What would you do with a transporter?

[Timewalker]

What a highly reasoned post!

I'd definitely use the device for environmental cleanup and pollution mitigation. And travel to beauty spots around the world.

Thank you!

A transporter would be really handy for that plastic island in the Pacific (to get rid of it), and to clean up oil spills, as long as it doesn't also scoop up anything it's not supposed to.

True, but transporter tech does also remove the issue of "can't afford to relocate to seek a new job".

Freight might still be needed - transporter tech in the Federation has payload limits (two blue whales and accompanying water seemed to be pushing it).

As someone pointed out, they were humpbacks.

However, this was using a Klingon ship, and no matter how much Scotty must have tinkered with it during their stay on Vulcan, even he couldn't have brought it up to Federation standards.

It might have been easier on an actual Federation starship (but that's just my speculation).

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Artists could sculpt the most amazing works out of clouds themselves. Probably have to work quickly, though!

 

[Timewalker]

Even more quickly than split-second precision would be needed.

I once saw a cloud bank that looked like one of those street scenes in The Ten Commandments (think of the scene where Lillia (sp?) is getting water or the Hebrews are packing to leave). There were walls, a stairway up the side of the wall, and the cloud was a beigey-pink (this was just before sunset). It was amazing, and of course the sort of thing you only see when you don't have a camera.

 

[dswynne1]

What would I do?

First, I wouldn't use it without extensive testing, especially on people. Last thing I want is a repeat of the transporter scene from TMP (the first one aboard the refit Enterprise).

Secondly, I wouldn't want to go public with it. Why? The moment I do, the government will swoop in and seize it for the sake of "national security", not to mention the fact that I would have to worry about my life or the lives that I know would be in serious jeopardy, being a target of the Russians and Chinese industrial spies and government assassins. That is, if I am not kidnapped first.

And, third, if I can create a transporter, the "side-effect" would be the tech that leads to the construction of the transporter. You're talking about imaging tech, digitization (think TRON), holodeck technology, medical tech (from removing cancer cells to genetic restoration, like becoming youthful again), scanning, the ability to convert matter into energy (and back to matter, which would lead to replicator technology), power efficiency, etc. So, even without the transporter itself, there are a number of other technologies that would be possible.

But let's say that I don't have to worry about the potential problems that might pop-up from inventing the transporter, I would simply lease the patents to the most responsible companies out there, so that they can take the technology further. I would, in turn, sit back and be rich, while I tinker to see what ideas that I can come up with. Oh, and do charity work on the side. I certainly wouldn't use it to get revenge, or engage in thievery.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

Yes, there is a high probability of the technology being weaponized, either against individuals, groups, or nations. Its potential for larceny has been explored here to a small degree, and the flexibility offered by the device in whatever advanced configuration you choose to imagine can commit the most heinous acts against life and property. It can outclass nuclear and biological weapons and can even change the human genome if one is skilled enough to use it that way.

Who knows! Maybe apes aren't so much distant relatives as they are human beings who were subjected to its use by someone fiddling with its knobs.