Transporter (Star Trek)

Transporter chamber aboard U.S.S. Enterprise-D.

A transporter is a fictional teleportation machine used in the Star Trek universe. Transporters convert a person or object into an energy pattern (a process called dematerialization), then "beam" it to a target, where it is reconverted into matter (rematerialization). The term transporter accident is a catch-all term for when a person or object does not rematerialize correctly.

According to The Making of Star Trek, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's original plan did not include transporters, instead calling for characters to land the starship itself. However, this would have required unfeasible and unaffordable sets and model filming, as well as episode running time spent while landing, taking off, etc. The shuttlecraft was the next idea, however when filming began, the full-sized shooting model was not ready. Transporters were devised as a less expensive alternative. Transporters first appear in the original pilot episode "The Cage". The transporter special effect, before being done using computer animation, was created by mixing glitter with water, then agitating the solution and incorporating it into special camera effects.

Gene Roddenberry in 1964 had not seen The Fly upon his first draft of "The Cage", but it was brought to his attention, and this is how the transporter was considered.

According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, the three touch-sensitive light-up bars on the Enterprise-D's transporter console were an homage to the three sliders used on the duotronic transporter console on the original Enterprise in The Original Series.

In August 2008, physicist Michio Kaku predicted in Discovery Channel Magazine that a teleportation device similar to those in Star Trek will be invented within 100 years.

Depiction

History

According to dialogue in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Daedalus", the transporter was invented in the early 22nd century by Dr. Emory Erickson, who also became the first human to be successfully transported. Although the Enterprise (NX-01) has a transporter, the crew does not routinely use it (Captain Jonathan Archer once said that he wouldn't even put his dog through it), generally preferring shuttlepods or other means of transportation before falling back on the transporter if no other means of transportation were possible or feasible. The crew aboard the 23rd century USS Enterprise frequently use the transporter. By the 24th century, transporter travel was very reliable and "the safest way to travel", according to dialogue in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Realm of Fear".

According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Homefront", Starfleet Academy cadets receive transporter rations, and the Sisko family once used a transporter to move furniture into a new home.

Despite its frequent use, characters such as Leonard McCoy and Katherine Pulaski are reluctant to use the transporter, as the characters express in the Next Generation episodes "Encounter at Farpoint, Part II" and "Unnatural Selection", respectively. Additionally, Reginald Barclay expresses his outright fear of transporting in "Realm of Fear".

Capabilities and limitations

The shows and movie do not go into great detail about transport technology. The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual claims that the devices transport objects in real time, accurate to the quantum level. The episode "Realm of Fear" specifies the length of a transport under unusual circumstances would last "... four or five seconds; about twice the normal time". This calculates the length of a typical transport as between 2 and 2.5 seconds and possibly less. Heisenberg compensators remove uncertainty from the subatomic measurements, making transporter travel feasible. Further technology involved in transportation include a computer pattern buffer to enable a degree of leeway in the process. When asked "How does the Heisenberg compensator work?" by Time magazine, Star Trek technical adviser Michael Okuda responded, "It works very well, thank you."

According to the The Original Series writers guide, transporters' effective range is 40,000 kilometers, although thick layers of rock can reduce this range (TNG: "Legacy"). Transporter operations have been disrupted or prevented by dense metals (TNG: "Contagion"), solar flares (TNG: "Symbiosis"), and other forms of radiation, including electromagnetic (TNG: "The Enemy" & TNG; "Power Play") and nucleonic (TNG: "Schisms"). Transporters have also been stopped by telekinetic powers (TNG: "Skin of Evil") and by brute strength (TNG: "The Hunted"). The TNG episode "Bloodlines" features a dangerous and experimental "subspace transporter" capable of interstellar distances. The 40,000 kilometer limit is also referenced in STE: "Daedalus".

Starfleet transporters from the TNG era onward include a device that can detect and disable an active weapon (TNG: "The Most Toys"), and a bio-filter to remove contagious microbes or viruses from an individual in transport (TNG: "Shades of Gray"). The transporter can also serve a tactical purpose, such as beaming a photon grenade or photon torpedo to detonate at remote locations (TNG: "Legacy", Voy: "Dark Frontier").

Whenever a person or object is transported, the machine creates a memory file of the pattern. This has been used at least once in every Star Trek series to revert people adversely affected by a transport to their original state.

