It would seem that's already happened in this timeline. Perhaps, hence the rather apocalyptic state of the planet.
Transporters in the nuVerse [SPOILERS]
- Thread starter Flake
- Start date
The "why not just beam a weapon (torpedoes, antimatter, it doesn't matter) over to the other ship/planet" question is as old as TOS no matter what the transport distance is.
The answer that always worked for me was there must be some kind of sensor that can be activiated (or is always on by default until deactivated), that can detect certain explosive materials and such in an incoming transport and block that transport.
The answer that always worked for me was there must be some kind of sensor that can be activiated (or is always on by default until deactivated), that can detect certain explosive materials and such in an incoming transport and block that transport.
Hey, shields can block any transport, and whatever is in the beam then harmlessly ceases to exist.
That is, they can do that in the previous incarnations of Trek, which is why transporters are fundamentally useless in combat, and difficult to use even in surprise attacks. But Nero supposedly had shields up on his drilling rig when attacking Earth (Chekov specifically points out when they go down at the end of the big climax fight), yet this in no way hindered Kirk and Spock's beaming back and forth - only the interference from Nero's drill did.
That's the sort of discontinuity in treknology that I don't particularly like. But I can live with it: a rat race between transporters and shields would allow occasional penetration, especially when time travel cheats affect the outcome of the race.
What I have a much bigger problem with is the OP's suggestion that there is something in the film about not being able to beam up when beaming down happens without a hitch! The transporter has never been asymmetric like that. Of course, it could be, and by all rights should be, but it isn't. The transporter room guy needs a clear image of what is at the other end, and if he can't see it well enough to beam it up, he can't send anybody down "blind", either.
Or can he? The issue has never arisen in previous Trek, because no beam-down has been desperate enough. Desperation has only involved getting a hero out of a jam, and generally this can't be achieved by sending more people into said jam. But this scene might well involve something worth risking a "blind beam-down".
...Apparently, the hero beaming down isn't able to pack a beacon that would allow him and his target to subsequently be beamed up. But that sort of a limitation can probably easily be handwaved away.
Dunno. Gonna see the flick no matter what. Sounds a bit silly in places, but probably not too damningly so.
Timo Saloniemi
That is, they can do that in the previous incarnations of Trek, which is why transporters are fundamentally useless in combat, and difficult to use even in surprise attacks. But Nero supposedly had shields up on his drilling rig when attacking Earth (Chekov specifically points out when they go down at the end of the big climax fight), yet this in no way hindered Kirk and Spock's beaming back and forth - only the interference from Nero's drill did.
That's the sort of discontinuity in treknology that I don't particularly like. But I can live with it: a rat race between transporters and shields would allow occasional penetration, especially when time travel cheats affect the outcome of the race.
What I have a much bigger problem with is the OP's suggestion that there is something in the film about not being able to beam up when beaming down happens without a hitch! The transporter has never been asymmetric like that. Of course, it could be, and by all rights should be, but it isn't. The transporter room guy needs a clear image of what is at the other end, and if he can't see it well enough to beam it up, he can't send anybody down "blind", either.
Or can he? The issue has never arisen in previous Trek, because no beam-down has been desperate enough. Desperation has only involved getting a hero out of a jam, and generally this can't be achieved by sending more people into said jam. But this scene might well involve something worth risking a "blind beam-down".
...Apparently, the hero beaming down isn't able to pack a beacon that would allow him and his target to subsequently be beamed up. But that sort of a limitation can probably easily be handwaved away.
Dunno. Gonna see the flick no matter what. Sounds a bit silly in places, but probably not too damningly so.
Timo Saloniemi
I can't disagree with you. It is a bit of a lazy out. Just saying that the new movies weren't the first in Trek to use such a thing.
No, Admiral Marcus wanted to turn the cold war with the Klingons into a hot one.
Have we seen the same movie?
Harrison/Khan had nothing to do with the transfer of the missiles.
Marcus had them transferred to the Enterprise, thus getting rid of - if the Kirk had functioned as intended - Khan, his crew and the Enterprise.
Good, now you are onto Marcus' plan.
Too late. Praxis has already crumbled to pieces.
I haven't seen the new film and I haven't read all the spoilers, so I don't know what this issue is in the new film.
However, there was beam down/up asymmetry in The Cage. Landing parties beamed down together, but they came up one at a time, as evidently they had to.
So, the idea of asymmetry was present in the first pilot.
SPOILERS:
Maybe we didn't see the same movie! I thought Spock pulled a fast one at the end? I didn't see anything to indicate that Harrison left any of his people behind? Wasn't that 72 in a single transport?
The TMP Enterprise had a couple of emergency transporters that could take 20(?) people at a time but that presumably had fewer safety features. In TNG I believe they temporarily upgraded cargo transporters so transporting large numbers of people in one go is not unheard of but unusual for a single person, especially considering how proud Scotty was of beaming 3 people from two locations in the last movie - although I can see how that would be tricky for one person. Maybe they should have more than one transporter on standby?
