What would you do with a transporter?

[C.E. Evans]

The problem with inventing anything is that inevitably, and perhaps without fail, someone is going to come up with a way to use your invention in a way you never intended or even wished it to be used. It's either going to be perverted, politicized, weaponized, or all of the above, IMO. That being said, if I invented the transporter, I'd share it with the rest of the world in the hope that more good than harm comes as a result of it. In the end, that's all anyone can hope for when they create something.

In the meantime, I'd patent it, become rich as hell, and be on vacation for the rest of my life, but that's besides the point...

 

[Oddish]

To paraphrase Shane, technology is a tool, like a hammer or a knife or a shovel or anything. It's as good or as bad as the person who uses it. That principle will not change as the tech gets more advanced.

 

[at Quark's]

Nope. Probably the inventers television never intended intended it for fake news, the discoverers of the energies stored within the atom probably didn't intend it to be used in nuclear bombs, and so on.

 

[Jedi Marso]

The temptation would be overwhelming to use this as a Tantalus Device. Because there are definitely some people on this planet who would benefit us all by vanishing mysteriously, never to return.

 

[The Wormhole]

I'd use it to steal money. So much money. Beam into the bank vault. Fill a duffel bag with cash. Beam out. Rinse and repeat when I run out.

Or better yet, reconfigure it into a replicator and create money.

 

[at Quark's]

I might as well end up telling no-one about it, and just eliminate those annoying commute times, and make short trips in the weekends to countries I haven't been to before. (I don't feel that much desire to get rich or anything like that).

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I thought of writing a short story about that idea, about a contract killer with the perfect alibi, taunting the detectives.

'So you found some DNA that apparently matches with mine on the crime scene in Paris. This murder was supposed to have taken place around 18:30, right? As it happens, I can testify that I was at a reception in Cape Town that day till 18:00, and I had a dinner appointment at 19:30. I can provide dozens of witness accounts for both of these events, as well as my credit card transactions. Now, would you please care to explain how you think I could have gotten from Capetown to Paris, kill the victim there, and back to Capetown, all in the space of just 1.5 hours? Doesn't that look as if somebody is trying to set me up here?'

I'd read that.

If I wanted to strsight up assassinate someone, I'd just beam them up and rematerialize them 1000 miles straight down, where the planetary mantle would incinerate and crush them. Or not rematerialize them at all.

Even better.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Or beam them into stuff like a solid rock wall, or a boulder, mixing their molecules with the rock itself. We know from Star Trek that this theoretically can happen, and it would be fatal.

If this is going to happen anywhere, it's going to be in Midsomer. Mark my words.

 

[Orphalesion]

If this is going to happen anywhere, it's going to be in Midsomer. Mark my words.

Sorry, I don't recognize that reference right now. Is it an upcoming episode of one of the shows?

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Sorry, I don't recognize that reference right now. Is it an upcoming episode of one of the shows?

Um...I'm sure DCI Barnaby will learn who used the sliders...

 

[at Quark's]

If I wanted to strsight up assassinate someone, I'd just beam them up and rematerialize them 1000 miles straight down, where the planetary mantle would incinerate and crush them. Or not rematerialize them at all.

Come to think of it, they already must have thought of that in TOS, when they kill the Redjac entity that way (and Hengist with it) (Wolf in the Fold).

 

[Oddish]

They must really keep tabs on transporter activity in the Federation, given that it would be a perfect murder method, or method for disposing of a body.

 

[at Quark's]

Those are evolved people, aren't they? No greed, no poverty, so presumably no transporter murders. No evil to speak of.

Well, except for all those evil admirals and psychos they encounter, of course

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Is "What would you do with a transporter?" going to be asked during the job interview?

 

[Oddish]

One good way to use one in "The Vengeance Factor"... "Away team to Enterprise. Lock onto Yuta and beam her directly to the brig."
Too bad Riker didn't think of that one.

 

[Ovation]

Cut my four hour round trip work commutes to 47 seconds? Yeah. That for starters. Then be a world hopping tourist without paying for a hotel. Sums it up for me.

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

It would completely destabilize the world economy and would probably start any number of wars.

 

[at Quark's]

^I could understand how prices of some commodities would plummet (assuming the cost of operating the transporter is significantly lower than transporting them the old fashioned way).

I don't know about those wars though. If groups of people (or governments) started stealing valuable resources from another country by using the transporter (e.g. precious metals), then yes. But then again, a transporter would in principle be reconfigurable into a replicator, which would eliminate any reasons for theft. Still some nations may feel a grudge (in case they were the sole suppliers of a rare resource, and find that resource worthless now since anyone can replicate it).

 

[Orphalesion]

Um...I'm sure DCI Barnaby will learn who used the sliders...

Why would I know some British crime show? I don't like crime shows, and I'm not British.

 

[at Quark's]

Is "What would you do with a transporter?" going to be asked during the job interview?

I could see that kind of question used to test for imaginative, out-of-the-box thinking. With some tweaking of course, to eliminate the obvious uses. So, why not