Beam me up?

[PSGarak]

I think transporters could be used recreationally as an extreme sport: you could jump of a building or tall cliff, or even an airplane, and be beamed back just before you hit the ground... like a molecule scramblin' bungy cord or parachute

I'm not sure that would work unless you could also dampen the inertia during the transport. Otherwise, you'd just hit the transporter pad with all of the inertia you had built during your fall and splat to kingdom come.

 

[FlapJoy]

I think transporters could be used recreationally as an extreme sport: you could jump of a building or tall cliff, or even an airplane, and be beamed back just before you hit the ground... like a molecule scramblin' bungy cord or parachute

I'm not sure that would work unless you could also dampen the inertia during the transport. Otherwise, you'd just hit the transporter pad with all of the inertia you had built during your fall and splat to kingdom come.

Dampening the inertia sounds Trek possible.

 

[kes7]

I think transporters could be used recreationally as an extreme sport: you could jump of a building or tall cliff, or even an airplane, and be beamed back just before you hit the ground... like a molecule scramblin' bungy cord or parachute

I'm not sure that would work unless you could also dampen the inertia during the transport. Otherwise, you'd just hit the transporter pad with all of the inertia you had built during your fall and splat to kingdom come.

Dampening the inertia sounds Trek possible.

But isn't that what the holodeck/holosuite is for?

 

[FlapJoy]

But isn't that what the holodeck/holosuite is for?

Kirk didn't like being in the Nexus because he didn't feel danger or any challenge jumping his horse... for that same reason, falling for real and hoping you get beamed out in time is much more an adrenaline rush than doing it in a holodeck... that's what would make it an extreme sport.

 

[Verteron]

On a more serious note, I've often thought about how transporter use is depicted in Trek, and it seems to me that it's mostly utilized for utilitarian purposes or in emergency situations when the speed and convenience can literally save lives. Do you think there was also recreational transporter use, or do you think people would still mostly enjoy traveling the more conventional way from surface to surface, such as taking shuttle crafts, etc.? I know for me part of the fun of a trip is the getting there. How about you? Would you rather beam or travel?

We've seen 'tube' trains criss-crossing Paris and San Fransciso, and 'hovercars' at Cambridge University, and transport shuttles at a terminal in ST movies. However, there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of air traffic comparatively to what you'd expect if everyone was using air shuttles.

I'd tend to think these 'tube trains' might be the primary method of transport, based on similar technology to turbolifts. The tubes may well indicate these trains run in vacuums - with linear induction this means they could well run intercontinentally at 1000s of km/h. Given the vast energy cost and dangers of transporters, this may well be the preferred transport option, plus hovercars (possibly also AI-driven public transport as opposed to personally owned, or a mixture of private/personal ownership) to get where the trains don't go.

I suspect shuttle use is mostly for getting to and from orbit, which is something you'd want to do fairly often given there are orbital offices and orbital habits, but would correspond with the traffic levels I remember seeing above Earth's cityscapes.

Transporters may be available to the general public, or possibly might only be used for emergencies. More general use of the transporter may only be available to Starfleet personnel, with 'transporter credits', or, these 'transporter credits' may be something all Earth citizens have to regulate their use based on the energy consumption required compared to what Earth's power grid can provide each month, and once they've run out, you use the train.

 

[PSGarak]

A really sensible theory Verteron, based on what we've seen of Earth.

I was giving more thought to the transporter as extreme sport, and I realized it would probably be very difficult to find anyone willing to man that from the other end of it. Any miscalculation on the part of the transporter engineer, and you've got a splatted thrill seeker. I can't think of too many people who'd be willing to take on that sort of responsibility just so an adrenaline junkie can get a fix.

 

[Elder Knight]

I think transporters could be used recreationally as an extreme sport: you could jump of a building or tall cliff, or even an airplane, and be beamed back just before you hit the ground... like a molecule scramblin' bungy cord or parachute

The 22nd century device for cleaning up the gene pool.

 

[USS Triumphant]

However, there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of air traffic comparatively to what you'd expect if everyone was using air shuttles.

Here's a question I don't think we're asking: What is "everyone" on Earth in the late 23rd to 24th centuries?

I'm thinking that most of humanity has migrated away. Earth still has a few metropolitan areas - my list from canon so far is San Francisco, Atlanta, Paris, Juneau, Anchorage, Buenos Ares, Cambridge, Dakar, Duluth, Antwerp, Leningrad, Brisbane, New Orleans, Calgary, Minsk, Nairobe, New Marteem-vaz, Canberra, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Marseilles, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Alice Springs, Wellington, and Tyco City (Lunar) - and even those that are already major cities today are reduced from their current populations. The rest of the planet is given over to nature, parks, native preserves, and small rural communities like Riverside, Iowa, Broken Bow, Oklahoma, Valdez, Alaska, Riga, Latvia, or small tourist villages like Oahu, Hawaii, or Bozeman, Montana.

