Will The Orville ever get transporters?

[Amaris]

In episode they viewed it as merely a correction from disease using a novel transporter technique. It's not standard and is never mentioned again; aside from the freak accident (way too many of these lol) that turned Picard and Co. into children.
Again, the fact that a handful of episodes showing that crazy miracles can be accomplished merely by the press of a button on the transporter console does not establish that these miracles are done routinely; in fact all exposition states otherwise; that such tinkering with transporter technology generally incurs failure EXCEPT when conveniently required by the plot of the episode in question.

Except it's repeatable. They can do it again and again. They did it in Rascals, too. That kind of technology would fundamentally change society on every level. Death would no longer be absolute.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Death would no longer be absolute.

We don't know that. We don't know that there aren't ill-effects from repeated use that are nevertheless survivable from only a few exposures. It would be easy enough for a writer to make up a reason why the procedure couldn't be done indefinitely.

Just as one example from canon, take the Elway-type folded-space transporters used by the Rutian terrorists in "The High Ground." The TNG crew could survive a few dimensional shifts, but repeated use would eventually result in a terminal condition caused by irreparable warping of DNA and distorted cellular chemistry.

As another related example, Pulaski mentioned the problem of "replicative fading" in "Up the Long Ladder," the accumulation of replication errors that limits the number of clone generations, which was why the Mariposan colony of clones could no longer survive without an infusion of fresh DNA.

 

[Tom]

The Orville may not have transporters but they do have replicators. We actually see a replicator room, where they make the 'zipper jacket' a couple episodes ago. So they have the tech to change energy into matter. My guess is, that they probably can transport things if they had to, but not anything biological.

It could also be that they can't reintegrate energy to matter with out some type of receiver on the other end. This bugged me in Star Trek is how the patterns turned back into matter on a planet (or anywhere) without a mechanism to perform that task, or how they could be beamed up from anywhere without a device breaking the matter down. The movie the Fly makes more sense since there is a pod at both ends

Orville has holodeck (or simulator they call it) , but they could be just using force fields, we don't know if they convert energy to matter (and vice-versa).

 

[Mudd]

There are alternative ways for replicators to work, but the use of the "magic sparkly" effect does imply that they're like Trek's.

 

[Kirk Prime]

The show is very much walking the line of being too derivative of Star Trek. Adding transporters would make it much worse. I feel like Paramount may sue. In fact, I'm actually a bit surprised they haven't sued yet.

With the exception of some crude jokes, the show is basically TNG without the Star Trek canon. The names are different, the ship designs are different, but the show is essentially the same. They even have some of the writing staff. It's important to keep as much difference as possible, and while it isn't a slam dunk, not having transporters helps their cause.

 

[Admiral2]

The show is very much walking the line of being too derivative of Star Trek. Adding transporters would make it much worse. I feel like Paramount may sue. In fact, I'm actually a bit surprised they haven't sued yet.

With the exception of some crude jokes, the show is basically TNG without the Star Trek canon. The names are different, the ship designs are different, but the show is essentially the same.

"Essentially the same" is not actionable. Paramount has to have something solid on The Orville to bring suit, and as you just said, the names, ships, and designs are all different. I also submit that if transporters were the smoking gun to trigger a suit, as discussed upthread, the Stargate franchise would have gotten its pants sued off long ago.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ And Paramount didn't sue Terry Nation, did they? Blake's 7 had transporters as well, and that was way before SG-1.

 

[Admiral2]

^Exactly. The point is if the question is "Can the Orville have transporters?" the answer is "Yes." The question here though is, "Will the Orville have them?" and the creators have already said they don't want to include them, and my personal hope is that they stick to that, regardless of what Paramount might or might not do.

 

[Mudd]

The Axanar lawsuit is a road map to how CBS would prosecute such a lawsuit - they went after trademarks, identical designs, the use of specific characters which they own.

Yes they could take a stab at something less specific, but there's a risk there: you do not want to lose such a suit if it's your IP at stake.

Axanar might have gotten away with a space vampire, but not one named "Soval" who was played by the guy who played "Soval" on Enterprise.

 

[GNDN18]

 

[Mudd]

View attachment 7981

It's hard to describe the joy of those comics to us few twelve and thirteen year-olds in our school who were into Star Trek when it was on the network.

 

[The Wormhole]

I feel like Paramount may sue. In fact, I'm actually a bit surprised they haven't sued yet.

