Master Tier GamingJul 31, 2023

Been thinking about Star Trek transporters and the usual discourse surrounding them. 🧵

In Star Trek specifically, most of the media focusing on transporters directly contradicts this "atomise you, and use the data to rearrange atoms at the target location; you die and a new you takes over" idea from what I recall.

We have the comic of the first transporter experiment, the Barclay episode with the transporter beasts, and various transporter accidents that suggest the following:

Show threadMaster Tier GamingJul 31, 2023

Transporter technology uses energy to create subspace bubbles that the target gets broken up into, those bubbles are accessed at the target location with a 'homing particle' launched so the target location can access the same subspace "honeycomb" that you were stored in. It's you at both ends.

It's like personal-scale hyperspace, an alternate reality that you shift into.

Show threadMaster Tier GamingJul 31, 2023
It's why, with no 'target', the first transporter experiment on a person resulted in their beam shooting through space only to be intercepted elsewhere years later.
Show threadMaster Tier GamingJul 31, 2023
It's why energy shields can prevent transporters, why frequency modulation can circumvent this in some circumstances, why some energy manipulation technologies can get around it entirely, and why energy disruptions can result in weirdness; 'subspace' is a great 'space magic' narrative tool, so having a storm overhead result in the homing beam splitting into two and pulling the same person out the subspace pocket twice, ...
Show threadMaster Tier GamingJul 31, 2023

... with the subspace pocket potentially having a 'nexus' quality of retaining an essence of the person to duplicate, or accessing a tangential timeline, or even creating a branching timeline to create the second person.

It's why Tuvix can happen: the energy trackers getting mixed and resulting in accessing multiple subspace pockets at once to a single confinement beam, with the flower's unique chemistry resulting in a 'not-motion-picture-homunculus'.

Show threadMaster Tier GamingJul 31, 2023
It's why Barclay could see creatures in the beam; while most people enter a stasis-state, we know in Star Trek that some humans can have a Psi-rating that means they have connections to the universe that we don't understand. Reg being able to move and interact with stuff in the pocket universe of the transporter beam could be a manifestation of that.
Show threadMaster Tier Gaming
So with teleporters that take someone apart, and rearrange atoms in the target location according to the same design, sure, there's issues. With Star Trek transporters, though, you don't need atoms at the target location. You're not really taken apart, you're 'disassembled' by being shrunk Ant-Man style into a subspace 'quantum realm' and then brought back out again at the target spot like a Pokémon. /end
Jul 31, 2023 at 9:26amWeb
Show threadMaster Tier GamingJul 31, 2023
I guess to reach the right audience for this thread I should add #startrek #scifi
Show threadKyle Brown Jul 31, 2023

@Mastertiergaming star trek is a little inconsistent about this less. The pattern buffer is the main problem.

They talk about people being stored in the buffer . You can also reconstruct people from the information in the buffer. It could be a special place to store these subspace bubbles but they often talk about it like it's RAM

For example the DS9 episode where the computer copies people's bodies to the holodeck

Show threadMaster Tier GamingJul 31, 2023

@Wearwolf I guess the realspace vs subspace overlap might be where we get our weirdness. How do we know which subspace pocket to check in with, and how do we know to send the structure of the person there while being able to strip away viruses and other contaminants?

The transporter units scan a whole person and store that data. They then check in with that data to shunt the target to the subspace pocket.

Show threadMaster Tier GamingJul 31, 2023
@Wearwolf
I guess we need to see if a different transporter unit could beam in someone stored in a different buffer by accessing that subspace pocket via different means, or if the buffer is acting like a subspace stasis field allowing the accessing of subspace in the first place, so a complete breakdown of said field would mean that pocket is collapsed. Is it /creating/ the subspace pockets?
Show threadKatrine Buch MortensenJul 31, 2023
@Mastertiergaming So what I'm getting here is that Scotty is the Ash Ketchum of Star Trek.
Show threadMaster Tier GamingJul 31, 2023

@KatBuchM "James T. Kirk, I choose you!"

*Klingons on the other ship, about to send down their own champion* "Koloth, goooooo!"

Show threadKatrine Buch MortensenJul 31, 2023
@Mastertiergaming Kirk uses Flirtation! It's super effective!