Can we retcon Transporter use in a way that it would make sense?

[Timo]

(And DS9's "One Little Ship" features a similar shrinking phenomenon.)

Quite dissimilar, actually, as it affected the entire runabout...

I think that if something is moving very fast, in an unpredictable fashion (like in combat), it would be very hard to get a transporter 'lock'.

Then again, aiming has never been an explicit transporter problem until STXI. Yet transporters are extremely finicky devices to start with, and can seriously malfunction when exotic energies are at play nearby. A fighting starship could defend itself against transporter boarding to some degree simply by virtue of her high energy weapons firing, or even being in readiness, also when shields were down.

Transporter beams operate through subspace, evidently.

Yet confusingly a separate device called the subspace transporter is known to exist...

We know that mere "phasing" allows one to disregard physical obstacles, as in "The Next Phase", "The Pegasus" and "Time's Arrow". Perhaps subspace need not be involved in transporter activity, either?

OTOH, we have seen Jem'Hadar death rays and transporters demonstrate equally superior penetration wrt their Federation counterparts. Deeper phasing (it comes in degrees in "Time's Arrow")? Or a larger helping of subspace in the formula?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Scout101]

Don't really have to get a good lock, though. Pick a random section of hull, and beam it into space. Even if you miss, still not gonna be good. Or as the most common use would be, beam IN a torpedo. No need for a casing, even, just beam over some anti-matter, and don't materialize the housing. They've shown the ability to selectively materialize things, shouldn't be an issue, and could make the casing specially tagged to work with that.

Dropping a little pure anti-matter would pretty much end any fight. Aim for center mass, and you'll hit SOMEWHERE in the ship, and game over.

Basically, you start thinking too much about the transporter, it ruins the story. Practical use would go so far beyond what we've seen. Most devestating weapon they've shown, they just won't talk about it.

Replicator is another extension of the transporter, and that makes things even worse. If they tweak the range on one of those (and it's essentially a transporter, so no issues there), you can just magically make it rain acid inside another ship. Or pick a toxin, whatever your mood is. Probably don't want those programs in ALL the replicators, but no reason not to have a 'battle replicator' that's gotall kinds of goodies loaded up, and then pump it through the deflector array, aim at bad guy, and no more bad guy.

Not just warfare that changes, too. Medicine is basically over once the transporter shows up. It's been touched upon as a gimmick in several episodes, and Corona (Greg Bear) also raised the issue. It just keeps getting dropped because it makes it too hard to tell a story if this is possible. if you've got the full pattern stored of a person, and they get killed or injured, why wouldn't you just rematerialize another copy? You've got the computer power to store them, and it would just update your pattern every time you transport. Something happens, you restore from backup. Basically no way this WOULDN'T be standard, and they've used it probably over a dozen times in episodes and books, so it's possible in-universe as well. Plenty of issues to tackle, but mostly moral ones, or how to prevent someone from making more than 1 of you at a time. It's not a matter of not creating from nothing, as we've seen 1 go in and 2 come out a couple times now (Kirk, Riker). In fact, this is how Pulowski was cured of that aging thing in TNG, no? Although they cheated even further and integrated her pattern with the old one, so she got to keep her memories. gets easier if you just restore from backup, and just lose the memories of what happened since. Either way, medicine is no longer needed...

 

[Draculasaurus]

If I was somehow in charge of a new Trek show, this would be at the top of my to-do list.
I wouldn't retcon it though, I'd advance it.
I'd have someone invent an advanced transporter that could beam through shields, but couldn't handle stored energy devices.
All of a sudden hand to hand combat is a factor in space conflict, and the Klingons are re-examining their role in the Federation.
Meanwhile, the Federation races to develop advanced shields that the new transporters can't penetrate, but will they succeed before the Klingon Empire is once again seduced by the lure of glorious conquest??
Politics + Action, sound good.

 

[Pauln6]

The Pulaski thing is covered if the pattern buffer is just used to add in missing DNA. If the transporter is used to replicate matter or a person, that person is reproduced brain dead. The only time it has worked properly is when some external chemical or physical source has stepped in to create a wibbly wobbly timey wimey effect.

