posted
I agree; while the Trek- and our timelines may have differed slightly before the 1960s, evidence suggests that this was nothing compared to what came later.
As for the testing -- I'm not saying there wasn't a lot of testing, but only that we can't use unrelated real-world technologies as benchmarks. It could be that my car took a year to approve for human use, but what does this have to do with transporters? They're unrelated technologies, with different levels of complexity. Even if we knew how long Klingon or Romulan transporters took to develop, we wouldn't be quite certain that human transporters took a similar amount of time. You test something until you're reasonably sure it works, not for specific time periods such as five years or ten years or twenty years.
I would argue that the transporters of 2151, although approved for human use, were comparatively untested. Why else would Geordi mention, also in "The Masterpiece Society", only a "century" of evidence against possible side effects, whereas two centuries would've been a better argument? Why would Transporter Psychosis develop only in 2209? What about all the transporter problems after that commonly serve as plot devices?
The transporters may have passed Starfleet's basic tests in only a few years, but there is still a host of side effects, what with different people from different planets with different backgrounds stepping inside. The biofilter still cannot filter out a whole range of viruses, people can be split in two personalities, they can be turned into children, etc.
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posted
TPTB introduced transporters too early, in my opinion. It strains credibility a bit to see such a highly experimental technology already fully integrated into a small starship *AND* working without a hitch. Seems to me the physics behind teleportation are several orders of magnitude more complicated than those of, say, tractor beams. We've learned how to manipulate the fundamental force of gravity (evidenced by deckplating), so forcefields and the like can't be a very large step from there - they're related fields, after all!
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posted
But they don't work without a hitch, do they? Didn't a transport go wrong in "Strange New World" and almost kill someone?
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Cartman
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posted
He merely got, erh, twigged. Not life-threatening as I recall.
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posted
"TPTB introduced transporters too early, in my opinion It strains credibility a bit to see such a highly experimental technology already fully integrated into a small starship *AND* working without a hitch."
With respect to evidence from earlier episodes, it would've been a better story choice not to include them until the turn of the century. With respect to the real world, it would've been best never to have transporters.
"Seems to me the physics behind teleportation are several orders of magnitude more complicated than those of, say, tractor beams."
We can't be sure of that. Artificial gravity has been around since 1994 or before (it was present on the Botany Bay as well as the 1994 spacecraft containing Claire Raymond and Co.), inertial dampers and subspace fields since 2063 or before. Transporters use subspace fields to transmit the matter stream and forcefields to contain the beamed individual during dematerialization (as seen in Roga Danar's breaking out of this field), and may well build on other existing exotic technologies, rather than being an extremely new invention by itself.
"We've learned how to manipulate the fundamental force of gravity (evidenced by deckplating), so forcefields and the like can't be a very large step from there - they're related fields, after all!"
Yet they took until just before "Enterprise" to develop, whereas artificial gravity had been around for at least 150 years before that. However, I agree that some exotic technologies might build on others.
posted
I've been hoping for the NX-01 to have a transporter accident that's more similar to the rather grisly demise of two Enterprise crewmembers in TMP. Now THAT'S a transporter accident! Embedding a few twigs in some guy's skin? That's not much by comparison...
As for the idea that the transporters are a bit of technology invented by the Vulcans, that's a fine theory... except for the fact that the Vulcans of ENT are NOT that generous with their advanced equipment. The way that warp drive and the lack of tractor beams and all sorts of other technology are presented, there's no way that the Vulcans would have given Earth transporter capability.
As for the speculation regarding the divergence of the timeline -- don't forget that Bill Gates replaced Henry Starling as the man behind the Information Age after Khan travelled back in time to kill Starling so that the Information Age would never happen.
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I too have a ridiculous pie-in-the-sky idea realted to this whole Vulcan transporter thing. We've witnessed several occasions where SF had been willing to handout replicator tech because it's percieved as a peaceful technology. Perhaps the Vulcans were kind enough to do this for a recently post-appocalyptic earth thinking they could eliminate resource shortfalls and thereby promote a civilization not reliant on the distribution of material wealth. Perhaps they gave us ones with the safety engaged so we wouldn't use it to make mini-nukes or phasers anything. Of course, a replicator is pretty much half of the technology used in transporting. All it would take is one grubby little sapien to reverse engineer one and hook it up to a scanner. Pretty soon we're making like Jeff Goldblum. I could see this being a further sticky point between humans and Vulcans and a reason for their reluctance to share other technologies...