It is a bit incongruous though isn't it? Why do you need emergency transporters at all if you can just beam 72 people to your cargo bay.
I really love the TMP Enterprise. So much thought went into making it credible and yet limited in scope (including emergency batteries, recreational facilities, and botanical labs). It evoked the pioneer spirit of our current astronauts by clearly being a cramped tin can in space but had just enough advanced features to make it inspiring.
If subspace radio can be believed to deliver real time messages and conversations across vast distances (even at warp), then it's not much of a stretch to think some kind of Trek technology could possibly be used to transport animate objects across just as vast a distance.
The thing is, over the years in TOS, they've always wanted us to believe the transporter was rather iffy, cutting edge technology (with bad timing when it decided to break down) Transporters were more dependable and transporting more routine around TNG time.
Apparently, in this Trek universe transporters are already less problematic. Except,
The thing is, over the years in TOS, they've always wanted us to believe the transporter was rather iffy, cutting edge technology (with bad timing when it decided to break down) Transporters were more dependable and transporting more routine around TNG time.
Apparently, in this Trek universe transporters are already less problematic. Except,
even though Khan can transport himself from Earth to Kronos without a problem, something as simple as interference from the Volcano on Nibiru forces the Enterprise to need to be almost on top of Spock before he can be beamed aboard.
Oh, by that time he was known as Khan. You should have been more specific. Yes, he beamed those 72 torpedoes in one go. So?
The issue for me is the amount of data. Admittedly, TNGadded layers of technobabble to the process but you need a beam of energy to prevent too much data leaking and you need heisenberg compensators to recombine the person successfully. It's hard to see how all that can still work at such long distances without a receiving pad if you can't even beam people out of the katric arc underground or when people are moving (FYI - the universe is moving, the planets are moving, the spaceships are moving, and tiny movements are magnified over long distances - it really should be a lot harder doing this over such long distances.
God-like alien tech aside, I can only see this working if they have a network of transporter relays on subspace communication relays to buffer the signal but transportees could end up being stranded if one of the relays is destroyed...
Or the Stargate style, where you open a wormhole and scan beyond it before sending the transporter signal through.
Now Stargate had a very good grasp on the limits of its tech and used it in some very effective stories. Trek tech is more versatile but I do wish the writers had a bible of do's and don'ts to work with.
Transporting over 20 light years would be on my don't list.
He more than one name and I was trying to you know not spoil that little tidbit for those that hadn't watched it yet! It's too easy to be free with major spoilers.
SPOILERS
Lol - technological hindrances force characters to make difficult choices. Does the villain hang around to complete the task or does he flee to avoid being captured (lucky for him he was in the only starship in the quadrant and starfleet security was napping again).
But don't be so down on talky or moralising bits. Without them you get a hollow movie full of explosions and women in their underwear. The homage to TWoK felt a bit forced and hollow here whereas I tear up every time in TWoK because of the way that scene is written - the music, the event coming after they think they've cheated death yet again, the talking etc. Some of the greatest sci fi movies of all time have lots of talking. ;P
Still, sometimes less talking can be good. I think Tasha's death and Wash's death in Serenity have a certain cool factor because they aren't noble or drawn out - they're redshirt deaths happening to main characters. That's what I want to see!
OK. All of this is my opinion ofc. I am trying to say how I think Transwarp beaming undermines actually using a starship and/or shuttlecraft to get from point A to point B which is a pretty core component of Star Trek from 1966-2005. Transwarp beaming puts multiple spanners into the works for me. I was willing to let it go as a one-off to help them write their script for ST09 but now its an integral plot device again and it annoys me!!.. I wish it didn't! Honestly! Its too easy and convenient...
This is cool They setup a mirror episode and then go away.
I will trot out the same excuse that allows my brain to 'live with it'.... it was an accident and its highly improbable that you can put two people on the pad and replicate it without something going wrong? Again, I need to listen to the technobabble I suppose. Not ready to re-watch that episode right now 
The majority of these transporter accidents I believe are caused by some form of anomaly or co-incidence that occurs during the episode that causes the accident and results in these extraordinary events. None of them (?) are as a result of someone actually changing the software to do exactly what occurs. They are mostly freak accidents that cannot be replicated.
Transwarp Beaming is a software update by Scotty using an equation. It results in a transporter that is able to beam people across tens or perhaps hundreds of light-years and it can be used again and again with pretty good success rate (so far!). This imho renders Starships and shuttlecraft obsolete or at the very least undermines their existence. Why bother with them when you can now beam everywhere. Transporters were never meant to be used for interstellar beaming from one solar system to another!
