I was thinking about planetary assault by transporter and was wondering what was the largest (most massive) object we ever saw transported. In ST IV, of course, we saw 2 whales, which weigh 25 to 40 tons, plus a couple hundred tons of water. Was there anything larger than this? What were other large objects transported? Was a weight limit or rate of transport (persons per hour, for example) ever quoted on air? The TNGTM had some figures, I think, but I'm mostly interested in the TOS period.
In a related question, do you think transporter capacity differs for organic (live) vs inorganic (dead) objects? For example, a 70-kg man weighs the same as 70 liters of water, but does transporting a person require more computer memory than transporting an equal volume of water? Would the transporter scan and store the location and momentum of every water molecule (as for every atom in a person) or would it just store a record of "generic" water that could be averaged and reassembled easily?
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
Well, obviously it varies from individual to individual. I mean, I've heard of friends fitting ten thousand dollars worth of cocaine, but they could well have been born with abnormal physiology or honed their capacity through experimentation. Considering gerbils almost inevitably get stuck, though, I'd say there's an upper limit in the region of 250 grams or so, depending on density and hardness.
I'm sorry, transporters?
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Sorry, sorry. Necessary clarification, here. For you drug mules out there, the question was NOT how much you can transport in a body cavity.
Posted by The Mike Who Would Be Captain (Member # 709) on :
A cargo transporter could beam up a LOT of pot...
especially if you put it in barrels and did away with the rectums and such. its not that heavy.. i once held a half pound.. ooh it felt nice.. it was huge. ok thats enough of that.. you can tell im in day 8 of quitting smoking.
anywho hm.. i assume the cargo transporters could do about 2 whales worth of people (sounds like an ancient measurement) based on the ST:IV predicament.. remember that was with a considerable power drain.. they beamed people a lot in that movie, but really emphasized the power issue when they did the big beamout.
the question would be how much more power than a BOP could a starship put into a transporter, and how much signal load can a transporter take.
im placing the assertion that two whales and a tank of water are very near the maximum limit that would be created by the data end of it, just because im flabbergasted how much data would be contained at quantum resolution.
the power question would be determined by how the transporter uses it: is the power taken right off a feed (giving it a huge upper limit, since warp cores create monstrous amounts of energy.. but then again, is it configured to give a lot of energy or is there a limit imposed by the power transfer system?), or does the unit have to 'charge up', and therefore have an upper limit of how much energy it can utilize. this would clarify the time variable.. it would take a transporter a set amount of time to recharge and be ready for another group... this would also create an ability to increase the amount of people transported.. if you had 10 cargo tranporters configured to charge independantly off the same warp core, the could beam 10 times as many people as one cargo transporter, slowing only to alternate the amount of signals being sent through the theoretical data limit of the emitter array. but if its a power feed question and they really all use ships power and the limit is from the ships power, 10 transporters would be as effective as one. .they would all need to wait for power. i dont think that scenario is likely.. weve seen the e-ds transporters all working at once
doesnt the TNG tech manual have lots of bs like this?!.. ive just spent 10 minutes theorizing and sternbach probly wrote the answer there.. i coulda been sleepin!
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Without looking at the Tech. Man., I would have to assume there is a difference between transporting lifeforms and transporting objects. Anything organic would probably take more memory and a larger signal than anything non-organic. People would most likely be the most "cost-intensive".
As far as sheer mass, the enterprise transporters (presumably the cargo models) have transported entire shuttle craft before ("lock onto that shuttle and beam it back into its bay".) I don't know how that stacks up to the whales, but with all the water, the whales probably win.
Posted by Grokca (Member # 722) on :
I would have to go with Kirk's ego.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
I doubt an "assault transporter" would significantly benefit from the lower cost of transporting inorganics. If one wants to beam down functioning soldiers and weapons, one probably can't use the averaged bulk product mode. Except perhaps chemical explosives or poison gas, neither of which seems a typical UFP munitions type.
Beaming down assault forces in general is probably very problematic. You can knock down all the shields and jammers you spot by orbital bombardment, but the ground could be strewn full of hard-to-detect scramblers like that Romulan assassination weapon. Energy weapons fire could also scramble the signals.
An infantry assault would probably have to rely on the use of orbital and close-support armed craft to clear a few secure beam-down areas, after which the forces would have to fight their way forward as if moving through a minefield in a jungle... Every now and then, they could create their own "jungle clearings" to allow for beam-up of casualties and beam-down of reinforcements. Small task forces could establish a trail of such "clearings" for larger forces to beam in. But one could never be sure if the next transporter hop would leave one in one piece, or scramble beyond recognition.
