instead getting weird "bwa-wa-wa" or "pwee-pwee-pwee" sounds.

 

[Forbin]

I always just assumed yes, we hear the sound it makes. Hm.

 

[at Quark's]

I always just assumed yes, we hear the sound it makes. Hm.

Much like I secretly hope the day will come that in some tense situation a commanding officer shouts: 'can someone turn off that d*mn orchestral music, it's getting on my nerves!'

 

[Christopher]

Much like I secretly hope the day will come that in some tense situation a commanding officer shouts: 'can someone turn off that d*mn orchestral music, it's getting on my nerves!'

I still fondly remember the bit in Brian Daley's Star Wars radio drama adaptation for NPR (at least I think I'm remembering correctly, it's been a long time) where someone explained to Luke that X-Wing cockpits simulate the sounds of other ships, blaster bolts, explosions, etc. as sensory cues for the pilots, so they can tell what's going on out of their line of sight. That was a clever way to rationalize the sound effects, and it seems like it would actually be a pretty good idea.

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

I like the idea of the computer simulating shwooshes and pew pew sounds. Lol.

Now, what about the cloaking sound and the going to warp sound? I always assumed we were just hearing some version of what they were hearing inside the ship.

 

[1001001]

If a transporter beams equipment into a forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?

 

[Ronald Held]

The annular confining beam damps out some sound? If the transporter sends up the air which will be occupied by the transporters, why would there be loud sounds? If not why is there no sound in the transporter room?

 

[Christopher]

Now, what about the cloaking sound and the going to warp sound? I always assumed we were just hearing some version of what they were hearing inside the ship.

I think that can be tested, since we've seen a few episodes where the POV stays inside the ship while it goes to warp (I think there was one where Guinan and someone -- Wesley? -- watched out the Ten Forward windows). I think the same may go for cloaking scenes on the Defiant once or twice. So the question is, do they use the same sounds there as in the exteriors?

I tend to assume sounds in space scenes are non-diegetic sweeteners. Almost everything in space shots has to be taken as figurative anyway -- real ships in deep space wouldn't be so brightly lit, they'd be immensely farther apart (there are episodes where ships are said to be thousands of kilometers apart while the effects show them in naked-eye view), energy beams would be invisible in vacuum, spaceships don't bank when they turn, etc. Not to mention the way modern FX creators insist on cramming space shots full of ridiculous amounts of nebulosity, or even put a halo effect around the lights as if the ships were surrounded by mist.

When I've seen productions that don't use sound in space, like Firefly or Cuaron's Gravity, I actually find the lack of sound effects makes them more potent, not less. After all, real news footage from surveillance video or the like is often silent, or events may be viewed from a great enough distance that you can't hear them, so the lack of sound effects actually heightens the realism and the impact for me.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I still fondly remember the bit in Brian Daley's Star Wars radio drama adaptation for NPR (at least I think I'm remembering correctly, it's been a long time) where someone explained to Luke that X-Wing cockpits simulate the sounds of other ships, blaster bolts, explosions, etc. as sensory cues for the pilots, so they can tell what's going on out of their line of sight. That was a clever way to rationalize the sound effects, and it seems like it would actually be a pretty good idea.

Reminds me a little of 2009 Star Trek, where the Kelvin was firing away with modern sound effects but the classic TOS ones were used on the bridge. I thought it was a cool way to bridge old and new.

Then they had really inconsistent rule of cool sound in space.

 

[JoseNoodles]

If a transporter beams equipment into a forest and no one is there, does it make a sound?

What's the sound of one nacelle warping?

 

[HIjol]

Much like I secretly hope the day will come that in some tense situation a commanding officer shouts: 'can someone turn off that d*mn orchestral music, it's getting on my nerves!'

cue Count Basie Orchestra in “Blazing Saddles”!
I wonder if Sheriff Bart and The Waco Kid asked them to stop during dress rehearsals. Very distracting!

 

[Owain Taggart]

I'm gonna guess yes. I think it's one way for engineers and transporter operators to know it's functioning, similar to the way one can hear a coil whine.

 

[Christopher]

One other thing that occurs to me is that transporter use might generate noticeable heat in the vicinity, because all the energy being utilized would inevitably generate some waste heat. Also, there's conservation of energy to consider. IIRC, Larry Niven's teleportation stories addressed the difference in gravitational potential energy if you're teleporting from one altitude to another, and how it would get converted to heat if you jump to a lower altitude or take away heat if you jump higher. Not to mention the kinetic energy of orbital motion relative being on a planet surface. I think the Technical Manual had a handwave about how the transporter compensates for that energy differential, but if it isn't perfectly calibrated, there might be some residual thermal effects.

 

[Greg Cox]

I still fondly remember the bit in Brian Daley's Star Wars radio drama adaptation for NPR (at least I think I'm remembering correctly, it's been a long time) where someone explained to Luke that X-Wing cockpits simulate the sounds of other ships, blaster bolts, explosions, etc. as sensory cues for the pilots, so they can tell what's going on out of their line of sight. That was a clever way to rationalize the sound effects, and it seems like it would actually be a pretty good idea.

I like that idea.

Like keyboards on phones making a typewriter clicking noise just for the effect.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Or the modern equivalent of electric cars producing engine noises

 

[HIjol]

Or the sound of my starship going to warp…ah, no…not quite yet.