I think only being able to beam equipment with a limited energy supply would be fun. If each transport can only cope with a limited amount of energy and the crew know that their phasers have a limited number of shots it would either mean using multiple transports to send equipment separately or that shuttles would be used instead for all but the most urgent missions. Still, the limitation has a lot of story potential for stealth mission and such. Groovy.

It is true that the transport of chemicals would have no such limitations so beaming acid, gas, or plague is still on the menu. However, if ships are set up to detect incoming transports automatically it would not be easy to do much damage before environmental controls kick in.

 

[Scout101]

The Pulaski thing is covered if the pattern buffer is just used to add in missing DNA. If the transporter is used to replicate matter or a person, that person is reproduced brain dead. The only time it has worked properly is when some external chemical or physical source has stepped in to create a wibbly wobbly timey wimey effect.

Sorry, but based on what? And they were just using parts of the pattern to overwrite broken parts in the new pattern, so realistically, there's no really any technical difference between replacing the spot in the pattern with a DNA pattern and replacing the part of the pattern that says "right arm". if you lost an arm, you integrate that part of the pattern instead, all fixed.

You have any backup for the assertation about using the transporter to replicate something resulting in brain death? That's a new one to me, don't recall that at all. Several instances where that essentially WASN'T true, but can't think of many that back you up.

Furthermore, why WOULD it be true? Can make it some silly conversation about the soul of a person, but what the transporter is doing is breaking you down, recording the pattern, and putting it back together again. If they've got the information the computer used to reconstruct you, it's either good or it isn't. Can't see why you'd materialize fine once, but braindead twice....

And once any of the chemical, physical, or plot-induced effects was shown, pretty easy to do it on purpose going forward.

 

[Gagarin]

Don't really have to get a good lock, though. Pick a random section of hull, and beam it into space. Even if you miss, still not gonna be good. Or as the most common use would be, beam IN a torpedo. No need for a casing, even, just beam over some anti-matter, and don't materialize the housing. They've shown the ability to selectively materialize things, shouldn't be an issue, and could make the casing specially tagged to work with that.

Not just a "good lock", it's a case of hit or miss. Have you ever looked through a gun scope, or even done so on a computer game? You're zoomed in so much that the SLIGHTEST move by you or the target means you miss entirely. The bullet is SO small that you might as well not shot at all because you're missing them so much.

That's involved in a transporter lock. You might just be beaming back empty space, or beaming a torpedo into empty space.

Try looking out a sniper scope on a moving truck while trying to hit another moving car that's swerving 1 mile away.

It's hard.
Grand Theft Auto told me that. And I had 'auto aim' on.

 

[Scout101]

Can't be TOO hard; they manage to do the same thing with phasers (with pinpoint accuracy when needed) on a weekly basis. Presumably if you were going to weaponize this, you'd employ much the same targeting system as you'd have in your phaser systems.

If they can pinpoint it enough to take out weapon systems without damaging the ship (much), it's gotta be way easier to just hit *somewhere* on the ship if you don't care where. And if you're beaming over anti-matter cannisters, doesn't even matter if you beam it into a wall, that's probably preferable. Touching ANYTHING makes for catastrophic explosions, so you're in good shape if you can just aim for center mass and see where it ends up.

Not gonna hit 100%, but your analogy doesn't work. They do it with the other weapon systems every episode. They HIT the moving car that's swerving while on another swerving car. They can even choose to shoot out a specific tire, or the engine block, rather than trying to just aim center mass and hope to hit a door panel...

 

[Gagarin]

Can't be TOO hard; they manage to do the same thing with phasers (with pinpoint accuracy when needed) on a weekly basis. Presumably if you were going to weaponize this, you'd employ much the same targeting system as you'd have in your phaser systems.

If they can pinpoint it enough to take out weapon systems without damaging the ship (much), it's gotta be way easier to just hit *somewhere* on the ship if you don't care where. And if you're beaming over anti-matter cannisters, doesn't even matter if you beam it into a wall, that's probably preferable. Touching ANYTHING makes for catastrophic explosions, so you're in good shape if you can just aim for center mass and see where it ends up.