So I guess a transporter assault would indeed involve beaming down some ground-combat vehicles to be used in conventional combat, and not just delivering the troops right atop the enemy.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Nimpim (Member # 205) on :
Grr.
Posted by The Mike Who Would Be Captain (Member # 709) on :
yes, in the world of transporter shielding and beam scramblers, beaming troops to a surface or other vessel without a form of return would be suicidal. Orphaned squads would have no way to return home should a shield go up. I think this would partially explain reliance of small craft in delivering soldiers in Trek.. although in ST:V they used transporter failure as the explanation for the shuttle use, it certainly makes more sense for other situations.*scroll down for more
Are there any other good canon examples to draw on?
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minor Entertainment Tonight spoilers for that movie thats coming out, probably that everyone knows.
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this might explain why we are going to have to be subjected to an otherwise unlikely jeep-drop sequence soon.
Posted by Nimpim (Member # 205) on :
Reports during the 2370's, describing the excessive utilization of ground transports and trams by Captain Montgomery Scott reveal he apparently had "exceeded the allowed safety tonnage of Standard Federation Transporters". Scientists are baffled. "I'd never thought I-I-I-I'd see the day", comments Dr Barklay of Starfleet Creative Labs.
Another spokesman for SCL claims "We now have to redesign the entire processor matrix of current beaming-technology by the year 2380, when Captain Scott throws a birthday party for his entire family on Earth, who all apparently suffer from shuttle-sickness and various eating disorders".
Posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Ah... were we not talking about how big an object the transporters can handle instead of feasably making Federation assault transporters? Anyway, transporters seem to be able to handle transporting shuttlecraft back to the shuttlebay. But which transporter does it though? Personel transporters could do it through site-to-site transport since the size of the chamber only accomodates people. And personel transporters can beam organic and inorganic materials. Cargo transporters, from what I remember reading in the TNG Tech Manual, needs to be calibrated for use on organic personel since there is an issue on the complex patterns that people have. So which transporter beams the shuttle to the shuttlebay?
BTW, I've never seen a transporter in either cargo bays of USS Voyager.
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
I've always thought that transporting a whole shuttle was never feasible. While you probably could use a personnel transporter, the shuttle may be more than the pattern buffers could handle. If you wanted to use the cargo transporters, you'd have to reconfigure them to it's quantum transportation mode, which would take up valuable time if you're in a jam. Finally, I thought the transporters would never be able to transport the antimatter held on board those shuttles without extensive modification to the transporters, even if being modified they could still do it. Plus more valuable time would be taken up to modify the transporters for the antimatter if you're in a jam.
Posted by The Mike Who Would Be Captain (Member # 709) on :
well ,they did it, so it has to be possible. and the whales were even bigger, and more importantly, alive. this is how we can supose our theoretical upper limit.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Transporting antimatter -- we've seen Starfleet ships beam photon torpedoes on at least a couple of occasions, like "Dark Frontier." There's also the time that Wesley beamed his antimatter-powered experiment over to the Hathaway in "Peak Performance." And a third example (might) be when the Cardassians framed O'Brien for smuggling torpedoes to the Maquis aboard a runabout in "Tribunal."
As for the shuttle itself, I guess it depends on how much antimatter a shuttle has on board. Given their small size and limited range, my guess would be, "not much."
To address Masao's question, he's probably thinking about the potential scenario of beaming down some kind of assault vehicle. Other than the bird-of-prey example, I really can't think of an example of massive transporting. (Well, there is one -- the Voth beamed Voyager in its entirety in "Distant Origin," but that's obviously well beyond any Federation capability.)
Masao, I'm assuming you're asking this for some Starfleet Museum article... in that case, I'd say that beaming the equivalent of those hundreds of tons of water would be possible for Federation ships in the pre-TOS era. In your background, the Klingons are a whole lot less advanced technologically, compared to the Federation. I'd guess that the bird-of-prey's transporters might have been up to fifty years behind the Federation's, considering how long it took for them to get M/AM reactors right...
Even more speculation -- if you're thinking of some kind of planetary assault scenario using your Belleau Wood transports and accompanying ships, I'd say go for it. But if you want a compromise, you could emphasize a large power drain, or a limit of one vehicle at a time, or something like that.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I think there are more interesting things to do with transporters in a combat situation than beaming up or down troops or supplies. You could use the transporter to spread things like antipersonnel devices or autonomous spy drones over wide areas. If the beam is scrambled, well, you've only lost some equipment, and you don't have to risk losing any shuttles. (Example: the Son'a distribution of their little flying things. But they didn't have to worry about an advanced army on the ground.) Or you could develop some kind of chemical with a distinct molecular structure that's easily detectable from orbit and use the transporter to dump it all over the battlefield. Anywhere the chemical is damaged represents some sort of impediment to transporters, and everywhere it is intact is, at least for the moment, safe for beaming.
Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
You could transport vital body parts from enemy troops.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
A more ethicly sound alternative to that would be to just steal the enemy's weapons
Well, in regards to the original post; There is precious little solid information about any TOS systems, but we could probably extrapolate a few rough paramiters. For one thing the TNG tech manual states that the large cargo transporters are indeed of a lower resolution, which "are designed for operation at molecular (non-lifeform)resolution for cargo use, but they can be set for quantum (lifeform) resolution transport if desired, although such usage would entail a signifiacant reduction in payload mass capacity".
No mention is apparently given of the mass/density transport capabilities of any known unit. However, the ST:IV transport does provide a good yard stick, you could say that a 2280's Klingon scout has similar power capabilities as a 2260's Federation starship and that Federation and Klingon transporter tech is more or less parallel, given the apparent similarity of the Starfleet and Klingon optical transporter effects in the movies.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
I'm not necessarily interested in transporting only during a planetary assault (which would seem as dangerous as using paratroopers today) but also in terms of cargo shipping. However, let's say you need to get a hypothetical 70- or 100-ton marine AFV down to the surface for your peacekeeing troops (not during an attack) or maybe a 500-ton fusion or antimatter reactor (without fuel). Would you need to bring them down in a very large shuttlecraft or could you just transport them? Of course, we haven't seen shuttlecraft so large or transporters pads either, although site to site transport is possible, I guess.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Well, once things get started in development, I bet it explains why Starfleet seems to conduct a lot of its industrial production in lower-gravity environments, either in orbit or on the surface of Utopia Planitia.
However, we HAVE seen some ships capable of landing and taking off from an Earth-normal planet. For example, ships like the one in DS9's "Paradise." Voyager is the obvious example, but it's also a very new ship, so doesn't really apply to the Museum.
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
The antimatter for an antimatter reactor would have to be transported separately from the matter. In fact, the transporter has to be modified too.
But what does make me wonder is how would a transporter react to a reactor that is working? I mean yeah there's a lot more power going on there, but is it really that much more different or difficult from transporter a person?
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I suppose that transporting an active reactor would require a quantum level configuration, since any misstep could cause an uncontrolled M/AM annihilation within the transporters beam. Given the mass of a shuttle is allot greater compared to the average humanoid, I'd say that the power involved in transporting a shuttle would be comparable to the ST:IV transport, since that was also a large quantum level transport. So to answer your question, yeah, it probably is possible to transport a large amount of mass at once but of course you'd have to put a limit on just how much and the composition of what your shifting. Also remember that some materials (I forget which) cannot be transported at all and that the more dense materials would take longer to disintegrate, process and re-materialise.
P.S. Masao: If this has anything to do with our discussion about the Botany Bay, don't worry I've since changed my mind about that.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Rev: To quote Mr. Chekov, "Botany Bay!?!?! Botany Bay?!?!"
Don't worry, I forgot about that conversation a long long time ago...
Posted by Nimpim (Member # 205) on :
"I've always thought that transporting a whole shuttle was never feasible."
Voyager transported that whole Borg Node thing that tried to control Seven.
The objects they transport can be as advanced as it likes, it's still just plain atoms that the buffer can buff away.
Posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Ya... right. So does that mean by the time USS Voyager launched, only one set of transporters are needed for cargo and personel? Perhaps Starfleet Command kept on upgrading the transporter system after the Enterprise-D encountered the Borg so by the time the Nebula Class USS Phoenix went on a hunting spree, transporters can be used at warp and by Voyager, only one transporter is needed for personel/cargo transports.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Well, they can still only transport things up to the size of the transporter pad. So they may still have a large cargo transporter for the really big stuff.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
[Kirkspeak] site... to.... site...[/Kirkspeak]
Yes, Captain, there is that option....
What about the transporter enhancers, used in TNG several times. In a contested area a torpedo fired to sprout them would serve, I would imagine. Not unlike the MLRS and artillery that can fire transporter shells with those little ball landmines.
