Star Trek: 10 Things You Need To Know About Transporters
It's one of the few pieces of tech from Star Trek that has yet to be invented. Or, is it?
Transcript
00:00 Outside of Warp Drive, these magical creations are probably the most well-known piece of
00:04 technology to come out of this franchise, and also to make us all really, really upset
00:09 whenever we have to queue for a plane, or a bus, or a car, or pay for petrol.
00:15 With that in mind, I'm Sean Ferrick for Trek Culture, and here are 10 things you need
00:19 to know about transporters.
00:22 Number 10.
00:23 They were invented to save money and time.
00:25 The earliest pitches for Star Trek had to deal with the challenge of getting the crew
00:28 down to the planets each week.
00:29 Support shuttles were suggested, as was landing the Enterprise itself, though both would have
00:33 proven prohibitively expensive in the beginning.
00:36 So the producers were backed against a wall and came up with the idea of the Matter Transporter.
00:40 This became part of the pitch, and part of the reason Star Trek was given the green light,
00:44 twice.
00:45 It helped to sell the cage, first of all.
00:47 Now, rather than committing to large-scale models for the pilot that may or may not take
00:51 off, spoiler, it didn't, this fantastic new technology could be used instead.
00:55 When the cage failed to make any traction, the show was given a new pilot, where no man
00:59 has gone before.
01:00 Though it was actually the man-trap that helped Star Trek survive.
01:04 The depiction of the transporter in that episode excited the network so much that they bumped
01:08 it up for broadcast, meaning that it was shown to audiences before the first episode.
01:13 Number 9.
01:14 The first transporter was achieved with practical effects.
01:17 The actual look of the transporter beam is quite striking in its various iterations,
01:21 and is most often achieved by means of CGI.
01:24 Star Trek Voyager and Star Trek Discovery heavily redesigned the original transporter
01:28 beam, adding a slower blue dissolve in the former, with a golden circular pattern appearing
01:33 in the latter.
01:34 The original series achieved the look by dropping aluminium powder between the camera and a
01:38 black background.
01:39 This was then superimposed on the images of the various crewmen, who were then dissolved
01:43 out of the shot.
01:44 This was most often achieved with the actual footage being frozen, as it would be a little
01:48 later in the franchise before technology would allow people to move while in transport.
01:52 Between that wall and the brightly lit floor and ceiling pads, the transporter set was
01:56 able to overpower the stage lights, allowing an easier transition for overlaying the shots
02:01 of the beam itself.
02:03 Number 8.
02:04 The Heisenberg Compensator.
02:05 The Heisenberg Compensator is part of the transporter that specifically deals with Werner
02:09 Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
02:11 In quantum mechanics, the principle is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities
02:15 that place a limit on the accuracy that certain pairs of physical quantities of a particle
02:20 can accurately predict.
02:22 So what does this mean in English?
02:24 First published in 1927, German physicist Heisenberg posited that the more precisely
02:29 an object's location can be determined, the less likely it is to predict its momentum
02:33 after initial findings.
02:35 This theory was then put into the make-up of the transporter in Star Trek.
02:38 In the episode "Realm of Fear", Barclay and O'Brien are seen examining the Heisenberg
02:42 Compensator, which is shown to be a component of the overall device.
02:46 This is their workaround for Heisenberg's theory.
02:48 Now it goes without saying that the Compensator is an entirely fictional invention, while
02:52 the transporter itself does have a basis in reality, more on that later, the Compensator
02:57 also became a handy plot point, something that the crew would look to when there was
03:01 an issue with a transport that was either out of their control, or an easy scapegoat
03:05 when trying to stall the Moriarty hologram in "Ship in a Bottle".
03:09 7.
03:10 Transporters can be used as weapons
03:12 The transporter has a very dark capacity while remaining the easiest method of travel in
03:16 Star Trek's universe.
03:17 Once an area is unshielded, it can serve to pluck any living thing from its location and
03:22 beam them wherever the operator chooses.
03:24 For example, there are several occasions in the original series when some poor redshirts
03:28 stepped onto the transporter pad, only to find themselves floating in space moments
03:32 later.
03:33 The transporter can be co-opted as well.
03:34 In the darkness and the light, while Dax and Worf are attempting to beam a member of Kira's
03:38 old resistance cell to their runabout, the transporter pattern is scrambled.
03:42 This is deliberate, the deranged Cardassian Siluran Prynne had been systematically wiping
03:47 out the Shakar cell.
03:48 He hit a tiny patterned scrambler on the poor victim, which ended up killing her in a horrible
03:52 fashion, all while Dax and Worf looked on, unable to stop it.
03:56 More recently, Seven of Nine used the transporters aboard La Sirena to beam several Neo-Borg
04:00 drones into the foundations of Chateau Picard, killing them instantly as they rematerialised
04:05 with half of their bodies fused to the stone.
04:08 6.
04:09 Emergency Transporters
04:10 The first obvious use of the emergency transporter came in Star Trek Nemesis.
