Unfilmed 3rd Season Episodes

[publiusr]

Yep. This and "Almost Was..." were unlicensed, both from Psi Fi Movie Press, 1985.

James Van Hise had similar books if I recall correctly.

 

[Neopeius]

Transporters have limited range. Shuttles can travel farther, and can go on side missions while the ship is occupied.

Something I found interesting is, in the letter Roddenberry wrote to Yandro (you can see it in the Fanzines in situ thread), he responds to a fan who asked why people couldn't just beam across the galaxy. Why was the Enterprise needed at all?

What is interesting about Roddenberry's reply was that he didn't (in December '66) say "because the transporter's range is limited." He conceded that it would be possible to beam across the galaxy. His considerations were strictly production-based: he talked about the viewers' need for a "home base" and for consistent, continuing characters.

The implication is that the transporter did not have a range limit, at least in the early days, nor was such a thing top of mind for Roddenberry.

 

[Warped9]

In The Making of Star Trek the transporter is given a range limit. Later in episodes like “The Gamesters Of Triskelion,” “Assignment: Earth” and “That Which Survives” we see alien transporters with range in terms of light years. So as advanced as Federation science is presented to be we see examples of even more advanced science.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Something I found interesting is, in the letter Roddenberry wrote to Yandro (you can see it in the Fanzines in situ thread), he responds to a fan who asked why people couldn't just beam across the galaxy. Why was the Enterprise needed at all?

What is interesting about Roddenberry's reply was that he didn't (in December '66) say "because the transporter's range is limited." He conceded that it would be possible to beam across the galaxy. His considerations were strictly production-based: he talked about the viewers' need for a "home base" and for consistent, continuing characters.

The implication is that the transporter did not have a range limit, at least in the early days, nor was such a thing top of mind for Roddenberry.

I was a little stunned by Roddenberry's reply. He was basically saying that if you can beam a thousand miles, then in principle you can beam across the galaxy. And that's nuts.

He must have been unfamiliar with the inverse-square law. Any signal you transmit, or a laser beam, or the pull of a magnet, or the brightness of sunlight for that matter, will see its intensity drop off with the square of the distance. And that's a big drop off when you go out to interstellar distances. Transporter beams would fade to nothing, just like the vintage alien radio shows that S.E.T.I. can't hear.

Put another way, there has to be a range, and trying to beam yourself to a site that's out of range would be suicide.

 

[Therin of Andor]

James Van Hise had similar books if I recall correctly.

James's books came from the many-named PsiFi Press guys (aka Pop Cult, Inc. aka Schuster & Schuster aka Pioneer Press aka New Media Publishing, Inc. aka Movie Publisher Services aka Couch Potato Inc.).

 

[Christopher]

Something I found interesting is, in the letter Roddenberry wrote to Yandro (you can see it in the Fanzines in situ thread), he responds to a fan who asked why people couldn't just beam across the galaxy. Why was the Enterprise needed at all?

What is interesting about Roddenberry's reply was that he didn't (in December '66) say "because the transporter's range is limited." He conceded that it would be possible to beam across the galaxy. His considerations were strictly production-based: he talked about the viewers' need for a "home base" and for consistent, continuing characters.

The implication is that the transporter did not have a range limit, at least in the early days, nor was such a thing top of mind for Roddenberry.

The thing that seems to get overlooked in most conversations I see about interstellar beaming rendering starships "obsolete" is that it would only apply to travel to known destinations. It would be a terrible idea to use interstellar transporters for exploring strange new worlds, since you don't know what you'd find there or whether it would be safe, so it makes more sense to bring a ship with you while you look around.

Although I guess you could argue that's exactly what they did on Stargate, and they managed it by sending a MALP probe through the gate before sending people. But that doesn't really count, because the original builders of the Stargates placed them on worlds that were known to them (at least in this galaxy) and that they reached through ships. So they still qualify as a long-range "beaming" system established after initial exploration.

In The Making of Star Trek the transporter is given a range limit. Later in episodes like “The Gamesters Of Triskelion,” “Assignment: Earth” and “That Which Survives” we see alien transporters with range in terms of light years. So as advanced as Federation science is presented to be we see examples of even more advanced science.