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posted
The problem is that it's now been made rather clear that the transporter predated the replicator. (Which makes sense, I think. If you assume that a transporter can work in "dumb" mode, that is, just moving an object from point A to point B without really having any idea of the composition of the object. This would explain why, in TOS, you could sneak aboard a starship by hiding in a box, which one would think would be obvious to anyone watching the transporter as it worked.)
But I do agree with your theme, Balaam. If I've got one problem with Enterprise it's this: It has always seemed to me that, implicit in the "everything got better once the Vulcans came" story is the Vulcans pouring massive amounts of resources, energy, and time into rebuilding Earth. This I think could certainly lead to the resentment seen in the show. Vulcans forcing some changes while withholding others. "You're still trapped in the capitalism/communism matrix? *Vulcan mini-sigh* Primitives. Look, this is how you do it from now on."
But we haven't heard of the Vulcans doing anything like that, and while humans bootstraping themselves into a potential interstellar power in 90 years is compelling, I'm not sure it's completely reasonable, nor as interesting as it could be.
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posted
If Vulcans had given us transporters, wouldn't there have been a better history of testing/usage unless they invented transporters themselves quite recently?
On the other hand, I agree that the Vulcans could've hardly had an influence over human affairs if they weren't important as at least a stabilizing factor from roughly 2100-2150, sort of like NATO troops in disputed areas today. Before 2100, I can see Timo's Earth of different states holding radically different levels of technology in the general chaos and fighting, perhaps all the way from the 1990s to 2100.
posted
OTOH, the Vulcans might have chosen to back a single nation-state and help it subdue all opposition. (In light of the character demographics of all the Trek shows, guess which nation?) This could be the Vulcan Way, dating back to the time when they solved their own problems by sending their dissident trash offworld. It's also similar to what the Vulcans are doing at Coridan.
In such a setup, it would be to the advantage of the Vulcan-backed regime to keep as may secrets from the rest of the world as possible, until it achieved complete hegemony.
Also, Vulcans might have invented/acquired the transporter for bulk cargo transfer only. Or for some industrial process. They'd never even think of using it for traveling, any more than we would consider a kite or a cannon a valid technology for commuting. Except that we crazy humans just do consider these odd things every now and then. Like aerodynamically suspended flying machines that fall out of the sky as soon as they lose power or slow down.
posted
I can see the Vulcans backing a single nation state, but they are a redundant term at the moment as far as the invention of transporters is concerned because we know that warp drive was invented without them.
The Vulcans might have had transporters earlier given their comparative tech level, and humans might have easily seen them in operation, but there is no need to go as far as to say that they gave the humans transporters, because they certainly didn't give us everything they have (including Warp 7-capable ships and tractor beams).
Also, "Enterprise" will likely show no evidence that transporters are anything but public, which makes it difficult to believe that they could've been kept secret from the Moab people unless they deliberately avoided contact with the rest of humanity prior to moving out, have moved out already, or have forgotten about early transporter experiments over the generations.
posted
Well perhaps, but surely up till now it's been just the opposite. Transporters are apparently exclusively military. I can't even think of a time when the only civilian aboard (Phlox) has been in a room when the word "transporter" was used. Though I'm sure he has been. I'm just saying.
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posted
What Boris said about forgetting about the transporters is exactly what I assumed happened. After all, transporters at the time of ENT still seem to be relatively new. Even if the Moab settlers knew about them, they probably didn't have any. They probably wouldn't tell their children stories about transporters. So, after 200 years, no-one would be left who had ever seen or heard about one.
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quote:Originally posted by Sol System: The problem is that it's now been made rather clear that the transporter predated the replicator.
Yeah, when I walked away from that one, I suddenly remembered that there weren't any replicators in TOS. Me sub-clever.
I still like the idea that the Vulcans were intstrumental in the development of transporter tech, either with or without their knowledge or consent. It's a huge technology with all kinds of ramifications barely explored in the shows. (Why jettison the warp core at all?) I'm just not sure humans would be able to develop and deploy such a massive project so quickly, let alone trust it for human use.
I do like Simon's idea that they are a military tech. Of course, Phlox would have to know about them because of the twigged unfortunate, but that doesn't mean that John Q Public necessarily would.
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