You know what, personally I don't care if it makes scientific sense or not. It's a science fiction show for entertainment. If I want scientific accuracy I will watch a documentary.
Should transporter use have been limited?
- Thread starter Eman1986
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Well it'd actually have to happen at a much smaller scale of structure than molecules, but we'll skip that for now.
So if you are broken-down into a molecular soup with a pattern for reconstructing you, what next? Those molecules need to get to the destination. But that's not how transporters seem to work since they can beam through structures which would interrupt a stream of 'your' molecules.
No, it really does seem that 'you' are broken to bits and discarded and are reconstructed from something at the other end according to your pattern. What is that stuff? Something the transporter can find nearby? Not 'you', anyhow. Your molecules are probably routed to the replicator storage tanks for re-use as chicken curry.
I have no problem with space-warp, or tachyon pulses or shields. But transporters are too magical; they can reach 100,000km away and recreate something sentient from nothing.
I always felt that while our heroes on the various Trek shows use transporters a lot, it's actually far more rare for the majority of folks to use them unless they happen to travel on starships a lot. Just like we learned how not everyone on 24th-Century Earth had a replicator, I think not everyone commutes everywhere via transporter. If you're someone who isn't traveling off-world, then you're more likely to use other means of travel like shuttles, trams, or even subways, IMO. Sisko had transporter credits during his days at Starfleet Academy, but burnt up nearly a month of them in just his first week as a cadet--dunno, to me that kind of implied that transporter usage had some kind of regulatory practice in effect and that it may not be as common outside of starships.
Didn't this whole discussion take place at the beginning of Spock Must Die?
How are they put together from anything in a remote location with no transporter pad? If you take that as "true" what's a few walls in the way?
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In my head fanon 23rd century civilian transporter travel is our version of hiring a private jet, only the megarich can afford it, by the 24th century anyone can use it if they want.
Since the Enterprise did not do planet landings. It was either the Transporter or a Shuttlecraft ride to the planets surface. Even though the transporter seems more dangerous, it's use is logical.
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The teleporter is one part of Trek i would happily see retconned. Deconstructing and reconstructing matter not only has technical constraints rooted it in the laws of nature, but it’s also an unpalatable way to travel, given that the original doesn’t go anywhere.
Bizarrely. The ultimate fail safe for the transporter is to confirm that the copy materialises before the original is dematerialised, I wouldn’t use it.
A more mystical approach, where the object is physically moved while intact, but across space and through walls, using as yet undiscovered science would be more plausible.
Bizarrely. The ultimate fail safe for the transporter is to confirm that the copy materialises before the original is dematerialised, I wouldn’t use it.
A more mystical approach, where the object is physically moved while intact, but across space and through walls, using as yet undiscovered science would be more plausible.
The issue for me is, you can walk out of a car accent with a few bumps and bruises. However, if your molecular structure gets compromised in a transporter malfunction, there’s no coming back from that!
Especially if you don't check for flies inside the compartment with you!
JB
I can't swim, either, but I have not minded being on boats.
Planes, however, I am very afraid of them. I habe been on one once, to and from for Woodstock 1999. It was okay, but I have never liked the idea of planes.
Agreed, car crashes happen a lot, and you have a higher chance of getting in one. But you are much more likely to SURVIVE a car crash than a plane crash. Of all the plane crashes that have happened, how many people actually survived?
It also boils down, for me, to trust. On a plane, I have to trust someone else with my life. Boats, too, but at least I have room to move around and be able to do something. Driving, I am in control of my truck.
Every year, I drive to Atlanta from Miami for DragonCon. I have more control of time this way. If there are weather delays or other reasons, a plane trip will be delayed, and can potentially delay to a point of a day or more. Driving, I do have to wake up very early, but at least I am getting there when I predict it. I have more control over the trip.
(Plus, up until at least the middle of Tennessee, it is actually cheaper for one person to drive than fly. Even more so when more people go.)
Planes, however, I am very afraid of them. I habe been on one once, to and from for Woodstock 1999. It was okay, but I have never liked the idea of planes.
Agreed, car crashes happen a lot, and you have a higher chance of getting in one. But you are much more likely to SURVIVE a car crash than a plane crash. Of all the plane crashes that have happened, how many people actually survived?
It also boils down, for me, to trust. On a plane, I have to trust someone else with my life. Boats, too, but at least I have room to move around and be able to do something. Driving, I am in control of my truck.
Every year, I drive to Atlanta from Miami for DragonCon. I have more control of time this way. If there are weather delays or other reasons, a plane trip will be delayed, and can potentially delay to a point of a day or more. Driving, I do have to wake up very early, but at least I am getting there when I predict it. I have more control over the trip.
(Plus, up until at least the middle of Tennessee, it is actually cheaper for one person to drive than fly. Even more so when more people go.)
Even worse, this copy they made of you is shambling around in your discarded bones and flesh. It, and its copies, get to live with your friends and family, all the while acting and thinking it is you.
It's horrifying. Star Trek is the darkest future.
*shrug* it's a TV show. The way it's been described in the shows (at least from TNG+) is, the subject is dematerialized at the point of origin, then rematerialized at the destination. The "pattern" is sent via subspace radio where it becomes a subject once again. Everything in Trek indicates that the beam is the original beam.
Certainly physics suggests that's kind of impossible, but again, its TV.
But you are MUCH MUCH more likely to be in a car crash than in a plane crash. The only reason plane crashes are big news is because of how rare they are.
By TV logic, every unusual thing that happens is a surprise that any unusual thing could ever happen. Therefore, it's not dangerous to use the transporter.
Also in cars you have the illusion of being in control, and a nonzero chance of survival. So you can easily feel that A) If you are a good driver you won't crash and B) If you do crash, you won't be one of the ones who dies. In a plane you have neither of these conceits. You have no control and if you crash you will definitely die.
It would be the same with transporters, it would create more anxiety because you have no illusion of control.
I'd still rather take my chances on the road, where I am not likely to plummet thousands of feet to my death.
Besides, road trips can be quite fun. The Winchester way of life has a certain appeal... Dean's choice of music, in particular.
What I wish they'd have done is devise the transporter not as a demolecularizer and reconstructor, but more as a "phase displacement" device. Somehow you are enveloped in an energy field that displaces you into another dimension where time and the laws of physics operates differently. It opens up a small rift that, through a dimensional loop through the fabric of space-time, has an opening at your destination. Kind of like what you see with "Sliders." This way there's not all of this cockamamie molecular mumbo-jumbo to wrestle with. The object being transported is always intact, just "shifted" from one place to another. And it happens nearly instantaneously for short distances, longer for other distances. And of course, there is a range limitation.
A lot of it depends upon the train. RIde on an old worn MTA-Metro North train from the 1970's, and it's not a pleasant experience. But the Japanese bullet train? Or a high-speed rail in Sweden or France? Magnificent!
I think I read somewhere that the matter stream is siphoned through subspace, which is how they get around the solid obstacle argument. But like all Trek tech, it doesn't hold water when the transporter can split Kirk in two or create a duplicate Will Riker.
For a show that needed a device to offset cost, the transporter works. As a plot device around which entire episodes are written, I hate it.
Aha I hadn't thought of that, it is indeed a Clever Workaround.
In story terms I don't know how writers could have been dissuaded from using transporters so freely. Perhaps the Writers' Guides could have mandated cumulative genetic damage or something to at least make characters slightly concerned.
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