If Kurtzman/Orci had submitted a script like STID or even ST09 to the team in charge of the spinoffs I suspect the first bit to fall by the wayside would have been transwarp beaming because it does not/did not fit into the Trek universe. It is fortunate that the writing staff on the spinoffs had scientific consultants and trek alumni they could go (Okudas, Sternback, Andre Bormanis etc) to to make sure they are not making a mistake with the established Trek gadgets and making them too magical. I would imagine it is something they encountered a lot when they accepted submissions of scripts from the public, now in the nuVerse this consultant team has gone and as a result we have transwarp beaming. Enjoy it people!
A one off occurrence caused by accident! What are the odds? This is acceptable (to me.) I probably need to see this ep again, surely this is not something they can easily replicate. I would hope its a one in a million chance or something... its a plot device revisited by TNG once only in 40 years? I think?
Required plot device for an alt-universe episode, I like mirror eps
This is cool They setup a mirror episode and then go away. Ok I need to see the episode to hear the required technobabble but again I assume this is a freak accident that is not easily replicated? It requires certain conditions that may not occur often and even then might not work?
Again, an accident? Remote chance of re-occurance? Cannot do it again? Unlike transwarp beaming where any transporter in the federation can be fed an equation to make it transwarp capable?
I think I skipped this episode tbh, but I assume that once again it was a freak accident, not something that can be repeated on command.
Ughh its Tuvix!!!
I will trot out the same excuse that allows my brain to 'live with it'.... it was an accident and its highly improbable that you can put two people on the pad and replicate it without something going wrong? Again, I need to listen to the technobabble I suppose. Not ready to re-watch that episode right now I have forgot this one? Which ep? The difference (again) to transwarp beaming is that you cannot go to any transporter and punch in an equation to beam through time again. A certain set of highly improbable circumstances must have occurred in this episode to cause such an event, unlike transwarp beaming that can be retrofitted into any transporter with some equations with no problem !
Ok this one beats me but fortunately its a so-so TNG episode from 1988 that I can easily discard
Come on man, Cartoons don't count!!!
Not certain on this one, I need to watch the episodes. Point taken here.
I have seen DS9 many times and I suppose I have seen these beamings as well and I never noticed. I need to watch the episodes again, I tried to find information about this on memory alpha but I didn't see anything. This is an interesting development! Need to look into it
-People getting lost in the beam, only to be seen by Barclay as floating monsters during teleport.
-Scotty spending 70 years dematerialized inside a transporter.
-The transporter inventor's son becoming a ghost that mutilated people when they touched him. He spent 18 years like this.
THEY are why transwarp beaming is no big deal whatsoever, and perfectly consistent with the Trek universe. I can only imagine the reaction if they dared resuse one of the other ideas above
The majority of these transporter accidents I believe are caused by some form of anomaly or co-incidence that occurs during the episode that causes the accident and results in these extraordinary events. None of them (?) are as a result of someone actually changing the software to do exactly what occurs. They are mostly freak accidents that cannot be replicated.
Transwarp Beaming is a software update by Scotty using an equation. It results in a transporter that is able to beam people across tens or perhaps hundreds of light-years and it can be used again and again with pretty good success rate (so far!). This imho renders Starships and shuttlecraft obsolete or at the very least undermines their existence. Why bother with them when you can now beam everywhere. Transporters were never meant to be used for interstellar beaming from one solar system to another!
If Kurtzman/Orci had submitted a script like STID or even ST09 to the team in charge of the spinoffs I suspect the first bit to fall by the wayside would have been transwarp beaming because it does not/did not fit into the Trek universe. It is fortunate that the writing staff on the spinoffs had scientific consultants and trek alumni they could go (Okudas, Sternback, Andre Bormanis etc) to to make sure they are not making a mistake with the established Trek gadgets and making them too magical. I would imagine it is something they encountered a lot when they accepted submissions of scripts from the public, now in the nuVerse this consultant team has gone and as a result we have transwarp beaming. Enjoy it people!
Whereas I don't have a problem with the concept that aliens that are older and or smarter than the federation having better toys than them.
When were transporters used to beam across time in TOS?
The DS9 beam across time accident was Past Tense.
The DS9 beam across time accident was Past Tense.
Yes, at a critical moment we find that you cannot beam an object up but you can beam an object down right next to it
My advice is to try your best not to focus on Trek Tech or plot because it makes little sense (IMHO!) just enjoy the spectacle and the performances of the cast because both are A+
The tech and plot issues are probably no 'worse' than what occurred in Star Trek (2009). The trouble is the novelty has worn off and it has to live or die by its plot which comes under more scrutiny and falls to bits as a result... again... IMO.
How can I forget that?
Once again its a one off I think? An accident? Need to check the treknobabble of the episode at some point
Its certainly not something revisited or reproduced with some equations !Yes, maybe the disembodied brains of triskelion are 10 million years old or something and have moved beyond the need for a Starship which is now something starfleet can consider in the nuVerse !
And the audience is free not to like it, and by extension, free to express such criticism in threads such as these. The critics should have just as much a right as defenders.
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