A bug in Beyond about Transporter

[F. King Daniel]

Are you sure? In the ship's logs (viewed by Uhura) I remember seeing shuttles landing.

Yep, 100%. I spoke to Sean Hargreaves himself about it on Facebook. He wasn't told to put a shuttlebay on the Franklin so he didn't.

I think we just have to assume there's one somewhere (because we do indeed see NX-type shuttle pods in the Franklin vlog), albeit entirely hidden.

 

[Christopher]

There don't seem to be any drop bays on the Intrepid-type ships either. Maybe those hatches on the back of the half-saucer are shuttlebays, although I think they correspond to features on NX-01 that are meant to be maintenance access hatches or something.

 

[Nyotarules]

Yep, 100%. I spoke to Sean Hargreaves himself about it on Facebook. He wasn't told to put a shuttlebay on the Franklin so he didn't.

I think we just have to assume there's one somewhere (because we do indeed see NX-type shuttle pods in the Franklin vlog), albeit entirely hidden.

So how were the crew supposed to disembark when they came across a planet?

 

[Christopher]

So how were the crew supposed to disembark when they came across a planet?

They lowered the motorcycle on a really long rope.

 

[Nebusj]

So how were the crew supposed to disembark when they came across a planet?

They would just use the planet's shuttlebays.

 

[Nyotarules]

They would just use the planet's shuttlebays.

Not all planets would have them. How many planets had the same level of technology as the Enterprise in TOS when they transported to the surface?

 

[Kemaiku]

So how were the crew supposed to disembark when they came across a planet?

Orbital sky diving.

Shuttlecraft are for wimps. How can you really say you've explored a planet until you've hurtled at it face first at several hundred miles an hour.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Balthazar Edison doesn't land on planets. Planets come up to greet him.

 

[Kemaiku]

Also, superhero landing.

Oddly around the same time everyone in the galaxy started taking the Federation seriously...

 

[Christopher]

Balthazar Edison doesn't land on planets. Planets come up to greet him.

No, no, we're missing the obvious... He opens the Bifrost.

 

[Noname Given]

No, no, we're missing the obvious... He opens the Bifrost.

But was that earlier version of the Bifrost also safe for biological transport, or was Odin covering up something too?

 

[Kemaiku]

Well, there were 10 Realms originally.

 

[Timo]

That NX-326 would lack shuttlecraft is no big shortcoming when the ship obviously (i.e. demonstrably!) can land and take off just fine. Her having a transporter at all is the mystery: why bother with finicky high tech when one can simply open a hatch, roll out a ramp, and be done with it?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

Except it's explicitly said in the movie the Franklin wasn't built to take off or land. Or even fly in an atmosphere.

 

[drt]

So how were the crew supposed to disembark when they came across a planet?

Maybe they originally intended Franklin to land on planets, then changed their minds after Hargreaves had already designed the ship. Fortunately, the shuttlepods are relatively small, so it isn't too hard to imagine their doors are just hidden in the grid lines somewhere or to repurpose some other squarish detail on the ship as the doors.

 

[Timo]

Except it's explicitly said in the movie the Franklin wasn't built to take off or land. Or even fly in an atmosphere.

And since none of that was true, we can dismiss Scotty as being a complete moron. Which incidentally helps us with the transporter "issue" as well, because nothing Scotty says about that device needs to be taken into account, either.

Okay, we don't know if the Franklin was "intended" to land. Quite possibly her intended mission had nothing to do with planets. Yet we do know she could land (she had already done so!) and we do know she could take off (she would do so soon enough), and we have no reason to doubt her ability to fly in an atmosphere (the fact that she did notwithstanding - the "built in space" argument carries no weight because we have seen other starships built in space, such as NX-01, fly in atmospheres just fine).

Why would Scotty know less than we do? It's not a matter of his expert opinion or secret knowledge, it's a matter of acknowledging the facts as presented to the heroes and the audience alike.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

Maybe they originally intended Franklin to land on planets, then changed their minds after Hargreaves had already designed the ship.

More likely it's just a detail they neglected because it wasn't being used in the story. As I said, the Intrepid-type ships from ENT don't have shuttlebays on their digital models either. And then there's the Reliant and its lack of a deflector dish.

 

[drt]

More likely it's just a detail they neglected because it wasn't being used in the story. As I said, the Intrepid-type ships from ENT don't have shuttlebays on their digital models either. And then there's the Reliant and its lack of a deflector dish.

I think you are correct with regard to Intrepid, but it seems odd that the production told the designer not to include a shuttlebay, maybe there was a story reason under consideration, about which they later changed their minds.

 

[Kemaiku]

Maybe some ships were never intended for that, and weren't given any means to travel to planets.

The Franklin was a warp 4 prototype, I doubt they had ideas about her long term future, just making her a testbed for technology.

That and Edison was unstable, Starfleet putting him on a ship were he physically couldn't go near the locals could have been very deliberate.

 

[Christopher]

I think you are correct with regard to Intrepid, but it seems odd that the production told the designer not to include a shuttlebay, maybe there was a story reason under consideration, about which they later changed their minds.

Did I miss something? Do we know for a fact that they were specifically told not to put a shuttlebay on the Franklin, as opposed to it just being an oversight?