Posted by The Mike Who Would Be Captain (Member # 709) on :
the tng technical manual said that cargo transporters could be set to handle quantum (lifeform) resolution, ata cost to the payload weight transportable.
we know that even when cargo transports are set for quantum, they can still transport approximately two whales.
just because there was no technobabble line that says they were configuring them like that, we can probably assume that the cargo trans. were reset to quantum everytime they beamed something complicated on Voyager. theres no need to assume they had radically different transporters.
it obviously wasnt a radical procedure to reset the cargo transporters to quantum, since it was done so often (voyage home, power play, the prefect mate. etc.). it was an adjustment that was made without making reference to it in dialogue, but the technical manual tells us they did it.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I'm not sure the size of the pad is a limiting factor. It probably should be, but we've seen them beam far more than six people up at a time, for instance. And what with the fancy capability of TNG's transporters to beam something up and then beam it elsewhere, without bothering to materalize it on the pad, I'd say that the limit is the size of your pattern buffer, at least for advanced enough transporters.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Yeah, I thought of that later, after I'd posted...
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
And yet pads must have some use beyond the purely aesthetic (or organizational; you don't necessarily want your guests beamed directly to their quarters; thus the invention of the anteroom). It's apparently easier to transport something when you have two transporters working on it, rather than just one. I'd wager that most of your everyday, non-starship transporter work is probably of the pad to pad variety, perhaps for that extra measure of safety?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Beyond canon and the TNG TM, I'd venture to say that transporters come in a greater variety of operational modes and configurations than what we see aboard the hero starships.
The E-D blueprints show a large number of transporter pads liberally strewn in the various cargo holds and support facilities. There are far more of them than the Manual accounts for. Since all the major transporters are cross-connected anyway, according to the Manual, I gather these are just additional terminals for the centralized system - cheap models that cannot easily serve as launching points for an away mission, because they lack a key console or something. They are just for internal rearranging of cargo.
Since few of the cargo ships we see seem to be landing-capable (say, big obstructing ventral fins or a configuration where all the cargo hangs in the underbelly, necessitating unrealistic stork-leg landing gear), commercial ops probably require orbital transfer points like Terok Nor. Shuttles or transporters then take the cargo down the rest of the way, in lots of desired size. But that isn't very feasible for bulk cargo like ore, which we hear hauled about a lot. So there could also be some sort of a bulk transporter that doesn't move stuff in "batches" but as a constant "stream" instead. Something like the particle fountain of "Quality of Life", but more primitive and robust.
Troopships might also use some of the techniques of commercial personnel transporters, which probably are optimized to handle large numbers of people at the expense of versatility.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Civilians apparently had publicly available site-to-site transporters available in the 2340's. I remember one DS9 episode (probably "Homefront") where Joseph Sisko mentions a family moving into a new house... and they were beaming in their furniture.
quote:Originally posted by J: But what does make me wonder is how would a transporter react to a reactor that is working? I mean yeah there's a lot more power going on there, but is it really that much more different or difficult from transporter a person?
Unfortunately, it's been established as totally the same!
Ref: "Civilization" [ENT] -- The aliens had a matter-antimatter reactor operating in their underground facility. The NX-01 beamed the reactor up, onto their transporter pad, and then beamed it from there out into space. (Not quite a site-to-site transport.) Then they detonated it in front of the attacking enemy ship.
All hail ENT! The great equalizer in technology across the centuries! Posted by The Mike Who Would Be Captain (Member # 709) on :
i remember discussing this in the 'whether or not transporters would be privately owned' thread. i assume that getting your furniture beamed in is analogous to renting a moving truck today.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
It is a good thing TOS never featured Kirk beaming down with a hot cup of antimatter. We dodged a bullet there!
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
Like the great majority of that show called Voyager, I tend to ignore Enterprise entirely as nonsense.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: It is a good thing TOS never featured Kirk beaming down with a hot cup of antimatter. We dodged a bullet there!
Hahahaha...I'd been thinking about "Obsession" as well.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: It is a good thing TOS never featured Kirk beaming down with a hot cup of antimatter. We dodged a bullet there!
Geez, how did I forget that one??? LOL!
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
The multiple ?s and the acronyms for laughing suggest I am being responded to sardonically, but such was not my goal. I simply wished to humorously juxtapose coffee with antimatter whilst making a point about the on-again/off-again prohibition against transporting antimatter.
Posted by The Mike Who Would Be Captain (Member # 709) on :
i think somebody i knew drew a picture of scotty trapped in the pattern buffer whole and suffocating poor matt franklin for 75 years.
for the roundup: beaming funny intergalactic magnetic ore == maybe! (enemy within) beaming site to site == no! (day of the dove) beaming site to site after day of the dove == yes! (tng) beaming antimatter == yes! (Obsession) beaming live reactors == yes! (civilization) beaming very very large objects with antimatter and live reactors site to site == yes! (whatever voyager ep.. i didnt watch that show) beaming very very large living creatures == yes! (Relics & undiscovered country [sorry Scotty..]) beaming very very large living creatures with a cargo transporter == yes! (Voyage Home) beaming through shields == no! (tos, tng) beaming through shields if you are obrien or scotty == yes! (wounded; relics) beaming at warp with speed matched == maybe! (schizoid man, bobw) beaming complicated energy beings, with a cargo transporter even == yes! (power play)
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Beaming a whale of a load with cargo transporters == dunno. We never saw a separate "cargo" piece of transporting hardware aboard the BoP, just that single platform of emitters plus a number of consoles all across the ship that could be used for activating the process. One could even activate the transporter from the bridge, or at least in ST3 Maltz did so (Kirk caught him by surprise on the bridge, with the heavy implication that he was the only surviving Klingon aboard).