Paramount can't sue because Paramount doesn't own Star Trek. CBS does. And CBS can't sue because Orville hasn't done anything that they can be sued over.
#factsoflife

 

[DonIago]

View attachment 7981

Rockets?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Rockets?

Yeah!

 

[Uncle Mike]

Ok, I didn't care for The Orville at first but it has grown on me. It's basically Star Trek TNG. I was just curious why they pretty much cloned the show but left out transporters? I wonder if we'll ever see an Orville version of transporter technology?

Transporter "technology" is so far removed from the realm of the doable that I predict it will never be seen in the real world,so I think The Orville has done the right thing by not having it. Even things like warp travel or gravity plating might someday become real,although we still don't know what elementary particle carries the gravity force.

 

[SolarisOne]

The problem with Trek transporters is that they ignore basic quantum physics (thus the "Heisenberg Compensators"). Teleportation is possible (and has been carried out on individual photons already), but engineering considerations make it impossible for complex structures (such as humans) for the foreseeable future.

TL;DR: It is theoretically possible. Just not the way Trek does it.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

People forget that transporters already appeared in two episodes. They are just not used by the Union. The Calivon used it in Command Performance (the second episode) and Pria (from the future) used it

 

[WarpFactorZ]

The problem with Trek transporters is that they ignore basic quantum physics (thus the "Heisenberg Compensators"). Teleportation is possible (and has been carried out on individual photons already),...

To clarify: quantum teleportation is not the act of dissolving a particle in one location and recreating it in another. Rather, it's destroying the first particle, and mapping its quantum characteristics onto another existing particle. You are continually creating copies of the original. So, a much riskier process, particularly from a philosophical point of view! There's no going back once it starts.

The "No Cloining" theorem also precludes lots of great Trek Tropes, like evil Kirk or Tom Riker.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Orville uses concepts similar to Trek, but no specific characters and names. I mean most superheroes are innately based on Superman, yet they still exist

 

[Qonundrum]

Ok, I didn't care for The Orville at first but it has grown on me. It's basically Star Trek TNG. I was just curious why they pretty much cloned the show but left out transporters? I wonder if we'll ever see an Orville version of transporter technology?

Transporters? No way, please. "Orville" has been astute with its lack of them to propel suspense and drama where needed. It kept me on the edge of my seat anyway, and am hoping it did for many - to get people invested in the characters and situations instead of having maguffins and magic wands circumvent. That is part of the charm of this show, it avoided the runaround - transporters could make it easy to get out of a rough situation and having parts of the ship blow up every week to prevent their operation would not be good. To the point of my sitting there in one episode and thinking "If they had transporters, people wouldn't be sitting here thinking 'how are they going to get out of this? That'd be a cheat, glad they did it this way instead!'")

Season 1, to me, feels closer to TOS in spirit. Season 2 definitely has more consistent TNG vibes but in a season 4 sense (thankfully not for seasons 1, 5 or 6). While I adore both Orville seasons, season 1 just has the extra action, adventure, suspense, and juggled, innovated sci-fi ideas that I didn't expect coming and rewatching made the curveballs easier to see since they were leading people on through the expected stuff and then threw the curveball. 2D space, Pria (for both time travel revelation of crew fate and "dark matter") instantly come to mind, but references, homage, influence, etc, are all more for a separate thread.

But I do say "in spirit". Like Discovery (aka "DSC", "Disco", "STD", or whatever), these characters often feel like humanity has been stagnant since the year 2007. Whereas TOS and TNG clearly showed human mannerisms having shown evolutionary traits (even if Gene wanted TNG humans to be proto-Vulcans - which is good for niche sci-fi but not when toeing the line between sci-fi for genre-heavy audiences and casual viewers). Otherwise, they'd all say nothing more than "grunt, me Og" and it's be no less germane.

Then again, Dave Lister is said to be from the 23rd century and he's written like a late-80s laddish scoucer for every episode so I'm doubtlessly reading into things waaaaaaaay too much. At least "Orville", like "Red Dwarf", holds its own both as sci-fi... and as sci-fi parody, which makes the use of contemporary dialect in a show set centuries or more into the future easier to swallow and makes suspension of disbelief that much easier. I wonder when XIII will start filming, it was greenlit back in December, but I digress...

I don't think "Orville" would not be well-served with transporter technology. How they get people into hot water... then out again... has consistently been handled impressively well.