Not gonna hit 100%, but your analogy doesn't work. They do it with the other weapon systems every episode. They HIT the moving car that's swerving while on another swerving car. They can even choose to shoot out a specific tire, or the engine block, rather than trying to just aim center mass and hope to hit a door panel...

But you're speaking of near-instantaneous direct energy weapons - not SLOW ~5 second transporters, which may or may not have to have perfect line of sight with your emitter and compensation time for whatever interference is going on to work.

And the weapons DO miss sometimes, actually every week they do.

Transporters are the perfect weapon as long as the shields are down, neither ship is moving erratically or at a high delta-v compared to the other, and as long as the transporter operator can compensate for whatever nasty energy would interfere with its operation. Basically... a torpedo from Wing Commander II, which blows.

 

[Silvercrest]

Beam fifty torpedoes at once into your enemy's path and see how well his shields hold up. If he survives, then do it again. No reason the transporter couldn't do this.

 

[Pauln6]

The Pulaski thing is covered if the pattern buffer is just used to add in missing DNA. If the transporter is used to replicate matter or a person, that person is reproduced brain dead. The only time it has worked properly is when some external chemical or physical source has stepped in to create a wibbly wobbly timey wimey effect.

Sorry, but based on what? And they were just using parts of the pattern to overwrite broken parts in the new pattern, so realistically, there's no really any technical difference between replacing the spot in the pattern with a DNA pattern and replacing the part of the pattern that says "right arm". if you lost an arm, you integrate that part of the pattern instead, all fixed.

You have any backup for the assertation about using the transporter to replicate something resulting in brain death? That's a new one to me, don't recall that at all. Several instances where that essentially WASN'T true, but can't think of many that back you up.

Furthermore, why WOULD it be true? Can make it some silly conversation about the soul of a person, but what the transporter is doing is breaking you down, recording the pattern, and putting it back together again. If they've got the information the computer used to reconstruct you, it's either good or it isn't. Can't see why you'd materialize fine once, but braindead twice....

And once any of the chemical, physical, or plot-induced effects was shown, pretty easy to do it on purpose going forward.

Ah yeah sorry, the thread is about retconning the transporter rather than what we've actually seen in the episodes. My retcon is to overcome the suggestion that the transporter is a 'kill and clone' machine, which I think is stated in an episode of Enterprise. If the actual person is phased and only the quantum-linked energy is sent then you can't just replicate a new living person from the pattern, all you can replicate is their flesh. This could also explain why Sonak and Ciana couldn't be 'replicated' by the sending pad in TMP when the receiving pad malfunctioned and the actual people were damaged.

 

[vegaslover62]

What about navigational shields? I imagine it would be hard to beam personnel from a cloaked ship through navigational shields. It would have to be a separate system from defensive shields.

 

[Scout101]

Imagine that's not needed if you're holding relatively still, and not, uh, navigating. Not sure to what extent they really discuss navigational shields, but would have to imagine they'd be operating most of the time the ship is in motion, to sweep even things like dust aside so as not to puncture the hull. They've never shown any issues with beaming while in motion, even occasionally at speed, so navigational shields must not be a factor...

 

[Gagarin]

I think to retcon transporters one aspect has to be underlined- THEY HAVE TO BE 'ANALOG' devices! That's the only way I could see them working - as an analog device, no bunch of isolinear chips or bioneural memory banks should be able to 'digitize' a person and then spit them out again. It shouldn't be a data stream of binary or whatever kind of digital medium they'll use.

An analog device.

I mean analog as this puts it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_signal .

 

[RPJOB]

Having the target be in motion has not been an issue until the latest movie. If the ship were in orbit, the difference in velocity between the transporter and a person on the surface would be thousands of miles an hour. Why, other then giving Chekov something to do off the bridge, they were unable to compensate for Kirk & Sulu falling is unknown, The drill was off at that time so that wasn't it. Spock didn't seem to have a problem beaming down shortly thereafter. For some reason, two bodies moving at terminal velocity was a big deal. Like the rest of Trek technology, it is only limited by the plot. What it's capable of varies from day to day.

