Question about the replicators on Star Trek...

[mrbrklyn]

Super propellant farts! The episode where they met that other Riker that was created in a transporter accident kind of suggests that the transporters are like a copy machine that can duplicate life. So which one is the "real" Riker? Or are either of them? And what about Multiple Man from the X-Men? Does he just know which one is the "real" one and which one is a duplicate? What if one of the duplicates doesn't want to rebond with him?

We try to forget that episode. Under transporter theory, if that was to actually happen,you would have a dead Riker as the amount of energy/matter being transported would be 1/2d and there wouldn't be enough energy to reproduce the structure.

[ChrisIII]

The Transporter also split Kirk into two early in the original series (The Enemy within), although in his case, one of him was more aggressive while the other was more thoughtful representing the dual nature of man's personality, while each Riker was pretty much complete, although one was stuck on some planet for a decade or so while the other of course was "our" Riker.

In Kirk's case he was 'recombined' of course into the complete Kirk.


The opposite also happened in the episode "Tuvix" in which Tuvix and Neelix were temporarily bonded into a single being, who proved to be a sort of unique and stable creation (although with elements of both). It's actually one of the better Voyager episodes and gives the crew an ethical dilemma of sorts.

[AJBopp]

We try to forget that episode. Under transporter theory, if that was to actually happen,you would have a dead Riker as the amount of energy/matter being transported would be 1/2d and there wouldn't be enough energy to reproduce the structure.

Isn't that why it was an accident? There was an energy surge? Been awhile since I've seen it.

[superduperman]

The Transporter also split Kirk into two early in the original series (The Enemy within), although in his case, one of him was more aggressive while the other was more thoughtful representing the dual nature of man's personality, while each Riker was pretty much complete, although one was stuck on some planet for a decade or so while the other of course was "our" Riker.

In Kirk's case he was 'recombined' of course into the complete Kirk.


The opposite also happened in the episode "Tuvix" in which Tuvix and Neelix were temporarily bonded into a single being, who proved to be a sort of unique and stable creation (although with elements of both). It's actually one of the better Voyager episodes and gives the crew an ethical dilemma of sorts.

Seems like transporters are kind of dangerous. You would think Starfleet would do more investigating into that before putting people through them.

[Jokerz79]

Seems like transporters are kind of dangerous. You would think Starfleet would do more investigating into that before putting people through them.

I wonder if the 23rd and 24th centuries have Creepypastas? Because transporters sound perfect for it now

[Powerboy]

Yes, I understood that the replicator could create objects the same way a transporter could recreate a fully clothed and armed person in another location. The transporter basically scans a person,
disassembles the person in the original locations and then reassembles them in the target location using the data from the scan. The person isn't actually transported. They are destroyed and then
an exact duplicate is created somewhere else. The replicator has a library of programs of various food and objects and assembles the item in the same way except the item isn't destroyed first somewhere
else.

That's actually from a novel called "Spock Must Die" which Gene Roddenberry went out of his way in interviews to explain that this was okay for a non-canon novel but it is not how the transporter works in the show or any canon source.

As to where the energy comes from, it's probably the same place Q draws his energy from and that Federation income comes from.

[Powerboy]

the prop master puts them inside.

but to tackle the question more seriously:

it's techno-magic. any possible explanation just high-lights how completely ridiculous and fantastic the concept is. and by "fantastic" I mean to say, "that's impossible, but it would be awfully handy!" it probably tastes like vending machine food. ;-)

Exactly. It's like having eighteen real people playing a baseball game in a holodeck plus a small audience of real people and the official dimensions of the holodeck are something like twenty-four feet by eighteen feet plus whatever height. The explanation is that the holodeck tricks people's sense of distance and fools their perceptions in other ways. Give me a break. They'd be bumping into each other. It's no different than Superman disguising himself by wearing glasses. It's a pseudo-scientific magic explanation. Just go with it. It's a lot more fun than moping and crying about how it couldn't really work.

[Powerboy]

I'm old enough to have watched the original series when it first aired and over that time I've seen things that were fantastic at the time become reality. So food replicators don't seem so hard. I mean there are 3D printers now--I never thought that would happen. And there's lots of current science that is trying to replicate food--which we will need eventually if human beings are going to advance and explore space.

I also think that things like Star Trek set up an expectation in society and people work to make those things come into being. So we first need to imagine and then what we imagine becomes reality. But we should be careful what we imagine--we could end up in Westworld.

The one thing that I can't buy is transporters. I mean, I believe you can make one. It's the ultimate 3D printer--but I think the transporters on Star Trek kill the person and then remake him at another point in space. How many people would be willing to let themselves be murdered in order to hop across a gap in space? It seems a lot safer just to use a shuttle craft.

