I don't think that adequately explains realm of fear.
When a person is beamed up it's not the same person
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I don't think that adequately explains realm of fear.
Actually, I think "Realm of Fear" fits nicely because of it. Quasi-energy microbes popping up in people's bloodstreams during the dematerialization/rematerialization process.
I'm no expert, but I think the bible according to my father considers killing and murdering to be two seperate things as in original translation 'Thou shalt not murder instead of Thou shalt not kill.' He also said killing soldiers during war was legal as was self defense. Just sayin'. I personally wouldn't go to war or kill anything other than the occasional spider but then again I'd be living under Hitlers rule, wouldn't I ?
But it's portrayed as a freak incident, not a regular occurrence. If the transporter made duplicates, there would be little problem in making Moriarty real, reviving old crewmates, or creating massive armies of people instantly.
It's supposed to be conversion into energy and conversion back into the same structured matter. That's not really copying, it's just shifting things around.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Ryan8bit, a human body is incredibly complex. ANYTHING that can copy a human body perfectly WAS DESIGNED to copy it; otherwise, the copy - if a freak accident created one - would be a failed genetic experiment.
Yes, I know the conventional explanation for the transporter is - your atoms are transformed into energy, the energy travels to a point in space where it;s transformed back into matter. But the presence of TWO Rikers directly contradicts this explanation - no system like this can create an identical copy of something it transports.
Moriarty was a hologram - fotons and force-fields - and a copy of a hologram is still a hologram.
And yes - with this transporter you CAN create duplicates of people - as the Rikers DEFINITIVELY PROVE. Why isn't it used in this capacity?
Real-world answer - the scenarists didn't think the technology through.
Trekverse answer - an absolute moral interdiction? That all species share
?O, but there's a difference between killing a thief who intends to kill and rob you and kill an enemy soldier who just wants to come back to his family and forget about the war and its horrors - much like you.
Are both cases self-defense? Yes - but in one, your choice is a lot 'darker'. The grotesqueries of war, as it were.
But what if you receive the order to wipe out a village full of civilians, an order deemed 'legal' by your government?
And yes - with this transporter you CAN create duplicates of people - as the Rikers DEFINITIVELY PROVE. Why isn't it used in this capacity?
Real-world answer - the scenarists didn't think the technology through.
Trekverse answer - an absolute moral interdiction? That all species share
There already was a Trekverse answer in that it was a rare occurrence that they weren't even sure of exactly how it happened, and it was basically just a bunch of technobabbly mumbo-jumbo at that. To further that, if the show actually had a tendency to follow this kind of thing up, they'd probably just say that scientists were unable to create the appropriate environmental conditions which allowed it to happen.
So basically while a copy can be created by some strange environmental factors, those factors are unable to be replicated, and transporting remains actually transporting and not making copies.
The transporter is breaking down your genetic code into energy to convert it for transport and it re-assembles it to the desired destination. There has been no proof within the series that you come back as a different person, even if you are a perfectly reconstructed genetic copy of your original genetic code.
The incident that led to Riker's duplication is just that. A duplication based off the same original genetic code. It isn't two new different Rikers. They are both the same Riker that stepped onto the transporter pad (just before transport). However, each of them have been put into different situations and have made different choices as a result (Making it appear that they are two separate individual personalities, when in reality they just had two different sets of experiences).
The incident that led to Riker's duplication is just that. A duplication based off the same original genetic code. It isn't two new different Rikers. They are both the same Riker that stepped onto the transporter pad (just before transport). However, each of them have been put into different situations and have made different choices as a result (Making it appear that they are two separate individual personalities, when in reality they just had two different sets of experiences).
That pretty much sums it up.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
And yes - with this transporter you CAN create duplicates of people - as the Rikers DEFINITIVELY PROVE. Why isn't it used in this capacity?
Real-world answer - the scenarists didn't think the technology through.
Trekverse answer - an absolute moral interdiction? That all species share
There already was a Trekverse answer in that it was a rare occurrence that they weren't even sure of exactly how it happened, and it was basically just a bunch of technobabbly mumbo-jumbo at that. To further that, if the show actually had a tendency to follow this kind of thing up, they'd probably just say that scientists were unable to create the appropriate environmental conditions which allowed it to happen.
So basically while a copy can be created by some strange environmental factors, those factors are unable to be replicated, and transporting remains actually transporting and not making copies.
This explanation makes no sense.
"Strange environmental conditions" CAN'T create an exact copy of a human being - simply because a human being is much too complex for it. You could just as well expect that a tornado, hitting a bunch of iron and plastic, assembles it into a car - just because there's an identical car near by.
The only way the transporter can create an exact copy of a human and not some genetic failed experiment is if it is designed for exactly this - we're talking precision at the molecular level, for billions of cells.
This explanation makes even less sense. The genetic code is not even close to carying enough information to describe a human. The cells' structure is not determined only by ADN. The most obvious example - one's memories and personality, encoded in the brain.
Those two identical Rikers had the same mind, etc.
They can and did according to TNG. And they didn't create the human being, they somehow amplified and diverted a split signal. It is fiction after all.
Thus why I thought Tuvix was just a smashed together version of Neelix, Tuvok, and some weird alien plant. The transporter doesn't create life. It just transports it.
And re-assembling or re-storing that smashed together life form back into it's original forms is not murder because the transporter doesn't make life. It also doesn't make a new copy that is different from the original life form(s) either.
And re-assembling or re-storing that smashed together life form back into it's original forms is not murder because the transporter doesn't make life. It also doesn't make a new copy that is different from the original life form(s) either.