Various episodes of DS9 and Voyager have introduced two anti-transporter devices: transport inhibitors and transporter scramblers. Inhibitors prevent a transporter beam from "locking on" to whatever the device is attached. Scramblers distort the pattern that is in transit, literally scrambling the atoms upon rematerialization, resulting in the destruction of inanimate objects and killing living beings by perverting them into masses of random tissue; this was gruesomely demonstrated in the DS9 episode "The Darkness and the Light".

The transporter is susceptible to unusual anomalies and environmental conditions that can cause unexpected results. An unknown magnetic ore created a physical duplicate of Captain Kirk (TOS "The Enemy Within") and an enhanced beam attempting to transport Lt. Riker though an unstable atmosphere created a physical duplicate that remained undiscovered on the planet's surface for eight years. A transporter accident in the Voyager episode "Tuvix" combined both the physical and behavioral aspects of Lt. Tuvok, Neelix, and a plant into a single being.

While several characters have asserted that transporters cannot transport through a ship's shields or planetary defense shields, there are instances of this "rule" being broken through a technobabble solution (TNG: "The Wounded") or disregarded by the show's writers (Voy: "Caretaker").

In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Vice Admiral James T. Kirk and Lieutenant Saavik carry on a conversation during rematerialization. In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Dr. Gillian Taylor jumps into Kirk's transporter beam during dematerialization, and rematerializes without any apparent ill effects.

According to the TNG Technical Manual, the transporter cannot move antimatter, but this rule has been broken a few times, such as in the Voyager episode "Dark Frontier", when Voyager transported a live photon torpedo equipped with antimatter onto a Borg ship. The animated series episode "One of Our Planets is Missing" has the Enterprise beaming a chunk of antimatter into a stasis box. Some reference material states that antimatter can be transported, but only in minute amounts.

Transporter chamber and control console aboard U.S.S. Voyager.

In the original series, beaming to and from the transporter room was a necessity. This is explained in the TOS episode, "The Day of the Dove". Spock and Scotty had said that doing a site-to-site transport, as they are referred to on the show, on board the ship could be risky. They could "beam into a deck" or an inanimate object and get stuck there. However, there are apparently safeguards in place to prevent people from being beamed into hostile environments such as under water and into lava pits, although it is possible to override this safety feature; for example, in the TOS episode "And the Children Shall Lead", two security guards are beamed into open space. In the following series, however, the actual transporter room seems to become mostly obsolete, the actual equipment notwithstanding. Characters are shown activating the transporter from ordinary consoles and beaming from place to place without apparent trouble. The main operator can likewise send those in transport anywhere with ease. A possible explanation for this is put forward in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, where such site-to-site transports would probably use twice as much energy as would be required for transport to or from the transporter room itself, since the subject would have to be beamed to the transporter, stored, then shunted to their destination. In addition, the six circles on the platform are generally used as targets for the subjects to stand on, but they do not appear to represent any limitation of the hardware to six or fewer people. People have been transported carrying others, in a coffin style transport, and once animals, hay, and other inanimate objects.

Although never seen, dialogue in "Deep Space Nine" indicates the existence of portable transporters, though the Next Generation episode "Timescape" features emergency transporter armbands (although these may have served only to activate a remote transporter). To confuse things more, Star Trek: Nemesis featured the prototype "emergency transport unit".

For special effects reasons, in TOS, people generally appear immobilized during transport, with the exception of Kirk in the episode That Which Survives. However, by TNG, characters can move within the confines of the transporter beam while being transported, though this is rarely shown.

In popular culture

The famous catchphrase "Beam me up, Scotty" refers to the transporter device, which was often operated by Montgomery Scott during the original series. The phrase was never uttered by anyone in the original series, although "Scotty, beam me up" was.

See also

• Personal identity
• Physics and Star Trek
• Replicator
• Quantum teleportation
• Teleportation

References

• Krauss, Lawrence M (1995). The Physics of Star Trek. ISBN 978-0-06-097710-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• Transporter at Memory Alpha
• Transporter psychosis at Memory Alpha
• The Duplicates Paradox
• "Transporters, Replicators and Phasing FAQ" by Joshua Bell
• startrek.com description
• Teleportation method proposed by Australian scientists