That's interesting. My best friend's mother is a huge Star Trek fan but primarily the original and the Next Generation. She thinks DS9 was a good show on it's own merits and generally didn't care for Voyager, not sure about Enterprise. But she's very insightful about why she loves the original and the NG and not the others. It's because TOS and NG give her that feeling of a perfect or near perfect human future in which we've overcome most of our less savory qualities while DS9 emphasizes that overcoming our darker qualities is merely social because of science and technology and living in a utopia and all the darkness is really still there hiding.

[Powerboy]

Seems like transporters are kind of dangerous. You would think Starfleet would do more investigating into that before putting people through them.

Funny fact. There were fewer transporter accidents in "Enterrpise" which supposedly takes place before TOS than there were in TOS. Also, in the first episode of E, they did a "running transport" in which they beamed Archer aboard while he was running in spite of the fact that, in "The Cage" and the original series, they had to stay still and keep extremities within the confines of the transporter platform circle. That led to that funny scene in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" in which they placed the drugged and unconscious Gary Mitchell onto a platform and he magically stayed standing.

[Toreador]

I'm old enough to have watched the original series when it first aired and over that time I've seen things that were fantastic at the time become reality. So food replicators don't seem so hard. I mean there are 3D printers now--I never thought that would happen. And there's lots of current science that is trying to replicate food--which we will need eventually if human beings are going to advance and explore space.

I also think that things like Star Trek set up an expectation in society and people work to make those things come into being. So we first need to imagine and then what we imagine becomes reality. But we should be careful what we imagine--we could end up in Westworld.

The one thing that I can't buy is transporters. I mean, I believe you can make one. It's the ultimate 3D printer--but I think the transporters on Star Trek kill the person and then remake him at another point in space. How many people would be willing to let themselves be murdered in order to hop across a gap in space? It seems a lot safer just to use a shuttle craft.

Have you read Way Station by Clifford D. Simak? That's exactly how the alien transporters work. When the aliens transport their minds are sent to a new body somewhere else and the old body is disposed of below the station.

[Powerboy]

I'm old enough to have watched the original series when it first aired and over that time I've seen things that were fantastic at the time become reality. So food replicators don't seem so hard. I mean there are 3D printers now--I never thought that would happen. And there's lots of current science that is trying to replicate food--which we will need eventually if human beings are going to advance and explore space.

I also think that things like Star Trek set up an expectation in society and people work to make those things come into being. So we first need to imagine and then what we imagine becomes reality. But we should be careful what we imagine--we could end up in Westworld.

The one thing that I can't buy is transporters. I mean, I believe you can make one. It's the ultimate 3D printer--but I think the transporters on Star Trek kill the person and then remake him at another point in space. How many people would be willing to let themselves be murdered in order to hop across a gap in space? It seems a lot safer just to use a shuttle craft.

I remember seeing some sort of science special hosted by William Shatner and it was stated that a lot of scientists do think something like the transporter could theoretically be possible one day and by actually sending the material to its destination, not killing them. But, on the practical level, the power it would would take to do just one transport would be equivalent to taking a nuclear reactor and stacking it on another nuclear reactor then another one that and another one on that and just keep doing that until you've got enough nuclear reactors stacked to reach from the Earth to the Sun and that would almost be enough to describe how much power this "transport" would require.

[ChrisIII]

There's also of course the unfortunate transporter deaths in the first movie, in which Sonak-originally intended to be Spock's replacement as science officer-and a female officer are killed. The female officer isn't identified, although the novels name her as an admiral that's also Kirk's wife(!) Although according to Robert Wise it's actually the navigator that Illia eventually replaces.

I think the film also sort of implies that it's partially Kirk's fault not only for rushing an untested Enterprise, but also his conversation with Decker distracts the 'faulty module' repair.

[titanfan]

The one thing that I can't buy is transporters. I mean, I believe you can make one. It's the ultimate 3D printer--but I think the transporters on Star Trek kill the person and then remake him at another point in space. How many people would be willing to let themselves be murdered in order to hop across a gap in space? It seems a lot safer just to use a shuttle craft.

I think they would ditch the transporters if Star Trek were being invented today. They would just use shuttles or some sort of space folding/portals/wormhole creator thing that people could just walk through.

That said most of the missions that TOS went on probably wouldn't even need boots on the ground, we would send an army of drones to do everything.

[AJBopp]

That said most of the missions that TOS went on probably wouldn't even need boots on the ground, we would send an army of drones to do everything.

Hmm. Arena comes to mind as a possibility for drones. Operation: Annihilate! perhaps. Otherwise the great majority needed personal presence.

[ChrisIII]

Interesting thing about the transporters, they look a lot like they were inspired by the stasis chambers from Forbidden Planet, which didn't transport anybody but simply kept the crew 'stable' for a rocky exit from lightspeed or something