 

[Gagarin]

Imagine that's not needed if you're holding relatively still, and not, uh, navigating. Not sure to what extent they really discuss navigational shields, but would have to imagine they'd be operating most of the time the ship is in motion, to sweep even things like dust aside so as not to puncture the hull. They've never shown any issues with beaming while in motion, even occasionally at speed, so navigational shields must not be a factor...

But if they match speed or they're orbiting in a way that keeps them in the same place relative to the target (which as we know is THE standard orbit for Star Trek), then speed isn't the issue, or if the target is moving in a predictable way and within the specs of the machine and the skill of the operator to compensate, it can do it (think Space Shuttle launches with the telephoto lens that used to easily track them)... or maybe they'd have to lead the target

For all we know the Transporter may have a helm override or helm priority to make sure the ship stays oriented in the proper way. That might be a good retcon.

 

[Timo]

then speed isn't the issue

But a massive differential in kinetic energy and momentum would be an issue. And since transporters easily cope with that, it's very difficult to postulate states of motion they couldn't cope with.

But one thing we could speculate happening in STXI is that the transporter was using clever automation to home in on targets in freefall (modulated by air resistance) - yet the state of motion of Kirk and Sulu was not freefall through atmosphere, but fall under the effect of variable gravity. The computer doing the targeting might have been making too many assumptions and not realizing that Nero's black hole was already screwing up things.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

Having the target be in motion has not been an issue until the latest movie. If the ship were in orbit, the difference in velocity between the transporter and a person on the surface would be thousands of miles an hour. Why, other then giving Chekov something to do off the bridge, they were unable to compensate for Kirk & Sulu falling is unknown, The drill was off at that time so that wasn't it. Spock didn't seem to have a problem beaming down shortly thereafter. For some reason, two bodies moving at terminal velocity was a big deal. Like the rest of Trek technology, it is only limited by the plot. What it's capable of varies from day to day.

The transporter chief says, "I can't lock on to your singnal. Don't move!" - then we see the transporter console, which has "Manual Targeting Engaged" written across the top.

So, the emerging black hole screwed up the targeting scanners (on the bridge we hear "Gravitaional readings are off the scale" and "transporters are non-operational"), and they were on manual. Manually beaming Spock down to a static location (and bringing his party up later) was relatively easy. Plucking two people out of freefall, much less so.

 

[SicOne]

In regards to transporting over photon torpedos, which was seen in Voyager's Dark Frontier, was there a blurb in the dialogue that indicated it was filled with conventional explosives and not anti-matter? I was of the impression that anti-matter could not be beamed.

 

[RPJOB]

then speed isn't the issue

But a massive differential in kinetic energy and momentum would be an issue. And since transporters easily cope with that, it's very difficult to postulate states of motion they couldn't cope with.

But one thing we could speculate happening in STXI is that the transporter was using clever automation to home in on targets in freefall (modulated by air resistance) - yet the state of motion of Kirk and Sulu was not freefall through atmosphere, but fall under the effect of variable gravity. The computer doing the targeting might have been making too many assumptions and not realizing that Nero's black hole was already screwing up things.

Timo Saloniemi

Let's not forget that in that same movie Kirk & Scotty transported onto the Enterprise while it was moving away from Delta Vega at warp. That was using an old shuttle that was stationed at the base, no new equipment, simply a tweaking of the software that only took a minute or two. The differential in momentum in this situation would make the free fall over Vulcan insignificant. We're talking about the difference of a couple of hundred miles an hour versus millions of miles a second.

If the computer was getting confused by the gravity caused by the black hole then it should also have affected the beam down of Spock. After all, he was beaming into the same interacting gravity fields. Even when Amanda was lost she had just slipped out of Spock's grasp and yet she failed to be included in the beam out. The transporter seems to be even more finicky than it has been in the past despite the technological improvements.