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What happens if you beam a person to the exact same space a person already is in?

When people beam into a small, enclosed chamber, the sudden displacement of air should increase the pressure and make their ears pop, like on an airplane.
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More broadly, every planet they beam down to would have slightly different air pressure than the ship, and they'd feel it in their ears.
Uh, I remember this in an old short story where they used a technology similar to the trasporter, but you needed a receiver too and people were beamed in a compensation chamber for this reason!
 
Uh, I remember this in an old short story where they used a technology similar to the trasporter, but you needed a receiver too and people were beamed in a compensation chamber for this reason!

If you had a transporter, you could kill anybody you wanted just by beaming them to the bottom of the ocean. There's some pressure for ya. Their crushed bodies would quickly be consumed by animals and the elements, leaving no trace.
 
Apparently, there's a "depth" or "density" distance limit for beaming in TOS. From orbit-to-surface of a planet (through vacuum and air), they can beam about 30,000 km. (Obsession) Below ground (through dirt/rock/structures), they normally can't beam 100 miles / 161 km through rock, so, this limit will be somewhere less than that. (Return To Tomorrow) There are a few cases of beaming underground but I'd put these depths in the few miles range at most. (Dagger of the Mind, Devil in the Dark, Spock's Brain, The Cloud Minders, TWOK) :vulcan:
 
When people beam into a small, enclosed chamber, the sudden displacement of air should increase the pressure and make their ears pop, like on an airplane.
For anyone interested...

Sci-fi writer Steven Gould wrote a series of novels exploring some of these topics (Jumper, Reflex, Impulse and Exo). By the way, the movie Jumper bears less in common (meaning virtually nothing) with the book than the James Bond movies and novels.

The first novel introduces Davy, a 17-year-old boy, who discovers that he has the ability to teleport at will. While his talent is very real, it is also allegorical for the character's response to life—keeping everyone at arm's length and "jumping away" whenever reality becomes too uncomfortable. Among the first things Davy discovers is his ability to dump or acquire "momentum," such as jumping from a high northern latitude to a location closer to the equator.

In Impulse Davy, who has been working for the US government, is captured by a secret organization who learns to control him. During tests, a researcher has Davy jump into a sealed container, but the air pressure does not increase. It is not until the researcher has Davy jump back and forth between foot tubs—one with water, one without—that he confirms something Davy has known since the first novel. His talent opens a gateway between points, and he "slides through." (So, air pressure was equalizing through the hole, and water was running downhill into the empty tub.) Although Davy's own jumping between altitudes would make his ears pop.

In later novels we learn more, as first Davy's wife Millie learns the skill after countless jumps with her husband, and then their daughter discovers how to do it, too. The daughter, Cent (short for Millicent, after her mother), really goes to town with "impulsing"—adding momentum by "jumping in place." She ends up flying like Superman, and reaching some incredible destinations after acquiring a "spacesuit."

The books explore a number of other applications of "jumping." But I don't want to spill too much for anyone who has not read the books.
 
you could kill anybody you wanted just by beaming them to the bottom of the ocean. There's some pressure for ya. Their crushed bodies would quickly be consumed by animals and the elements, leaving no trace.
It would be better to beam him to a star.
When people beam into a small, enclosed chamber, the sudden displacement of air should increase the pressure and make their ears pop, like on an airplane.
Yes. And pressure in the transporter chamber should, vice versa, suddenly decrease because there's no matter where the beamed items were a moment ago.

If we want transporters to make sense, the best would be just make them swap matter from place where we beam something from and matter from place where we beam something to.
 
it just occured to me the transporter could be used offensively by removing all of most of the air from an enemy vessel
 
In Diane Carey’s novel Final Frontier they beamed an explosive device directly into the engine core of a Romulan ship. Thats a pretty offensive move.
 
In Diane Carey’s novel Final Frontier they beamed an explosive device directly into the engine core of a Romulan ship. Thats a pretty offensive move.
Yet another example of the variations in one Trek script to another. In "Dagger of the Mind," the transporter techs could not beam down supplies to a hospital for the criminally insane because the deflector screen blocked the transporter beam. It's a similar story in "Whom Gods Destroy." Then we have "The Trouble With Tribbles" where Scotty blithely transports all the offending fuzzballs into the Klingon engine room. If such a gap has existed in Klingon defensive technology, it's a wonder that they'd be any trouble to the Federation at all...

I'm no fan of post TOS Trek, so I can't comment on the likes of the Borg.

Honestly, weaponizing any number of "non-weapon" technologies in Star Trek would make unstoppable weapons. The whole idea of capital ships duking it out like World War II is silly. Plenty of sci-fi writers have dreamed up some really mind-bending weapons, like the Disruptor in Edmond Hamilton's The Star Kings (destroys space itself), or the "J-Bomb" in James P. Hogan's The Genesis Machine (pulse of energy coming at you from another dimension). Many writers have used star-drive engines themselves as weapons.
 
