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Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

I can't seem to find my copy of the Star Trek Chronology. Could someone tell me when transporters were supposed to have been invented?

--Baloo

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"We adjust to anything. That�s the good news, and that�s what keeps the bad news coming."
--James Lileks
Come Hither and Yawn...

Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :

According to the Chronology, it's never been mentioned. But it would have to be prior to 2209. That's when Transporter Psychosis was first diagnosed.

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7 alarm clock: "Do not touch me."
Dilbert: "Then how do I turn you off?"
7: "Believe me, I am plenty turned off."

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Also, if you believe in the animated series, Earth had some sort of working transporters rather early in the 21st century ("The Terratin Incident"). On the other hand, Vulcans didn't seem to have them in "First Contact", or else they would have used them instead of going down on a landing craft (I admit that landers may look more impressive than transporters, but Vulcans would logically value the quicker and safer method).

In any case, it probably isn't required for the Federation to have transporters even by 2209. "Code of Honor" establishes that relatively primitive societies can invent and manufacture their own transporters, so there is no reason to believe that Federation was the first to invent these machines in our local space. Any local non-Fed race (or a visiting but not conquest-hungry powerful alien race like the Borg) could have invented the thing first, and then used it on some poor Fed who got transporter psychosis out of it, and Fed medical experts would be baffled by the new ailment caused by some sort of magical machinery they didn't understand...

The proper diagnosis of transporter psychosis might in fact have led to the developing of Fed transporters!

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Significantly altering the power and development of that region of space... for ever...

cause think of what WOULDN'T have transpired if there was no transporter...

it was probably some silly group of space travellers with no 'prime-directive' ethics.

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"What a wonderful and amazing scheme have we here of the magnificent vastness of the Universe! So many Suns, so many Earths...!" - Christian Huygens, New Conjectures Concerning the Planetary Worlds, Their Inhabitants and Productions (ca 1670)

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

The Vulcans could have had a transporter that wasn't quicker or safer than landing, though.

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"You are stupid and evil and do not know you are stupid and evil."
--
Gene Ray, Cubic

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

I think the Vulcans were just going for dramatic effect... :-)

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Jay Leno: "In the story of 'Jack and the Beanstalk', what did the goose lay?"
"Bosco": "Everybody."
-The Tonight Show, "Jaywalking"

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

Or they were probably certain that Earth did not possess the technology and didn't want to answer awkward questions about where their ship was or how they got here without it.

Does anyone else wonder if the lander we saw was actually a smaller vessel dispatched from a larger vessel? I know the movie implied that this was it but logically, did the vulcans really use such small vessels for exploration?

--Baloo

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"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
-- William Pitt
Come Hither and Yawn...

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

One could argue either way. I always thought this was just a lander for a larger vessel, since there were no recognizable warp engines anywhere (neither of the classic style of the long-range shuttle of TMP, or the style of the ring around the transports in "Unification" or "For the Cause"). But since we have only seen four Vulcan ship types so far (the shuttle, the above two variants of the freighter, and this lander), and at least two differing styles of warp engines, we could also postulate a third type.

And the stoic and long-lived Vulcans could probably live in such a cramped vessel for long periods.

But the lander is so obviously BUILT like a lander, with the legs and the lift engines accounting for most of the volume, that I'd like to argue the real T'Plana-Hath was in orbit while an away team came down in a lander to have a drink with Cochrane.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Well, it was pretty huge to be, essentially, a shuttlecraft. What did the E crew call the ship that would be passing through the system? A science vessel? Perhaps it goes and studies planets by landing on them.

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Jay Leno: "In the story of 'Jack and the Beanstalk', what did the goose lay?"
"Bosco": "Everybody."
-The Tonight Show, "Jaywalking"

[This message has been edited by TSN (edited February 21, 2000).]

Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :

The natives would be scared of transporters, too.

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"Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great:
He was revealed in the flesh,
vindicated in spirit, seen by angels,
proclaimed among Gentiles, believed in throughout the world,
taken up in glory." -Paul
*First Timothy 3:16*

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

I think that's sort of what Baloo meant about the "awkward questions" thing...

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Jay Leno: "In the story of 'Jack and the Beanstalk', what did the goose lay?"
"Bosco": "Everybody."
-The Tonight Show, "Jaywalking"