If the latter, does that mean the transporter is a suicide box? After all, if we could figure out exactly how a transporter works, we could build one. And those effects have some interesting consequences. Kirk never said those exact words on the show, of course, but you get the idea.
Trek has always depicted characters who are hesitant to use the transporter, from Dr. McCoy to the entire crew of Enterprise. Hoffman points out the first work to express real doubt about the continuity of personhood was the novel Spock Must Die by James Blish, which "played coy" about whether it's really you on the other end of the transporter. To address the questions this raised, a good place to start is by looking at what the transporter actually does.
This sounds an awful lot like death. While there are characters who fear the transporter, there are others who try their best to reassure them of their safety. Since there can only be one of you, it would stand to reason that the copy is, in fact, the new original. This is because there are serious distortions that can occur when atoms try to reassembly at different speeds. Transporting at warp speed could be possible, and was accomplished in-universe.
The best way to accomplish this was to ensure both destinations were traveling at the exact same speed. The range is important to keep in mind as well. This range will be different between species. By the time of Picard, humans have a range of 40 thousand kilometers. Other species have longer or shorter distances, depending on their own limitations. The further away your desired destination is, the more degraded the matter stream within the pattern buffer can remain intact.
You risk your atoms being put together incorrectly. There have been many transporter malfunctions and accidents across the franchise. These accidents typically occur when there is a problem with defective equipment. There are many characters who have some level of fear when it comes to transporter devices. Most famously being Doctor McCoy and Lt. These characters may have had some good reasoning for being so afraid of the transporter.
In addition to the fact that your body is being ripped apart atom by atom, there are also serious side effects that could occur—one of these being Transporter Psychosis. Barclay asks the computer to explain the condition to him:. One of the first types of teleportation devices could be considered the fax machine.
This device took a scan of your letter or notice and sent the information to another machine. It replicated the original in another location. Now, this goes back to the question many ask about the transporters.
Is it just a copy then? Well, yes. The idea of transporting solid matter by turning it into a form of energy and sending it great distances sounds like magic. Yet, there are scientifically valid reasons why it could, perhaps, one day happen. Recent technology has made it possible to transport—or "beam" if you will—small pools of particles or photons from one location to another. This quantum mechanics phenomenon is known as "quantum transport. Applying the same technique to something as large and complex as a living human being is a very different matter.
Without some major technological advances, the process of turning a living person into "information" has risks that make the Federation-style transporters impossible for the foreseeable future. So, what's the idea behind beaming? In the "Star Trek" universe, an operator dematerializes the "thing" to be transported, sends it along, and then the thing gets rematerialized at the other end.
Although this process can currently work with the particles or photons described above, taking apart a human being and dissolving them into individual subatomic particles is not remotely possible now. Given our current understanding of biology and physics, a living creature could never survive such a process. There are also some philosophical considerations to think about when transporting living beings. Even if the body could be dematerialized, how does the system handle the person's consciousness and personality?
Would those "decouple" from the body? These issues are never discussed in "Star Trek," although there have been science fiction stories exploring the challenges of the first transporters.
Some science fiction writers imagine that the transportee is actually killed during this step, and then reanimated when the body's atoms are reassembled elsewhere. But, this seems like a process that no one would willingly undergo. Older units, such as lateral vector transporters had been discarded on Vulcan due to the massive amount of power they required. Starfleet had also phased them out, but some older ships, such as the Walker -class USS Shenzhou , still had them installed.
Transporters became the most reliable form of short-range transport by the 24th century. Most space-faring civilizations of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants employed transporter technology for short-range transport of personnel and equipment, however the technology was still rather unknown in the far reaches of the Delta Quadrant.
To these species, the many advantages to utilizing transporters and replicators made the technology a point of contention, especially between the Kazon and the crew USS Voyager. VOY : " Caretaker ", " Maneuvers ", et al. Traveling by transporter was essentially instantaneous and an individual's sense of time while transporting was effectively non-existent.
Innovations in transporter technology around this time included safer site-to-site transport , which allowed for transport between two locations without first returning to a transporter room. TNG : " The Game ", et al. By the 29th century , Starfleet had developed temporal transporter technology that allowed travel through time in a very similar manner to standard transporters of earlier centuries.