Also you have the subspace transporter used by DaiMon Bok in TNG: "Bloodlines" and the Nyrians' translocator in VGR: "Displaced." (Also the Sikarian trajector in VGR: "Prime Factors," though that's a space-folding system rather than a transporter per se.)

Which is why I find it strange that people tend to assume the "transwarp beaming" in the Kelvin movies was some kind of a new invention developed sometime after Nemesis. The tech's been known in the Trek universe since the TOS era. I've always assumed it was the same tech from "Bloodlines." (Also, the '09 movie used the phrase "transwarp beaming" not for interstellar beaming per se, but for beaming from a planet onto a ship at warp -- "trans-" in the sense of "across" rather than "beyond." Although the sequel forgot this.)

 

[Pauln6]

The thing that seems to get overlooked in most conversations I see about interstellar beaming rendering starships "obsolete" is that it would only apply to travel to known destinations. It would be a terrible idea to use interstellar transporters for exploring strange new worlds, since you don't know what you'd find there or whether it would be safe, so it makes more sense to bring a ship with you while you look around.

Although I guess you could argue that's exactly what they did on Stargate, and they managed it by sending a MALP probe through the gate before sending people. But that doesn't really count, because the original builders of the Stargates placed them on worlds that were known to them (at least in this galaxy) and that they reached through ships. So they still qualify as a long-range "beaming" system established after initial exploration.




Also you have the subspace transporter used by DaiMon Bok in TNG: "Bloodlines" and the Nyrians' translocator in VGR: "Displaced." (Also the Sikarian trajector in VGR: "Prime Factors," though that's a space-folding system rather than a transporter per se.)

Which is why I find it strange that people tend to assume the "transwarp beaming" in the Kelvin movies was some kind of a new invention developed sometime after Nemesis. The tech's been known in the Trek universe since the TOS era. I've always assumed it was the same tech from "Bloodlines." (Also, the '09 movie used the phrase "transwarp beaming" not for interstellar beaming per se, but for beaming from a planet onto a ship at warp -- "trans-" in the sense of "across" rather than "beyond." Although the sequel forgot this.)

I think these are excellent points. I suppose the issue with Trek is that the main antagonists are fairly on par with the Federation, albeit with variations in focus. If the Federation can beam across interstellar distances, you can bet your boots you others can learn this or steal this before long, and then the focus turns to how do we prevent this technology being used against US.

The logic gaps for me are power consumption (if antimatter engines with dilithium can produce enough power to warp space they can beam signals), signal fidelity (the longer it takes the more a signal degrades), and destination scanning (scanners, especially quantum scanners don't work over such longer distances), entirely separate from compensating to beam into a warp bubble.

With Stargate in mind, a network of interstellar relays (Trek already has these for communications) would work. Planetary exploration could be done by beaming probes interstellar distances to scan locations, followed by beaming transporter equipment to a suitable site, followed by your landing party.

Edit: Obviously using this for exploration has a lot of potential to breach the Prime Directive.

 

[publiusr]

James's books came from the many-named PsiFi Press guys (aka Pop Cult, Inc. aka Schuster & Schuster).

They still around?

 

[Therin of Andor]

They still around?

Hal Schuster (not to be confused with convention organiser, Al Schuster) is long gone. Passed away in 2000.

However a book titled "The Star Trek That Never Was" was released by John Peel.

From my collection:

From the archive of @Steve Roby's old site:

The contents [of Hal Schuster publications] sometimes bore only a passing resemblance to what the title promised. For example, one Files Magazine title, 1985's The Star Trek That Almost Was by John Peel, is supposed to be about Star Trek Phase II, the unfilmed series from the late 1970s. Instead, it's a collection of summaries of unfilmed story treatments from the original series, nine in all. Thirteen pages of text is padded out to 47 pages with a lot of photographs, at least one used twice a couple pages apart. Another John Peel File from 1985, The Star Trek That Never Was, does have some information on Phase II. There's nine pages' worth of text, lots of photos (not from Phase II), then a section on the music of Star Trek, with perhaps six pages of text and more photos.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150905193039/http://www.well.com/user/sjroby/lcars/schuster.html