So perhaps Klingons don't believe in separate cargo transporters. Their beaming practices have in general been very strange, more so than Starfleet practices. Their transportees arrive in the colors of the Federation transporter in ST3 and "Generations", yet in Klingon colors on the DS9 Ops Cardassian platfrom in "Dramatis Personae"... For a warrior race, they seem to trust their people on alien receiving hardware a bit too willingly.
Also, "Day of the Dove" may mislead us on the subject of site-to-site. What was considered hazardous there was intraship. Perhaps the transporters of the era could not focus well on targets at such close proximity to the emitters, or on targets on the inside of the emitter array. Beaming Kirk site-to-site across a chasm or through a wall on a nearby planet might not have presented a problem at all.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by The Mike Who Would Be Captain (Member # 709) on :
one of the most fun parts of ST:III is realizing that he was the last one, by process of elimination. BOP has a crew of 12, and i kept a running tally of who died, and Maltz was definitely alone,alone,alone at the end.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Although one wonders why Kirk didn't just beam the Klingons over, and have a transporter "accident". It would have saved blowing up the ship. The crew could have still beamed over and knocked out Maltz in manly fashion.
quote: Civilians apparently had publicly available site-to-site transporters available in the 2340's. I remember one DS9 episode (probably "Homefront") where Joseph Sisko mentions a family moving into a new house... and they were beaming in their furniture.
Hmm. This might be a difference scene, but I remember the conversation going that, for his first few weeks at Starfleet Academy, Sisko used to beam home for dinner every night (ie, from San Fransico to New Orleans). I'm sure old man Joe makes a comment about him using up a years worth of transporter credits in a month, or something.
Perhaps it's hazardous to have large numbers of people being across a planet at once. Actually, thinking about it, wouldn't they have to get beamed upwards (to an orbiting platform), and then back down? Sort of like Satellite TV today? I doubt that they are beamed through the planet.
So, anyway, having lots of people constantly being transported all around a planet is dangerous. Perhaps lots of bad energy is created, or maybe more people want to transport than they have room to handle. So they have transporter credits. Another currency item in the non-currency Federation. Woo.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote: beaming at warp with speed matched == maybe! (schizoid man, bobw)
I tend to think that the problem with transporting at warp is that the two ships have to match speeds exactly. If there's even a 0.0001% difference between two ships doing warp 7, and someone beams onto the other ship, by the time the transport as ended they'll be flapping in space.
For similar reasons, I can't imagine that transporting at full impulse is much fun either, but perhaps its easier because of...stuff.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam:
quote: Civilians apparently had publicly available site-to-site transporters available in the 2340's. I remember one DS9 episode (probably "Homefront") where Joseph Sisko mentions a family moving into a new house... and they were beaming in their furniture.
Hmm. This might be a difference scene, but I remember the conversation going that, for his first few weeks at Starfleet Academy, Sisko used to beam home for dinner every night (ie, from San Fransico to New Orleans). I'm sure old man Joe makes a comment about him using up a years worth of transporter credits in a month, or something.
Yeah, I remember that one too. But I figured that might be explained by Sisko being a Starfleet cadet. It's not proven to be a civilian service there...
The scene I was talking about was the one where Joseph Sisko talks about Sisko agonizing about asking girls out. After having trouble with asking one girl out, a new girl had moved in down the street a few weeks later. Sisko went over to ask her out "before her parents were finished beaming in the furniture."
Damn, I sure wish we had something like that today. I've got to move back to college next weekend, and I guarantee that moving a lot of my stuff is going to be fun. (Though not as fun as an entire family moving its place of residence, of course... I've done that too.)
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
"The Schizoid Man" transport wasn't at warp, it was just out of warp. The ship warped up to the planet, dropped to sublight long enough to complete the transport, and then zoomed off again. It was still a bit tricky though.
Posted by Captain-class, Mike-variant (Member # 709) on :
yeah, they were in the wall for a second.
I wonder if taking another 2 minutes or so to let the warp field dissipate would really have hurt the Constantinople survivors?
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