Suliban technology

[Pensive]

My question is about the apparent transporter tech. We see them pop up on NX-01 to abduct Klaang in "Broken Bow." They also appeared on the ship to snatch Archer away to meet with Future Guy in "The Expanse."

How the heck did they do that with a cell-ship....and at warp? The cell-ships are awfully tiny, and there's no mention of a transporter in "The Communicator" when Trip and Travis are working on the cell-ship. And (I know I know it's not canon) there's nary a reference to it in the Stern novels Daedalus/Daedalus's Children. Also, the transporter can't be used at warp because it's extremely dangerous.

Is it possible that the Suliban used non-beam transport similar to the Sikarians (folded-space)?

 

[JiNX-01]

My question is about the apparent transporter tech. We see them pop up on NX-01 to abduct Klaang in "Broken Bow." They also appeared on the ship to snatch Archer away to meet with Future Guy in "The Expanse."

How the heck did they do that with a cell-ship....and at warp? The cell-ships are awfully tiny, and there's no mention of a transporter in "The Communicator" when Trip and Travis are working on the cell-ship. And (I know I know it's not canon) there's nary a reference to it in the Stern novels Daedalus/Daedalus's Children. Also, the transporter can't be used at warp because it's extremely dangerous.

Is it possible that the Suliban used non-beam transport similar to the Sikarians (folded-space)?

I've always figured that Future Guy, who supplied all of their genetic enhancements also gave them technology that won't exist for centuries (in fact, didn't they do transports at warp in TNG?).

 

[Pensive]

(in fact, didn't they do transports at warp in TNG?).

Indeed they did, but I wasn't going to mention that because ENT is, for all intents and purposes, still in the "transporter at warp? Impossible" mode of thinking

I've always figured that Future Guy, who supplied all of their genetic enhancements also gave them technology that won't exist for centuries

That's the easy answer though!

One thing we do know about the transporter-esque methods Suliban used: it made the NX-01 lose pretty much all power during the needed time frame. Future Guy needs to work on that

 

[Timo]

To be sure, the cell ships that attacked the Enterprise in "Broken Bow" were never shown - they might have been large vessels, either equipped with transporters or then with breaching pods that forced one of the hero ship's airlocks. And the Enterprise was first forced out of warp anyway.

The cell ships in "The Expanse" were shown, and included at least two large vessels in addition to the tiny pods that in "The Communicator" and the Daedalus novels are described in some tech detail. The use of a warp transporter was explicitly shown there, so we'd have to assume it's tech supplied by Future Guy (perhaps only for his "personal use" aboard this single special ship, though).

Although come to think of it, do we really have a reason to think that warp would make a difference when it comes to transporting? TOS never claimed such a thing. TNG made offhand remarks to "matching velocities", but that didn't sound particularly difficult. VOY did warp transports a couple of times, and the only time this was considered challenging was when the target Kazon ship was standing still and the Voyager was at relatively high warp. Our ENT heroes found everything about the transporter challenging, but there's no good reason to assume that the contemporary Klingons would have had similar problems or misgivings about their own transporters.

Similarly, phasers have no apparent shortcomings at warp, except for the teething troubles encountered by our heroes in "Fallen Hero" - but the myth about "sublight-only phasers" lives on for some reason.

Timo Saloniemi