Thank you.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
This 'signal' - a human body - is incredibly complex. Don't think that energy is easier to duplicate exactly than matter; in many ways, it is even harder. No random anomaly can duplicate it perfectly.
As I said, scientifically speaking, it is absurd.
The transporter is designed to do this - in the episode it malfnuctioned in the sense that it didn't kill the original and brought both original and copy back from never never land.
Riker no 2 was quite alive, much like Riker no 1. And they are definitely different beings.
The transporter DOES MAKE A COPY - it's the only explanation for the episode.
As for Tuvix - that's magic in action. Just smashing together 3 organisms shouldn't result in anything functional, like Tuvix.
Let's be honest, scientifically speaking, a good portion of the doodads on Star Trek are absurd. That's the fiction part.
But if you want to talk about scientific absurdity, why not mention that copying energy/matter violates the law of conservation of energy/matter? That's a much worse offender in terms of bad science.
The transporter wasn't the issue; the planet's atmosphere was. It essentially acted like a two-way(?) mirror. A transporter beam left the planet, but on hitting the atmosphere it both got bounced back to the planet _and_ made it to the Potemkin.
Honestly, I don't know what's so difficult about this. The episode even included a visual aid.
Honestly, I don't know what's so difficult about this. The episode even included a visual aid.
It doesn't. In the episode where Riker is copied they talk some technobabble about how there was an increase of energy inside the atmosphere of the planet. Only that made it possible to create a duplicate.
Proto:
They are both the same person that stepped onto the transporter pad. They are identical. Except for their experiences.
The transporter disassembles matter and re-assembles it for transport. In this instance, the transporter was given special circumstances in re-assembling that original pattern twice. I mean, just because a mother has identical twins doesn't mean one is a copy of the other. You have to remember, that the transporter doesn't create life or make some second rate copy of it. It simply disassembles and re-assembles matter. Here's an example. I might sing a song and record it onto a CD or record. I might even duplicate the CDs or records. They might even sound flawless. However, the CD or records are limited in what it can do versus what I can do or have done in the original moment. There is a loss of quality in recordings versus the original piece that comes out of my voice. The transporter does not duplicate the original pattern (with loss of quality). It is a device that just disassembles and re-assembles matter for transport. There is no loss of cells or quality every time someone transports. A copy suggests that it is not the original anymore. This simply is not true. Now, under the right circumstances if given enough power: the original pattern can be re-assembled twice. But one is no lesser of the original person that stepped onto that transporter pad at the start.
The flower was the unique adaptive property (i.e. magic) that made it possible for the transporter to do what it did. But as much as Tuvix would tell you otherwise: Neelix, Tuvok, and the flower didn't impregnate each other and create a new child that needed to be taught. The flower simply created the right set of circumstances to adapt the transporter to combine three life forms (including their clothes) together.
Which makes me wonder. Did Tuvix have 100% cotton running through his internal organs.
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During the episode Realm of Fear, Barclay is aware and conscious while he is in the matter stream. He can see,
is capable of rational thought and able to physically interact with other people/objects that are also in the matter stream. This doesn't sound like Barclay is a disembodied stream of energy. Barclay is beamed as a whole intact person. He never seizes to exist. So he is never copied and replaced.
At what point is the copying supposed to be happening? You step on to the transporter platform. You are converted from a corporeal form into a energy state. Your energy state (which is fully conscious) is sent via matter stream to the destination. Your energy state is converted back into a corporeal form. You return to
being a substantial material entity, re-material-ized.
So when do "you" die? When does the copy replace you? De-material-ization. Journey. Re-material-ization. When?
Actually, Barclay says that it is indeed the case in "Realm of Fear":During the episode Realm of Fear, Barclay is aware and conscious while he is in the matter stream. He can see,
is capable of rational thought and able to physically interact with other people/objects that are also in the matter stream. This doesn't sound like Barclay is a disembodied stream of energy.
BARCLAY: I mean, The idea of being deconstructed, molecule by molecule. It's more than I can stand. Even when I was a child, I always had a dreadful fear that if ever I was dematerialised that I would never come back again whole. I know it sounds crazy, but...
TROI: It's not crazy about it. You are being taken apart molecule by molecule. Reg, you're not the first person to have anxiety about transporting...
And later:
BARCLAY: Well, if I didn't know so much about these things, maybe they wouldn't scare me so much. I can still remember the day in Doctor Olafson's Transporter Theory class when he was talking about the body being converted into billions of kiloquads of data, zipping through subspace, and I realised there's no margin for error. One atom out of place and poof! You never come back. It's amazing people aren't lost all the time.
Another thing to consider is that we only see Barclay at the beginning and end of the transporter sequence, but there is a brief point in the middle where it's just glittery glowy stuff. When he goes through it again later in the episode, he is actually held in place at the point before his molecules start to lose their cohesion, but where he could interact with the semi-energy microbes that were residing within the transporter system itself.
My interpretation is that this is what Barclay was seeing through his own eyes with his intact vision, that Barclay's eyesight never "switched off" and that he was aware all the way through the transporter process. Each of your molecules is converted into energy, but you remain (somehow) an wholly intergrated self the entire time.
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Let me try it this way. There are two adjacent rooms and they are connected through a small hole in the common wall. The hole is the transporter.
What doesn't happen is this, I'm holding a sweater, I unravel the sweater, feeding the thread of yarn through the hole into the next room where it is re-knitted back into a sweater, again not how it works.
Instead the sweater is transformed into a state that will pass through the hole completely intact and is transformed back into a normal sweater on the far side, never have been taken apart.
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