...In general, transporters are one of the least robust pieces of treknology. They can kill you even in the most benign operating conditions. It would be a really desperate move to operate them when conditions get adverse beyond a certain limit.
One might argue that staying in the Delta Quadrant is a risk and getting home equates survival. But if getting home requires the use of the transporter in adverse conditions, then staying put is survival, and trying to get home is an unacceptable risk.
In this case, the transporter wouldn't be going from A to B through a shortcut in space, like in "Eye of the Needle" where the wormhole (albeit very tight) appeared to be a real "hole", a benign path for probes or Space Mice or radio waves or transporter signals to crawl through. Rather, in this case, the transporter beam would be squeezing itself into an alien environment, quite unlike open space in nature, that could pose serious threats to the beam.
It's probably like getting from East Berlin to West Berlin by two means: walking through a hole in the Wall, or climbing over the Wall on barbed wire and jumping down onto further barbed wire. The former is the standard, benign environment for human movement, and the only risk comes from not knowing who's watching. The latter calls for nonstandard modes of motion that present a constant risk.
Timo Saloniemi
