Transporting in warp speed

[JesterFace]

This question started to bother me while watching TNG & 'The Best of Both Worlds' but it could be about any Star Trek.

The away team led by Shelby went to the Borg ship while both Enterprise and the Borg were moving at warp speed.

Somehow I find it difficult to believe it could be possible... But at the same time I can come up with some scifi thing that makes it possible. I guess the "connection" between the ships is the problem, they basically sent energy beams (transporter beam) at warp speed.

But how does the energy move at warp speed... and there's no warp bubble between the ships... and so on.
Does any of this make any sense?

I would be interested to see some theories as to how it is possible to move the transporter beams from ship to another in warp speed. It's basically an energy beam, right?

 

[1001001]

Well, you see the notion of transwarp beaming is like...trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet, whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse.

It's just like that.

 

[Timo]

Beaming something as "pure energy" is exceptional enough in "Lonely Among Us"; usually, it is a "phased matter stream" that is being pushed through space. And not through subspace, since "subspace transporters" are again exotic in "Bloodlines".

How fast does the phased matter stream move? At the usual distances, lightspeed would be fine, and even mere 10,000 km/s would suffice, but nothing rules out warp 924.7, either. All we know is that the entire process takes a couple of seconds in the usual case.

Then again, all of the above might be true. After all, the speeds of phaser beams are all over the map, too, and aren't those likely to be "phased matter" or something similar, too?

If transporter beams move at warp, do they need extra magic to make it from a warping ship to another? Phaser beams apparently don't, or at least we never hear of a difference between firing at or from war and firing at sublight.

In "Best of Both Worlds", the heroes need to match warp velocities with the Borg first. But that sounds natural enough, making targeting easier. There is no mention of, say, needing to merge warp fields. And indeed such merging is hair-raisingly difficult between to cooperating ships in ENT, the show where phasers already work effortlessly at warp between heroes and resisting villains or vice versa. No warp transporting there, though. Or in TOS, except within the ship, but no objection against warp beaming, either.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jedman67]

Rule of Plot

 

[SpyOne]

In the episode The Wounded they established that it was possible to beam between ships at warp, though very difficult.
It requires that you match speeds exactly. It also required exact timing, as it took advantage of a moment when the other ship would lower shields to use its sensors.

Basically, a ship traveling at warp is traveling inside a little bubble of space, so if you get close enough to the other ship your bubbles overlap and it is like you are both in normal space.

Also, it is hotly debated how the transporter works. Some episodes say it turns matter to energy, and some act as if it shifts people through a parallel dimension where space is compressed, but most describe it as disassembling people, transmitting their atoms to a distant location, and then reassembling them out of those atoms.

 

[Timo]

In the episode The Wounded they established that it was possible to beam between ships at warp, though very difficult.

Uh, no - the ships were at relative rest, and not running their warp or impulse engines to maintain that, either. The only difficulty there was from the Phoenix having her shields up.

No other episode calls warp beaming difficult, either. But extreme speed differential makes beaming difficult in the general case, such as in VOY "Maneuvers". The 2009 movie difficulties of "transwarp beaming" may stem purely from similar concerns, as per 1001001's quote.

Basically, a ship traveling at warp is traveling inside a little bubble of space, so if you get close enough to the other ship your bubbles overlap and it is like you are both in normal space.

Might be. But merging is considered difficult when discussed, yet beaming at warp from ship to ship is not...

Also, it is hotly debated how the transporter works. Some episodes say it turns matter to energy, and some act as if it shifts people through a parallel dimension where space is compressed, but most describe it as disassembling people, transmitting their atoms to a distant location, and then reassembling them out of those atoms.

Yup. And dialogue in newer episodes has the heroes supporting the latter view more and more explicitly, apparently for the benefit of the audience...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[matthunter]

There is one ep, though can't remember which, where O'Brien tells the Away Team that "we've matched warp velocities for transport". Since the Borg don't use broad-spectrum shields, preferring instead to tank weapon hits until they can prepare a specific adaptation, and they don't see Away Teams as a threat, the warp differential is the only issue.