posted
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.
posted
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!
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
| IP: Logged
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
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.
Registered: Sep 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
It is a good thing TOS never featured Kirk beaming down with a hot cup of antimatter. We dodged a bullet there!
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Like the great majority of that show called Voyager, I tend to ignore Enterprise entirely as nonsense.
-------------------- Later, J _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ The Last Person to post in the late Voyager Forum. Bashing both Voyager, Enterprise, and "The Bun" in one glorious post.
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!
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
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.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
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)
Registered: Sep 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
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.
capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
posted
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.
Registered: Sep 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
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.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
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.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
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.)
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
"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.
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
