Transporters... Borg drone factories?

[Timo]

...Indeed, the preponderance of evidence goes that you need the original matter stream. If that degrades, and the original body doesn't exist in, say, 90% intact condition, no degree of effort will bring the victim back. But if one has either the matter stream, or the original body, then the use of this abstract "pattern" thing will help reassemble the matter stream or the original, slightly damaged body into the desired shape.

The ability to construct things out of pure abstract data is a big no-no. It seems to have happened only twice: in "The Enemy Within" and "Second Chances". The first time, our heroes seemed to have at least an inkling of what went wrong, and were ultimately able to turn two people into one - but they never managed to repeat the feat of turning one people into two. The second time, nobody seemed able to figure out what the hell had happened, and no attempt at duplication of the duplication was made.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[c0rnedfr0g]

but they never managed to repeat the feat of turning one people into two.

tuvix, anyone? and that included a plant as well (which i don't recall rematerializing, so it's probably part of neelix and tuvok still)

 

[Timo]

They didn't manage that feat in "The Enemy Within". And that's a bit different from "Tuvix". The victim in the TOS episode was Captain Kirk, a known quantity who didn't suddenly contain the mass of two people or we would have noticed. But the burly Tuvix could well have contained all the ingredients of the slim Tuvok, the diminutive Neelix and the hapless plant, only in a jumbled order.

Timo Saloniemi