VOY : " Relativity ". Transporter chief Wyatt. In general, a transporter chief was responsible for the operational readiness, maintenance and repair of a ship or station's transporter systems. A typical transport sequence, generally initiated by the request to "energize", began from the transporter console with transporter pre-sequencing that, once complete, transporter coordinates were established on the object or destination by the targeting scanners , which thereafter a transporter lock was made.
Simultaneously, the object was broken down into a stream of subatomic particles, also called the matter stream. TNG : " Datalore " The transporter signal was then transferred to the pattern buffer, then again transferring to the emitter array. VOY : " Eye of the Needle ", " Twisted " The matter stream was then transmitted to its destination across a subspace domain. Of this whole process, one did not feel a thing.
TNG : " The Dauphin ". Transporter effect of the alternate reality 's USS Enterprise. In of the alternate reality , the transporter operation process included the use of the annular confinement beam, followed by electromagnetic focusing and the use of a gravitational compensator.
The transporter operator then applied a temporal differential and engaged a particle lock. Star Trek. Twenty-third century Klingon transporter systems shared the same basic technology as Federation transporter systems. Even though the transporter systems of an Intrepid -class were much more sophisticated than those of a D7 class , the targeting scanners worked on the same principals.
With exception of the more advanced systems having had the ability to expand transporter buffer capacity, they really were not all that different.
VOY : " Prophecy ". As of , Cardassian transporting systems still operated with active feed pattern buffers. TNG : " The Wounded ". Also during this time frame, Romulan transporters were know to operate on a similar subspace frequency to those used aboard Federation starships, and with only a few minor adjustments, they could be made to simulate the transporter carrier waves used by their Federation counterparts.
TNG : " Data's Day ". From its earliest incarnations until the s , transporters generally immobilized the subject being beamed during dematerialization and rematerialization. Advances in transporter technology after that point allowed a person being transported to move or converse, during the process, in a limited fashion.
By the 24th century, emergency transporter armbands , transponders and combadges could be programmed to remotely activate a transporter. Normally, remote transporter activation was limited to emergencies or when the crew of a vessel was not on board. As with other Starfleet technology, the transporter had its own set of safety features, protocols, and procedures. In an emergency, many of these safety systems could be modified or circumvented. Early versions of the transporter in the 22nd century appeared to have no protection against external incursions into an active transport.
ENT : " Strange New World " Energy weapons fire would also affect the subject, unless it was sufficiently far into the transport that the fire passed through it harmlessly. ENT : " Broken Bow ", " Countdown " By the late 23rd century , however, transporters shielded the subject from these external incursions. Biofilters were uniformly used on all Federation transporters by the 24th century. These filters functioned to decontaminate transported objects and prevent harmful substances, pathogens, and even certain forms of radiation including theta radiation , from contaminating the rest of the ship or station.
This process replaced earlier systems that required the subject to be fully rematerialized on the transport platform before applying an energy-based process to topically decontaminate the transportee. Though the biofilters performed a general contaminant removal with each transport, they were far from perfect; previously unknown infections or viruses occasionally failed to register, requiring the filters to be recalibrated to recognize the new threat.
As such, biofilters were incapable of filtering out certain types of substances and pathogens, most notably psychic energy. Biofilters were also unable to detect and filter certain types of phased reality lifeforms without prior calibration.
Biofilters also functioned to detect and disable weapons and explosives remat detonators , for example. The transporter also saved biological data of the individuals transported. In , The Doctor was able to give a diagnosis on Seven of Nine 's irrational behavior after studying her last recorded transporter data.
VOY : " The Raven ". When knowingly transporting material considered a biohazard, such as a virus, a bio-transport authorization was used to document the material's nature and approve the transport. TNG : " The Child ". Except in cases of extreme emergency, protocols prohibited transporting objects while traveling at warp speed.
During the 22nd century, standard Earth transporter systems had a range of ten thousand kilometers ; however, by the 24th century, the maximum range of standard transporter systems was about forty thousand kilometers, though a special type of transport, called subspace transport , could beam over several light years. VOY : " Future's End ".
Although having a maximum range of about forty thousand kilometers, some conditions adversely affected the effective range. In at least one instance — due to missing components of Voyager 's primary computer systems — the starship Voyager had to be within five hundred kilometers of a planet's surface to use transporters on Kathryn Janeway and a hologram of Leonardo da Vinci.
