Site to site transport

[Jedman67]

Memory Alpha suggests that each starship contains redundant transporter systems. It'd make sense that a high traffic machine that can literally kill you if the operator sneezes would have some sort of automated safety/backup systems.
The glitch in TMP is never fully explained; the usual "rule of plot" should suffice to explain it.
In-universe, it's apparently a freak accident with a number of highly unusual circumstances coinciding to produce the tragic outcome; it seems that the E was working and all of a sudden experienced a catastrophic glitch during re-materialization; meaning only a single transporter unit was running and failed too quickly for the computer to transfer it to different transporter room or send the signal back to SFHQ.

If having a transporter pad to beam to is such a big issue on a planet where none would be, here's a bright idea: beam down a transporter unit set to activate upon re-materialization first and send the people and goods that you're trying to transport to it.

Stargate SG-1 had that in an episode; a small cargo shuttle drops a few "remote" transporter pads so the soldiers could transport in en-masse* (*Stargate does not have site-to-site transporting until the last two or three seasons. A receiving pad is always necessary)

 

[JRTStarlight]

I agree something is beamed from A into the pattern buffer and then to B, which may not be the local pad, but elsewhere, a different site. But it needs the buffer, the Heisenberg compensator, and probably the energy source to do all this and you cannot simply bypass those things.

If the transporter is lost before transport is complete, the person would die unless a second system got a pattern lock on it (so got the information and put it into the buffer). Although they tend to act like they are still trying to grab something "out there" after they get the pattern lock, or locked onto something, they may just be trying to rematerialize a degraded signal and look to where it had come from out of habit. But it's all happening in ship at that point. I've no idea where the pattern buffer is kept, if they have more than one, how big is it, or most anything else about it.

From The Enemy Within, it seems some central component is necessary for all the transporters on board to work, so while they have multiple transporters rooms (not ever shown or talked about in TOS, apparently, but assumed and confirmed by some higher ups that was the intention) it appears all of them can be simultaneously knocked out by certain malfunctions.

In TMP, that malfunction probably corrupted all of Enterprise's transporters, or, none of the other transporter rooms were manned at the time while the starbases' were, so they urgently requested they pick up the ball. But it was too late.

 

[lee249]

B'elanna Torries just about managed with great difficulty to site-site transport Chakotay from the attacking Nistrim ships in 'Manoeuvres' The Nistrim kept re-modulating their shields.

Her efficiency deserved some bloodwine and perhaps holodeck downtime with the safety protocols disabled. She loved those Klingon fight simulations and preferred the real deal LOL

 

[The Wormhole]

She loved those Klingon fight simulations and preferred the real deal LOL

Actually, she was quite against Klingon combat stuff, or indeed Klingon stuff in general. The only time B'Elanna was into dangerous holodeck activities with the safeties disabled was in the episode Extreme Risk where she was dealing with depression. And even then, it wasn't combat she was doing in the holodeck but things like orbital skydiving or stress-test simulations for the Delta Flyer.

 

[lee249]

Thank you admiral

Hmm... Yeah i watched 'Extreme Risk' the other day and assumed besides, her depression (in that one) she liked to let off steam in the holodeck.

She always had a fiery temper about her but the lovable and caring kind. So happy to see B'elanna marry the man of her dreams in 'Course Oblivion' that was a classic voyager episode too.

I'm trying me best not to divulge any *spoilers*

 

[brandnewfan]

On the Enterprise-D, they always talk about "transporter room 2" or "transporter room 1"....but throughout the series (and others) they are often transporting someone "directly to sickbay" or to the bridge or what have you. So why do they even need to have a transporter room at all? Seems like a waste of space on a starship!

 

[at Quark's]

As for why have a room at all -- probably beaming to/from the transporter room is still the recommended procedure (safer/cheaper in terms of energy/whatever). If didn't have any advantages at all, why would they still bother go to transporter rooms at all, which is what they usually do, except when they're in a hurry of some kind? Also see this thread:

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/site-to-site-transport.289815/

As for why have multiple rooms. I suppose it's aways good to have a few spares, in case one or more are down. Also probably handy in case a mass-beamout is required (say, evacuating a lot of people from an exploding ship). I'd suppose (though I don't know for sure) that twice the number of transporter devices would mean twice the number of persons transported per second.

 

[JesterFace]

I talked about this in another thread, the transporter rooms are basically unnecessary. Maybe it's a safer way to transport?

