Yes--conservation of mass is problematic.
The Lorelei Signal
- Thread starter BoredShipCapt'n
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Well... conservation of mass is a problem in the real world, but the transporter's specifically stated function is the conversion of mater into energy and then reconverting it back. I would think that as long as you keep adding more energy (ruh ruh) then you can make multiples of anyone, or maybe even a 30 foot tall version. Like the holodeck and replicators, they create matter from energy. I realize those two things are from later on, but I think the principle is still sound, in as much as pretend things can be sound.
And, just my silly opinion, but I think it's more "realistic" that a malfuntioning transporter can possibly materialize a person but through malfunction not completely write all of the proper ingrams into a person's brain only to try again and use the remaining ingrams, thus causing a split personality effect of the individual rather than reconstituting a whole person into a completely different shape approximating a child of the individual, yet the smaller brain in the child size head holds all of the individual's knowledge and memories.
So, calling it "good and evil" makes it sound worse than it actually was. If you call it primal and altruistic, it sounds a little more pretentious but less ridiculous because the second, while snobby, sounds more like the aspects of a person's phyche. I really don't think Kirk is just "full of evil" just waiting for the chance to get out but everyone has primal urges and needs.
I just want to say something a little off this topic but about Enemy Within. Scotty calls and says he's found a new problem with the transporter, there's a big hole blasted into the machinery. Ok. I guess Kirk and Spock didn't mention that? It was the hole from Kirk v2.0's phaser. Don't you think you should mention to your Chief Engineer that there was a big hole blasted into his equipment before he has to just stumble upon it? That always makes me wonder a bit. I know they may certainly not wanted to mention there are two captains and one of them shot it trying to kill the other one but maybe just tell him there was damage in engineering. Maybe they did tell him and that's how he found it, but it seems like he's discovering it himself the way he delivers the lines.
And, just my silly opinion, but I think it's more "realistic" that a malfuntioning transporter can possibly materialize a person but through malfunction not completely write all of the proper ingrams into a person's brain only to try again and use the remaining ingrams, thus causing a split personality effect of the individual rather than reconstituting a whole person into a completely different shape approximating a child of the individual, yet the smaller brain in the child size head holds all of the individual's knowledge and memories.
So, calling it "good and evil" makes it sound worse than it actually was. If you call it primal and altruistic, it sounds a little more pretentious but less ridiculous because the second, while snobby, sounds more like the aspects of a person's phyche. I really don't think Kirk is just "full of evil" just waiting for the chance to get out but everyone has primal urges and needs.
I just want to say something a little off this topic but about Enemy Within. Scotty calls and says he's found a new problem with the transporter, there's a big hole blasted into the machinery. Ok. I guess Kirk and Spock didn't mention that? It was the hole from Kirk v2.0's phaser. Don't you think you should mention to your Chief Engineer that there was a big hole blasted into his equipment before he has to just stumble upon it? That always makes me wonder a bit. I know they may certainly not wanted to mention there are two captains and one of them shot it trying to kill the other one but maybe just tell him there was damage in engineering. Maybe they did tell him and that's how he found it, but it seems like he's discovering it himself the way he delivers the lines.
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Except TNG's tech advisors wisely retconned that into merely breaking an object down into its constituent particles and reassembling them. After all, a single gram of matter converted into energy would release an amount of energy larger than the Nagasaki bomb. Converting a 70ish-kilogram person into energy and beaming that energy at a planet, let alone six of them at once, would be tantamount to firing a massive death ray at the planet. It's a deeply untenable notion.
Replicators just assemble objects from pre-existing material stores, like a more elaborate 3D printer. Holodecks only shape force fields and volumetric imagery into the illusion of solid matter; any actual solid object in a holodeck is replicated.
Yes, Kirk was losing his power of command even that early in the episode was dropping the ball on a lot of stuff. More info here:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=7338859&postcount=12
Like any food you might eat while in the holodeck.
Interesting that it was in the original draft, further emphasising Kirk's increasing loss of command ability. Wouldn't Spock have mentioned it though? He was there too when the shot was fired!
My take on the situation is that the unit which was phasered is probably part of a collection of instruments, machinery which powered or supplemented a range of different ship components. It wasn't until Scotty examined the mess that he realised that the Transporter system had been further affected.
I never liked the idea that the transporter takes you apart and puts you back together. I think it should transport you whole from one place to another.
Given the absurd energy and data requirements in taking a person apart atom by atom compared to how often the Transporter is used under low power conditions (shuttles' emergency transporters, using a hand phaser to power one, operating them using emergency power in TWOK etc) I also strongly favour a different interpretation.
From the little evidence we have about the transportee's POV during the process (Barclay in Realm Of Fear, Kirk's ongoing conversation in TWOK), it does seem that they are awake and conscious throughout. That would strongly suggest that the subjects are somehow phased whole (perhaps into a semi-energy state) and then relocated to the target destination where upon they remerge into our familiar dimension of existence.
Timo has expounded on this theory better than I elsewhere on the BBS.
From the little evidence we have about the transportee's POV during the process (Barclay in Realm Of Fear, Kirk's ongoing conversation in TWOK), it does seem that they are awake and conscious throughout. That would strongly suggest that the subjects are somehow phased whole (perhaps into a semi-energy state) and then relocated to the target destination where upon they remerge into our familiar dimension of existence.
Timo has expounded on this theory better than I elsewhere on the BBS.
I like the scene in Spaceballs where Mel Brooks gets into a transporter saying, "What the hell, it works on Star Trek," and he comes out of it with his butt on backwards. 
I think in one of the novels (the one where the Kirk's ship almost meets Picard's ship) they explain how the transporter works to Zefram Cochrane and I sort of bought the explanation there. What was best about it was that nobody 'died' in the transport process
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