VOY : " Concerning Flight ". The maximum range of a transporter differed by species, depending on what kind of technologies they used to build it. The transporter with the longest known range was that of the Sikarians , with a range of about forty thousand light years; however, this was due to their planet 's large quartz mantle, which amplified their transporter signal.
Because of this, Sikarian transporter technology worked only on their homeworld. VOY : " Prime Factors ". Gary Seven 's mysterious sponsors on the Assigners' planet possessed transporter technology with a range of at least a thousand light years, according to Spock.
Montgomery Scott later noted that Seven's beam was so powerful it fused all recording circuits, and therefore he could not say exactly how far it transported Seven, or even whether it transported him through time. Exactly how they achieved this effect remains unknown, since there has been no subsequent contact with them, and they hide their entire homeworld in some fashion.
There were, however, other indications that their technology was considerably advanced beyond that of the 23rd century Federation. TOS : " Assignment: Earth ". The Vedala , one of the oldest space-faring races, also possessed transporter technology capable of beaming people and equipment to and from other planets presumably in different star systems.
TAS : " The Jihad " Dominion transporter technology, enhanced with a homing transponder , was said to have had a range of at least three light years. DS9 : " Covenant ". A level 4 diagnostic listing several key components. Almost all Starfleet facilities and starships were equipped with at least one transporter device.
The number of transporter devices differed; for example, most shuttlecraft had one transporter while Galaxy -class starships had twenty. TNG : " ". On ships where cargo bays were present, cargo transporters could often be found, as well. Production of Mark V transporters was halted in By , Mark VI transporters were considered outdated.
Mark VII transporters were able to transport unstable biomatter , as long as the phase transition inhibitor was adjusted. DS9 : " Family Business ". Standard duotronic transporter console ca. Transporter console in the alternate reality 's The most commonly used type of transporter was the personnel transporter, designed primarily for personnel.
Personnel transporter rooms usually consisted of a transporter console , a transporter platform with an overhead molecular imaging scanner , primary energizing coils , and phase transition coils. A pattern buffer with a biofilter was typically located on the deck below the transporter room.
The outer hull of a starship incorporated a number of emitter pads for the transporter beam. Personnel transporters worked on the quantum level to enable secure transport of lifeforms. Biofilters built into the transporter systems prevented dangerous microorganisms from boarding the ship. Transporter platforms had a variable number of pads, arranged in various layouts by model and by manufacturing race.
The transporters installed on Earth's NX-class starships featured one large circular pad that took up the entire platform. It was large enough to transport two to three people, provided they stood close together. By the 23rd century, Federation transporter platforms featured multiple independent pads, typically six in a hexagonal configuration. One- and two-pad platforms were also available. This became something of a standard layout for Federation transporters well into the next century.
As an example, the platforms used on board Galaxy -class starships had the familiar six individual pads, with an over-sized pad in the center of the platform that could handle small cargo. Some 23rd century Klingon platforms featured six hexagonal pads in a straight line. Others, such as those on Birds-of-Prey , featured a small number of platforms in a tight group. Cardassian transporter platforms in the 24th century featured three to five triangular pads placed close together, such as those installed on Deep Space 9.
The personnel transporter was a reliable but sometimes fragile piece of equipment. The phase coils , in particular, were vulnerable to feedback patterns and could be severely damaged as result of power surges or low-level phaser fire. TNG : " Brothers ". Cargo transporters were larger-scale versions of personnel transporters and were optimized for the transport of inanimate objects. These transporters were adapted to handle massive quantities of material. In case of an emergency, cargo transporters could be reset to quantum-level mode, making lifeform transport possible.
One reason for such a reconfiguration was to expedite an evacuation of personnel. Cargo transporters were mostly found inside the cargo bay of a starship or space station. On Level C of the Spacedock -type Starbase 74 , there were four cargo transporters. Dedicated cargo transporter platforms used by Starfleet in the 24th century typically featured one large circular or oblong pad.
Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the alternate reality , the USS Franklin was only equipped with cargo transporters. After the discovery of the Franklin 's wreckage, Montgomery Scott was able to modify the transporters to beam lifeforms, though he only beamed Spock and Leonard McCoy on board one at a time so as not to risk splicing them together.
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