In ambush scenarios on near-stationary targets with shields down, many Star Trek technologies like transporters, tractor beams, force fields, etc. can defeat/destroy your Starship. For FTL combat on shielded targets, weapons need reach, speed and power. The slow cycle time, short-ish reach and low-ish power level of the transporter doesn't cut it as a combat weapon. :)
 
The slow cycle time, short-ish reach and low-ish power level of the transporter doesn't cut it as a combat weapon. :)
We've seen more advanced "transporters" in TOS, such as the system in "That Which Survives" which tossed the Enterprise hundreds of lightyears. (It didn't destroy the ship, but could have.) Then there's the tech seen in "Assignment Earth." Note that the transporter used by Gary Seven seemed to need a receiver. Still, Seven later uses the same transporter to slip into the launch site with no receiver there, begging the question, "why didn't he simply go directly to the tower itself, instead of having to sneak around security?"
 
We've seen more advanced "transporters" in TOS, such as the system in "That Which Survives" which tossed the Enterprise hundreds of lightyears. (It didn't destroy the ship, but could have.) Then there's the tech seen in "Assignment Earth." Note that the transporter used by Gary Seven seemed to need a receiver. Still, Seven later uses the same transporter to slip into the launch site with no receiver there, begging the question, "why didn't he simply go directly to the tower itself, instead of having to sneak around security?"

True, there are civilizations with far more advanced transporters than the Feds in TOS but they are not peers which is what I suspect Henoch was getting at. The Feds, Klingons and probably Romulans using a transporter attack against each other would only work in surprise situations where no one has shields up.
 
a transporter attack against each other would only work in surprise situations where no one has shields up.
Exactly. Which makes "The Enterprise Incident" all the more remarkable. Three Romulan warships surrounding a Federation cruiser, yet Kirk could beam in unnoticed? And better yet, once the alert had already been sounded, they could beam Spock (and the Romulan commander) out?

For that matter, why didn't Kirk send a bunch of commandos over after taking down Reliant's shields in The Wrath of Khan? I know, nitpicking like this makes it very difficult for an author to tell the kind of story he wants to tell. But it makes me appreciate it all the more when some author examines all the details of a futuristic technology to make an air-tight story.
 
Exactly. Which makes "The Enterprise Incident" all the more remarkable. Three Romulan warships surrounding a Federation cruiser, yet Kirk could beam in unnoticed? And better yet, once the alert had already been sounded, they could beam Spock (and the Romulan commander) out?

Interestingly the Romulans did detect Spock using his communicator after Kirk beamed onboard and even captured Spock. But they appear to be unable to detect Kirk's communicator use or him beaming in and out. The episode plays out with the Romulans thinking that the intruder was still on the Romulan flagship. And when the Romulan ship went to "Full Alert" it didn't stop the Enterprise beaming Spock (and the Romulan commander) out. So does that mean the Romulans haven't figured out how to detect and shield against transporters at this point?

For that matter, why didn't Kirk send a bunch of commandos over after taking down Reliant's shields in The Wrath of Khan? I know, nitpicking like this makes it very difficult for an author to tell the kind of story he wants to tell. But it makes me appreciate it all the more when some author examines all the details of a futuristic technology to make an air-tight story.

Or beam Khan and crew out of the Reliant and/or swap places with them? Although it could be argued that they were so low on power after Khan's attack that the transporters might not have reliably worked. Or in addition to lowering the shields also order the Reliant to vent atmosphere or deploy also intruder knock out gas, etc :whistle:

Yeah so many questions :)
 
Would a cadet training cruise carry commandos? Would sending cadets against Khan be a wise choice?
It was purely an example. Still, would a cadet training cruise have no experienced ratings to oversee all departments? Kirk, Spock and Starfleet all thought the crew was capable enough to investigate the drop-out at Regula One, where top secret R&D was going on. (They didn't know about Khan at that point.)

The "code for Reliant's command" was a clever story element. But like all other tech, it needs to be examined very carefully. Ask an IT system administrator about security of that sort—firewalls, access codes, DMZs, air gaps and the like. How vulnerable does that make Starfleet vessels? Or as BK613 pointed out, would it give Kirk total control? The only reason the gambit worked was because of "social programming," the ole Trojan horse approach. Khan let it in, assuming it was the Genesis info he demanded. If he'd had his CRM-114 discriminator properly set...
 
I got the sense that Reliant's computers only accepted the command because Khan opened up the computer system to receive the Genesis data. I imagine in a rescue-the-incapacitated-crew scenario the rescuing ship would need to physically access the target ship to do any kind of remote take over. YMMV.
 
I had actually forgotten this—been years since i watched any TNG—but Picard does actually do the remote access thing with the Lantree:
RIKER: If we gain control of her systems remotely, we could activate the viewscreen. That way we could at least look at the Bridge.
PICARD: Agreed.

PICARD: Computer, security override request.
COMPUTER: Identify.
PICARD: Picard, Jean-Luc, Captain, USS Enterprise. Request control access Starfleet ship USS Lantree, Isao Telaka commanding.
COMPUTER: Enter access code.
PICARD: Omicron omicron alpha yellow daystar two seven. Enable.

DATA: I have verified receipt of the access codes for the Lantree, Captain.
Different showrunners but no doubt inspired by the access code event in TWOK.
 
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