I like Kirk's line to Spock...."Eliminate his heartbeat." 
What The Heck?....That Makes No Sense.
- Thread starter Spock's Barber
- Start date
Well we know there are more than one alternate universe in Trek! TOS even has the Alternative Factor's reality as well as Mirror, Mirror! And afterwards we have the Kelvin universe and the DSC continuum so there!
Maybe ours and the mirror universe are closer than any of the others?JB
Mr. Hengist: I'll remind you the computer was suspect.
It was the easiest one to travel, whether by chance or choice.
Something just reminded me that there were several episodes where aliens/untrained people used the transporter.
Other episodes gave me the impression that transporting people was a skill not just something anyone could do.
Other episodes gave me the impression that transporting people was a skill not just something anyone could do.
Only if something goes wrong, otherwise it's easy as pie. you can even set it for a delay so you can transport yourself. Galaxy Quest on the other hand...
I they just commonly started assuming that the transporter was fairly universal technology throughout the galaxy, like phasers/disruptors, warp drive, or the universal translator. You pretty much have to stop having people ooh and aah over all of that stuff all the time if you want to move the story along.
If anything, the TOS heroes treated every piece of their kit as mundane, humdrum or even defective. Which was cool in its own right. ENT is the counterpoint where our heroes see this very same tech for the first time ever and indeed go all ooh/aah. Not to mention AAAARGH!
In any case, the transporter is a machine with a user interface. It's not supposed to fight the user, unlike perhaps the hand phaser which may theoretically end up in wrong hands. If the transporter console of the ship is in wrong hands, the heroes have bigger problems than the transporter console being in wrong hands!
Timo Saloniemi
In any case, the transporter is a machine with a user interface. It's not supposed to fight the user, unlike perhaps the hand phaser which may theoretically end up in wrong hands. If the transporter console of the ship is in wrong hands, the heroes have bigger problems than the transporter console being in wrong hands!
Timo Saloniemi
Basically, barring pre-determined circumstances, such as a lockdown where nobody can transport, a clearance level that prevents you from transporting to a specific place or at a certain time, interstellar conditions that make it impossible to do so safely, etc, transporting is a fairly routine procedure. In Beyond, we saw that the Yorktown starbase had public transporters as part of their transit systems, so maybe that's a thing in the prime universe, as ubiquitous as subways and buses are to 21st century transit.
TOS depicted the transporters as technically special and sometimes challenging. Most times, a technician or engineer was present to operate. Even into TNG the system can cause serious problems. JJ's Beyond shows unaccompanied minors using the unmanned potential-disintegration system like cell phones. Yikes! 
Well, aircraft are difficult to fly. Military aircraft more so than civilian ones. But unaccompanied minors can fly on civilian aircraft easily enough. The difficulties need not manifest at user level, really - they are for Kyle or Scotty to worry about.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
JB (and anyone else interested) - as promised I watched Wink of an Eye over my vacation. Oh, how I love that episode! Such fun. Anyway, Scotty is shown in the transporter room doorway in three scenes. In the second, when his position is measured against the door frame, he has definitely moved a bit farther inside. However, in the third scene (when Kirk and Spock beam Deela and the silent Rael off the ship), he seems to be back closer to where he was in the first of the three scenes. But even with freeze frame and screencaps it's hard to make definitive conclusions, particularly regarding the third scene when, unlike the other two, no one walks past him while he's in doorstop mode.
So I'd say he did move farther inside, but it's not certain. And of course that leaves open the question of whether, if he did move forward, it was a deliberate directing choice or just the result of repositioning Doohan between takes. Even if they filmed all three scenes back-to-back-to back (as you'd expect) and shot fast, I doubt Doohan stood in place the whole time.
A bad bit of directing in that scene with Doohan stuck within the first three steps in the latter part of the episode!
JB
JB
How so?
Well other people seem to have moved when Spock accelerates to the Scalosian levels but Scotty has hardly moved one inch since the earlier scene with Kirk! They should have moved him on slightly just to prove that Scalosians don't live their whole life compared to ours within a week!
JB
JB
Hm, I don't think that's quite right. First, no other Enterprise crew members are shown "frozen" after Spock accelerates other than Scotty. The security guards formerly posted outside Environmental Engineering, for example - who are still there when Kirk is accelerated and first confronts Compton and then Rael and Co. - are gone by the time Spock accelerates himself, heads there, and meets up with Kirk. (What Spock was attempting to achieve exactly I do not know; he doesn't even take a tricorder with him, only a phaser that he should have theorized would not operate properly.)
Second, Scotty did move farther into the transporter room, as I said above. Maybe he should have moved more. But you're right that the episode is vague - which was almost certainly deliberate - about the relative speed of the Scalosians. A few people over the years have theorized that the hyperacceleration is actually more of a dimensional shift, which explains some of the inconsistencies in the time differential. It also provides something of an answer to those who worry about things like friction, sonic booms, and such instead of just sitting back and enjoying a great story, but that's another post . . . .
Good call, Phase! We never got a good enough explanation about the turbo lifts either did we?
JB
JB
Similar threads