It would make more sense if a transporter pad is needed in one end of a transport, either would do, but a transport from point A to B without a pad at all is somewhat weird.

And what about Miles and other transporter Chiefs, what would they do without a transporter room... holodeck all day?

 

[The Old Mixer]

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/site-to-site-transport.289815/

Thanks for the reminder. Threads merged.

 

[The Rock]

Now I know this question might sound dumb on the surface, but please hear me out.

There have been many times we've seen people being beamed at specific places on the ship (or station) in any of the post-TOS series (like being beamed directly to the bridge, or whatever).

If that can be done, what was the point of still using a transporter room at all, with transporter pads that you had to stand on to beam out?

 

[φ of π]

I guess there has to be a physical place to house the transporter technology for repairs and maintenance, so why not turn that room into a diplomatic welcome hall as well?

 

[Timo]

There have been many times we've seen people being beamed at specific places on the ship (or station) in any of the post-TOS series (like being beamed directly to the bridge, or whatever).

It happened a couple of times in TOS already - in "A Piece of the Action", say. Apparently, it's no big deal.

If that can be done, what was the point of still using a transporter room at all, with transporter pads that you had to stand on to beam out?

Apart from the Hollywood reason of the heroes needing to gather and have conversations gathering, it's possible to whip up a couple of rationalizations:

1) The machinery has to be somewhere. It has to be accesssible for repair and maintenance. The transporter specialist should enjoy that access. If he or she is also supposed to oversee the actual transporting, then combining the location of overseeing with the location of the maintenance is advantageous.
2) Some sort of a staging area is needed anyway, for distributing the rayguns and baubles.
3) Some sort of a quarantine area is needed anyway, for containing whatever the landing party brings up.
4) Some sort of a nice lobby for arriving dignitaries is needed anyway, preferably with scanners for hidden weapons and other such diplomatic niceties.

Beyond that, it's just a matter of policy. Lorca doesn't bother using the transporter room if there's no staging going on. Kirk does bother, much of the time. Picard does bother, basically all the time (but his crew doesn't). Janeway has a lot of use for a quarantine chamber. Archer would have a lot of use for that, too, but the folks who built his ship didn't think of that. But even Archer site-to-sites, in "Civilization".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MacLeod]

As for what happens in ST:TMP, well, there's explicit conflict over who does what there. The rest is speculation. The machine on the ship is broken, but we have every reason to think this is the machine doing the work anyway: things do go wrong. They wouldn't if the Starfleet HQ machine were doing the work. And Sdtarfleet wouldn't send people to the ship using just their own HQ machine now, when they didn't do it before (say, when Kirk wanted to get up there)...

Timo Saloniemi

Perhaps in the case of when two transporters are being used, the pattern is send from one transporter buffer to another. So when Starfleet tried to pull them back they were unable to retrieve their patterns because their patterns where in the Enterprise Transporter buffer and not Commands buffer.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about Admiral Lori Ciana. She was not some junior NCO, nor was she Sonak's "sidekick." According to the TMP novel, she was Kirk's ex-wife (their contract marriage had just expired after the one-year-term was up). She was either going to the ship on Starfleet business, or maybe to see Kirk off, or to talk about renewing their marriage contract - it's been decades since I last read the novel, and don't recall offhand why she would have been beaming up to the ship.

But the woman who died was a NCO (the extra was decorated that way, even if we can't see that in the finished movie, but we can definitely see she's not wearing flag attire). So either she's not Lori Ciana, or then she's a NCO named Lori Ciana, and whatever she did with or without Kirk is left unstated in either case.i

Yeah, if this is all from a novel, then as I understand none of it is canon, so if you'd rather she was some unknown NCO, I suppose that's fine. I don't know why you would so strongly resist the novel's facts unless they contradicted canon, or got in your way somehow.

Here is an on-set photo of the actors performing the scene, sans VFX:

The script identified her only as "a human woman"; Robert Wise said in the commentary for the Director's Edition DVD that she was supposed to be the navigator, with Ilia being her last-minute replacement.

This "Vice Admiral Lori Ciana" business seems to be a whole-cloth invention of the novelization, and finds no support in anything that is or isn't shown and said in the film or behind the scenes of its production. (Of course, going by "Kirk's" preface in the novelization, the film itself might literally be an artistic depiction that takes some license with what actually happened!)

-MMoM

 

[tharpdevenport]

^^^ Disco, 23rd century style.

