At least it was used more sparingly in ENTERPRISE, which is a point in favor of that series.
Should transporter use have been limited?
- Thread starter Eman1986
- Start date
In terms of technobabble bullshitting, transporters use "phasing". Which is perfect for our dramatic and practical needs, because we see "phasing" a lot in TNG. It always stands for transforming you, all of you, into some sort of a ghost that can go through walls and otherwise be immune to electromagnetic phenomena such as being visible.
It's easy to believe that's exactly what the transporter does. And perhaps the phaser, too. You dip into this phased realm (not subspace, because subspace transporters are a separate thing), you stay there for however long it takes for the machine to launch you towards your destination and for you to coast there, and then you bob back up, hopefully at your target. You are never pulled apart, you never cease to be a working whole. But you don't exactly retain your shape in relation to the mundane three-dimensional realspace, either.
This technobabble takes care of all the aspects. There's no creating of a you at the destination, be it a new you or an old you. There's just you moving from A to B, with nothing left behind and nothing added. You can't be easily copied, then, nor made to disappear altogether (although you cease to be you if staying phased for too long - perhaps this is how the victims of phasers ultimately die, in whatever phased hell they have arrived at after Kirk pushed the trigger?). All sorts of scanning and confining and other shepherding accompanies the process, but the scanned data is not at the heart of the process. It's just "necessary extra" that will not help any if the original "phased matter stream" is lost.
Should there have been less transporting in Trek to begin with? I don't think so. Transporting is what makes Trek stand apart visually and dramatically. Otherwise, it's just yer standard spaceships and rayguns and aliens and uniforms, pew pew. Much like doing Stargate without stargates. Fine for two or three specials per season, tops. But risk letting the audience forget about the gimmick and you risk losing the audience.
Timo Saloniemi
It's easy to believe that's exactly what the transporter does. And perhaps the phaser, too. You dip into this phased realm (not subspace, because subspace transporters are a separate thing), you stay there for however long it takes for the machine to launch you towards your destination and for you to coast there, and then you bob back up, hopefully at your target. You are never pulled apart, you never cease to be a working whole. But you don't exactly retain your shape in relation to the mundane three-dimensional realspace, either.
This technobabble takes care of all the aspects. There's no creating of a you at the destination, be it a new you or an old you. There's just you moving from A to B, with nothing left behind and nothing added. You can't be easily copied, then, nor made to disappear altogether (although you cease to be you if staying phased for too long - perhaps this is how the victims of phasers ultimately die, in whatever phased hell they have arrived at after Kirk pushed the trigger?). All sorts of scanning and confining and other shepherding accompanies the process, but the scanned data is not at the heart of the process. It's just "necessary extra" that will not help any if the original "phased matter stream" is lost.
Should there have been less transporting in Trek to begin with? I don't think so. Transporting is what makes Trek stand apart visually and dramatically. Otherwise, it's just yer standard spaceships and rayguns and aliens and uniforms, pew pew. Much like doing Stargate without stargates. Fine for two or three specials per season, tops. But risk letting the audience forget about the gimmick and you risk losing the audience.
Timo Saloniemi
There's a scene in Beyond where people are using a public one, just like a phone booth.
But they weren't like in a space station or similar?
It was on The Yorktown. It was basically a city. Cleary civilians live and work there, including the guy who uses the public transporter.
In the Star Trek universe, humans will wonder how people from the old USA ever left the planet to colonise the galaxy since their ancestors could not even get on an aeroplane! 
Very impressive scene, the best in the movie, nice to see trains and planes (well shuttles) are still in use in the 23rd century...
I hope the trains are not run by Southern Rail (fellow Brits will get the joke)
Phasing and wormholes sound like excellent 'explanations' for how transporters 'work' but don't seem compatible with the TNG+ era babble of pattern-buffers etc*. Nor with transporters unable to move certain medicines, or which are restricted to non-organic cargo.
And I haven't quite worked-out how beaming-up works. Make a wormhole that 'sucks' instead of 'blows'?
Which is why I'd be quite happy in my head-canon to discard all transporters and just fly people around.
* Voyager's "Future's End" had an in-transit pattern being transferred from a shuttle to the ship's buffer for example.
And I haven't quite worked-out how beaming-up works. Make a wormhole that 'sucks' instead of 'blows'?
Which is why I'd be quite happy in my head-canon to discard all transporters and just fly people around.
* Voyager's "Future's End" had an in-transit pattern being transferred from a shuttle to the ship's buffer for example.
I've just watched Tomorrow is Yesterday where Captain Christopher and the security officer were beamed into themselves to restore the timeline, so I assume one version of themselves was killed?
I think there should have been more limitations on transporter usefulness, just because it's such a powerful, world breaking technology that it opens up hundreds of 'Why don't they just' questions.
I wouldn't say killed but they became a part of each other or it just caused the later events not to have happened for both parties!
JB
Maybe the original "You" is stored in the Pattern Buffer, a duplicate "you" is constructed at the desired destination, from whence it performs its duties and is presently dissasembled and the "prime" you is fetched from the buffer with all the memories of the mission. Just a thought!
Then what happens to visitors or people who transfer off the ship? You know, one way journeys where the person want planning on returning.
One idea for a limitation could be that transporters disrupt electrical activity. Therefore no living beings can safely be transported or rise they suffer neurological disruption in one form or another (unconscious, coma, temporary or permanent mental disorder, death? Take your pick).
Further, electronic devices must be powered off, batteries removed, hardened /shielded against emp like disruption (again, take your pick)
Further, electronic devices must be powered off, batteries removed, hardened /shielded against emp like disruption (again, take your pick)
Watching people take their batteries out and put them back in again doesn't make for gripping television.
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