posted
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?
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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?
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Registered: Mar 1999
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Sorry, sorry. Necessary clarification, here. For you drug mules out there, the question was NOT how much you can transport in a body cavity.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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".
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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.
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Registered: May 1999
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Registered: Nov 2000
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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.
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