The safety of Transporters.. Tmp and more.

[Admiral Archer]

Consider what a transporter has to do... convert every molecule of a person into energy, and then reassemble them so precisely that even the energy patterns in their brain are identical.

It's amazing that it works at all.
It's even more amazing that it works as often as it does.
And that people routinely rely on it.

Something to think abut:
Consider what a car has to do... convert fuel into energy in an internal combustion engine, and then hurl people at speeds multiple times that of a horses running speed down a lane only narrow enough for a few feet on either sides of the vehicle.

If you lived in a time before cars, it's amazing that such a concept works at all.
It's even more amazing that it works as often as it does.
And that people routinely rely on it.

My conclusion is that transporters, like cars or trains or planes even, are safe enough that people use them routinely enough that it is the norm, in spite of any accidents (possibly as many as in the case of cars, which is hundreds per year).

 

[publiusr]

New ship, new problems

 

[Oddish]

The nature of the transporter is such that it could actually be used as an Endless Respawn Machine. Just store the patterns of any away team members in the transporter's buffer. If someone dies, well... consider this alternative version of "The Bonding"...

CRUSHER: "Away Team is aboard, Captain. One dead on arrival."
PICARD: "Acknowledged."
CRUSHER: "Transporter room... do you have Lieutenant Aster's pattern?"
O'BRIEN: "Yes, Doctor. Calling it up now..."
CRUSHER: "Good. Initiate revival protocol."
O'BRIEN: "Initiating now." (corpse vanishes from Sickbay) "Converting body into biomass... integrating stored pattern from buffer..." (funky transporter effects) "...and this ought to do it."
(Marla Aster rematerializes on the pad. Alive)
ASTER: "What the... what happened? Why haven't we left yet?"
O'BRIEN: "There was an accident. You died. We had to bring you back with your old pattern."
ASTER: "Oh... well, don't tell Jeremy. I wouldn't want him to worry."
O'BRIEN: "I never do, lieutenant."

The only thing the revived person loses is the memories of the mission they perished on.

 

[valkyrie013]

Had a book like that. Everyone had a memory crystal and it was regularly backed up, especially ahead of any mission. And if they died, they'd spin up a clone and upload the latest back up. And. Tada your back.
Technically you can make clones and make 500 copies of you. But it is frowned upon.
Usually if there is multiple copies, there memories are merged and 1 remains. Usually the body is thrown on ice till the next body loss.

 

[Pauln6]

That's how transporters work in Dark Matter, albeit they transmit the person's consciousness into a cloned body.

For my part it seems clear that replicated matter can plug missing holes but cannot make a living being on its own or even in a percentage as high as 50% unless something weird intervenes.

 

[Oddish]

If a transporter is truly reducing you to energy, it's already effectively working like a replicator wherever you arrive. Indeed, a replicator only has to produce matter in a given configuration. Since personality is largely the result of energy patterns in their brain, a transporter has to precisely reproduce those as well.

 

[Pauln6]

If a transporter is truly reducing you to energy, it's already effectively working like a replicator wherever you arrive. Indeed, a replicator only has to produce matter in a given configuration. Since personality is largely the result of energy patterns in their brain, a transporter has to precisely reproduce those as well.

Star Trek has been very inconsistent on this. Numerous characters talk about it as a kill and clone machine, in which case the only thing preventing multiple copies would be room in the pattern buffer and available energy (which is no issue in Trek). Nevertheless, there are numerous other episodes which suggest this ISN'T how transporters work.

I think Realm of Fear is probably the one to focus on, which suggested that transportees are phased and suspended in a parallel dimension where space (I.e. distance) and time work differently and the transporter pattern is just to phase them back in the right order.

So in TMP, the confinement beam got a bit scrambled and either some of them leaked away or not all of them was phased back in the right order.

 

[Oddish]

I think Realm of Fear is probably the one to focus on, which suggested that transportees are phased and suspended in a parallel dimension where space (I.e. distance) and time work differently and the transporter pattern is just to phase them back in the right order.

That would certainly make more sense, but how would it explain radical alterations like Tuvix, Tom Riker, or mini-Picard in "Rascals"?