If I'm right, it would explain a few things. Like why almost all the human crewpeople that we know origins for - canonical or semicanonical (novels) - seem to have come from small, rural towns. Why Earth is so poorly defended much of the time. And, why we don't see much in the way of traffic.

 

[Yug]

I think transporters could be used recreationally as an extreme sport: you could jump of a building or tall cliff, or even an airplane, and be beamed back just before you hit the ground... like a molecule scramblin' bungy cord or parachute

The 22nd century device for cleaning up the gene pool.

Whatever nerd-bot.

 

[neozeks]

I'm thinking that most of humanity has migrated away. Earth still has a few metropolitan areas - my list from canon so far is San Francisco, Atlanta, Paris, Juneau, Anchorage, Buenos Ares, Cambridge, Dakar, Duluth, Antwerp, Leningrad, Brisbane, New Orleans, Calgary, Minsk, Nairobe, New Marteem-vaz, Canberra, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Marseilles, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Alice Springs, Wellington, and Tyco City (Lunar) - and even those that are already major cities today are reduced from their current populations. The rest of the planet is given over to nature, parks, native preserves, and small rural communities like Riverside, Iowa, Broken Bow, Oklahoma, Valdez, Alaska, Riga, Latvia, or small tourist villages like Oahu, Hawaii, or Bozeman, Montana.

While a large number of people have most definitely migrated to other worlds, I think the thing is that the complete number of humans has gone down. The larger the living standard the lower the number of children people have. Earth's population is already now too large for Earth to sustain it. Maybe there are just 1 or 2 billion humans in the future?

 

[Chrisisall]

I don't want my damn molecules scrambled, that's for sure.

Here's another thing- every time one uses the transporter, they *technically* die for a moment. That has to take some getting used to or some form of training- that's why I don't see it as an extremely widely used form of public transportation. I'd liken it to today's aircraft- you don't just step aboard to do your shopping or go to work.

 

[Verteron]

I'm thinking that most of humanity has migrated away.
...
If I'm right, it would explain a few things. Like why almost all the human crewpeople that we know origins for - canonical or semicanonical (novels) - seem to have come from small, rural towns. Why Earth is so poorly defended much of the time. And, why we don't see much in the way of traffic.

You could be right. However, do keep in mind that most of our Starfleet Humans seem to have been born on Earth (with a few exceptions). Statistically speaking, if the majority of the human population had migrated away, you'd expect that more of our main characters would have been born on colony worlds. Then again, it could just be coincidence, or dramatic license so we can empathise with them more...

FWIW, I'd hope that as many people as possible are living away from Earth. In terms of survival of the species it's obviously better if we don't have all (or most) of our 'eggs' in one basket, but I'm not convinced this is what is depicted in Star Trek.

Given the apparent preponderance of M-class worlds and replicator technology you'd think building a new self-sustaining city on a colony world would be easy.

 

[xortex]

I think beaming is more fun and much faster.

 

[FormerLurker]

Not to mention those things break. I doubt most people would want to go into transporter repair as their job, but they'd need tons of those to keep up with the maintenance needs of a transporter in every home ...

Maybe transporter technicicans and repairmen are the 23rd/24th Century equivalent of plumbers? Always needed, so a good stable career choice.

And they can charge you a ridiculous fee simply because you need what they can fix.

There's actually something to this. There have to be replicator repairmen, and, after all, how does a replicator manifest what it's replicating?

 

[T'Girl]

I'm not sure that would work unless you could also dampen the inertia during the transport. Otherwise, you'd just hit the transporter pad with all of the inertia you had built during your fall and splat to kingdom come.

Must be some sort of momentum dampener in the transporter, figure New York City is moving east at 800 miles per hour, ships in a inclined orbit, you might be hitting the wall son.

Private homes could have transporters connected to land lines, not transmitters. You'd need permission to beam in, or a code key. Most homes would have blockers to keep out intruders, and in-laws.

If you could not afford one- Picard had no money - there would be the equivalent of a local bus stop, also inside apartment blocks, inside office buildings, entances to parks, beachs, certainly near shopping.

Picard had to walk home because his brother won't have one in the house.

 

[PSGarak]

Private homes could have transporters connected to land lines, not transmitters. You'd need permission to beam in, or a code key. Most homes would have blockers to keep out intruders, and in-laws.

Sign me up for this.