 

[Timewalker]

I distinctly remember Kirk saying that her parents were on Earth, and that Sonak's family could be reached through the Vulcan embassy. Maybe that line wasn't in the version you saw?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I distinctly remember Kirk saying that her parents were on Earth, and that Sonak's family could be reached through the Vulcan embassy. Maybe that line wasn't in the version you saw?

Are you talking about the film? Because it certainly wasn't in the version of the film I saw.

KIRK: Starfleet, ...Kirk. Please ...express my condolences to their families. Commander Sonak's can be reached through the Vulcan Embassy. There was nothing you could have done, Rand. It wasn't your fault.​

http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie1.html

Zip, nadda about who the female who died in the transporter accident was, or where her family was. The only potential clue to her identity in the film was the mention of the need for crew replacements, and Kirk's and Uhura's conversation at that point doesn't even necessarily apply to her.

KIRK: Reply we are holding position awaiting final crew replacements.
UHURA: Aye sir. Transporter personnel reports the Navigator Lieutenant ...Ilia. She's already aboard, and en route to the bridge, sir. She's Deltan, sir.​

That's the basis for the (reasonable) supposition that she was to be the navigator (apparently confirmed by Wise in the commentary, as stated upthread).

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

I distinctly remember Kirk saying that her parents were on Earth, and that Sonak's family could be reached through the Vulcan embassy. Maybe that line wasn't in the version you saw?

No such line is present in the shooting script, nor in any released version of the film, only in the novelization. It's possible this element could have been present in an earlier draft of the script; it's not in the 10 October 1977 rough first draft of "In Thy Image" either, but there were a lot of intervening ones, IIRC. In any case, though, the whole idea was clearly dropped prior to filming the scene. Otherwise, (1) it'd be present in the shooting script, (2) they'd presumably have costumed the actress as an admiral, and (3) there'd be an edit around that bit in all cuts of the film...which there isn't.

-MMoM

 

[Horta]

I'm surprised that crew members of any ship can be transported off their ship by an alien without giving consent. One would think this would be an important safeguard of the technology. And what would prevent a giant malevolent ship pulling into orbit and transporting off the entire population of the planet, allowing the all to degrade in the buffer, leaving the plant available to re-population by the alien species?

 

[Timewalker]

No such such line is present in the shooting script, nor in any released version of the film, only in the novelization. It's possible this element could have been present in an earlier draft of the script; it's not in the 10 October 1977 rough first draft of "In Thy Image" either, but there were a lot of intervening ones, IIRC. In any case, though, the whole idea was clearly dropped prior to filming the scene. Otherwise, (1) it'd be present in the shooting script, (2) they'd presumably have costumed the actress as an admiral, and (3) there'd be an edit around that bit in all cuts of the film...which there isn't.

-MMoM

Okay, I misremembered the part about Lori Ciana. But I didn't misremember the part about Sonak:

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[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Yes, sorry, I was only referring to the part about "Admiral Ciana." @CorporalCaptain had quoted the dialogue from the film in the post immediately above mine, so I thought that would be clear. TMP is one of my favorite Trek movies, so I've seen all the various cuts multiple times. IIRC, there is no difference in that line in any of them, although I do recall that Kirk's "Oh My God" from earlier in the scene is omitted from the Director's Edition, which (along with the alert klaxon) is how I can tell the video you posted is from that version.

I should probably have also noted that I'm not suggesting anyone is "wrong" for reading between the lines and imagining this is who the character was, since we never really saw her clearly—I've even tried it a couple of times myself, and can just about manage to buy Kirk's somber silence on the subject as a plausible reaction under the circumstances—but it seems amply evident to me that this is not what was shot, nor intended by anyone at the time of shooting...except obviously Roddenberry, whose input was increasingly being marginalized and rejected as the project went along and the script was being constantly rewritten. Still, if you want to take the Great Bird's Word™ for it, fair enough.

Another thing that doesn't ever actually get directly established in the movie is Decker being the son of the commodore from "The Doomsday Machine" (TOS), but that clearly was intended all along, and it's rather a simple and easy connection to draw in context...unlike the second transporter victim being Kirk's superior officer in the Admiralty, and his ex-wife no less!

Really though, I just stumbled upon the conversation and wanted to clarify the facts to the best of my understanding, since as you said there's been some confusion on the matter. Apologies if I came across as confrontational.

-MMoM