 

[JesterFace]

At some point long ago I thought transporting was just something cool. Back then I couldn't understand McCoy's suspicions about transporters.
These days I'm not sure I would want to get transported if given the opportunity. Probably not.

 

[Oddish]

I'll share a shuttle with McCoy, Pulaski, and Barclay.

 

[1001001]

I'll share a shuttle with McCoy, Pulaski, and Barclay.

And won't that be a wacky fun ride!

 

[publiusr]

Three (blanks) walk into a shuttle bay...

 

[Oddish]

Four, counting yours truly. And I think some others here will prefer a ride in a spaceship to getting deconstructed into individual molecules and transmitted somewhere like an episode of "I Love Lucy".

 

[Pauln6]

That would certainly make more sense, but how would it explain radical alterations like Tuvix, Tom Riker, or mini-Picard in "Rascals"?

The dimension is beyond space-time so the only way you come back in the right order is by using the stored pattern. If part of that pattern leaks, you plug the gap with replicated matter ("Boost your matter gain"). In rare cases people made up of 50% replicated, matter can survive.

I mean if you can accept Spock, Tuvix is not a stretch.

Epigenetic changes can occur (evil Kirk or Tiny Picard).

 

[Henoch]

In rare cases people made up of 50% replicated, matter can survive.

Two Kirks: Materially, they were both the same; the only difference was a slight distortion in one part of the brain that happens to control behavior. The transporter must have created two Kirks from his buffer file by splitting his original energy into two equal parts, then drawing from replicated matter reserves in the system to balance out two bodies. Apparently, both 50% replicated matter Kirks (and the doggies) are not survivable over the short term in this case, so, the original energy/matter of the two Kirks need to be put back together and the replicated matter removed. Starting to make some sense out of this Transporter technology.

 

[ChallengerHK]

Today we have plenty of equipment that tells say via a red light that this system is not working, so perhaps on the transporter console there was a light indicating the system was not operational, the sensor module is replaced and the light goes off indicating the system is now operational. So they begin using it again (seemingly without testing it first). We get another failure the moment they start using it.

I was thinking something along these lines. I did a lot of work in auto assembly plants years ago, and if somebody wanted to enter a cell there would be a lockout procedure to prevent power or commands going to the robots in that cell. Hard to believe that something as potentially dangerous as a transporter wouldn't have some similar system , one which would require a positive confirmation that the system was operational instead of "We haven't heard back from you, but you were supposed to have fixed it so we're assuming it's fine."

 

[Timo]

Well, a big part of getting the ship operational within Kirk's crazy schedule would no doubt be Scotty bypassing such systems.

Or simply never installing them; they might well have been absent during assembly phase, to better facilitate testing of partially assembled systems.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

Sucks to be the entire Kelvin universe Enterprise crew going through that old USS Franklin cargo transporter

Surely it is standard procedure in Starfleet to deposit some gametes when you check into the Academy on your first day. Because as much radiation and wacky space viruses as you encounter in Starfleet, you'd want to bank some sperm or eggs first if you ever want to become a parent to a non-mutant.

 

[dupersuper]

Star Trek has been very inconsistent on this. Numerous characters talk about it as a kill and clone machine

That's the inference a lot of fans make, often using modern day transporting theories as a basis, but I've never heard a Star Trek character hold this opinion.

 

[Pauln6]

That's the inference a lot of fans make, often using modern day transporting theories as a basis, but I've never heard a Star Trek character hold this opinion.

I didn't mean literally using those words, I just meant that when they talk about converting a person to energy they are talking about killing the person.

I think quantum tunnelling would work, although the science is beyond me, you entangle atoms at your destination and effectively send the information about the positions of all your subatomic particles to the entangled atoms. I'm not sure how that marries up to the dialogue though.

 

[dupersuper]

I didn't mean literally using those words, I just meant that when they talk about converting a person to energy they are talking about killing the person.

Nah, this is Star trek. Converting to energy is the high point of evolution (see Q, Organians, Metron, Prophets, John Doe, the Doud)...