04:14 This was used by Data to rescue Captain Picard, though at the cost of his own life.
04:18 It was a small device, fitted with its own power source, giving it the ability to send
04:22 a signal back to the Enterprise-E without having to rely on either that ship or the
04:26 Scimitar's power sources.
04:28 By that year, it was still considered a prototype due to its limitations.
04:31 Earlier incarnations of emergency transporters were closer in design to those standard personnel
04:36 transporters found aboard most starships and starbases.
04:39 These were designed to send larger groups at a time, often used during evacuation procedures.
04:43 By the 32nd century, these smaller transporters had become standard practice, embedded into
04:48 Starfleet Combadges.
04:49 Starfleet Discovery's third and fourth seasons seemed to have done away with standard transporter
04:53 rooms altogether as the Combadge contains enough power to send the wearer from ship
04:57 to planet, whereas this was beyond the capabilities of earlier models.
05:01 A combination of the personnel transporters and the pattern buffers allowed the crew of
05:04 the Discovery to escape disintegration as the ship exited a void as part of their search
05:08 for the cause of the DMA.
05:10 5.
05:11 Although, "Beam me up, Scotty" was never said out loud.
05:14 Though now it's well known, the exact phrase "Beam me up, Scotty" was never actually
05:18 said on screen in Star Trek.
05:20 Many variations of the command were issued throughout the years, including near-misses
05:24 like "Scotty, beam me up".
05:26 The misquote started to appear in popular media roughly ten years after Star Trek's
05:30 debut.
05:31 It was both connected to the franchise itself and became slang that was used in other contexts.
05:36 Perhaps unsurprisingly for the period, i.e. the 60s and 70s, it quickly became associated
05:40 with taking mind-altering drugs, allowing the user to "disappear into another place".
05:46 Mentally.
05:47 James Doohan used the phrase as the title of his autobiography in 1996, and the quote
05:51 was so connected to him that it's included in his obituary despite the actor never having
05:56 spoken the lines, nor responded to them.
05:58 William Shatner did, however, include the line in an audio recording of his novel, Ashes
06:02 to Eden.
06:03 The rebooted Kelvin films have continued the tradition of almost using the quote, as there
06:07 are several examples where Kirk and other characters quickly bark the order "Scotty,
06:11 beam us out".
06:12 4.
06:13 Transwarp Beaming
06:14 Transwarp beaming was demonstrated in the Kelvin timeline films to a mixed reaction.
06:19 In the film, it's Montgomery Scott who perfected the theory, though in the time that Spock
06:23 Prime travels back to, Scotty has yet to master it, much to the chagrin of Admiral Archer
06:28 and his prize beagle.
06:29 Spock shows him the theory required, however, this has a knock-on effect.
06:33 In Star Trek Into Darkness, rogue Section 31 agent John Harrison, definitely not Khan,
06:39 uses it to escape Earth and travel all the way to Kronos.
06:43 Though the film depicts this as a single beam, the novelisation states the device used didn't
06:48 have enough power, requiring Khan to beam to a ship, then use that ship to beam to the
06:54 Klingon homeworld.
06:55 Though this miracle device would seem to make Starfleet obsolete, it had actually been suggested
06:59 by Gene Roddenberry in the initial development of Star Trek The Next Generation.
07:03 He put it forward as another cost-saving method, removing the need for a starship at all.
07:08 Thankfully, writer David Gerrold shot that idea down straight away.
07:12 The Enterprise is the hero, he said, delaying this technology for a further 20 years.
07:17 Number 3.
07:18 Does the transporter send the atoms and the bits, or just the bits?
07:22 The canon definition of the transporter states that it sends both the atoms of the person
07:27 or item, along with the information around said atoms.
07:31 To put it another way, the transporter is said to send the original file in whole, instead
07:36 of a copy.
07:37 With that being the case, there's a number of issues in how this is depicted in the franchise.
07:41 In the episode "The Enemy Within", Captain Kirk is split into two halves.
07:45 There is the passive good Kirk and the highly aggressive evil Kirk.
07:49 Though a fun story, written by Richard Matheson no less, if one is to follow the canon explanation
07:54 of the transporter, this would be impossible.
07:57 Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss wrote in his book "The Physics of Star Trek"
08:00 that if the atoms and the information are being sent in a transporter beam, then splitting
08:05 into two distinct people would be impossible, as the beam could only rematerialise the exact
08:10 same number of atoms.
08:12 To split Kirk in this fashion, the poor man would have to be bifurcated.
08:16 However, if the transporter only sends the information each time, then transporter clones
08:21 are entirely possible.
08:22 This would account for evil Kirk, Thomas Riker, and William Boimler, all of whom were created
08:27 as transporter copies along the way.
08:30 Number 2.
08:31 God bless the pattern buffer.
08:32 The pattern buffer is the part of the transporter that stores the information due to be sent
08:36 from one location to the next.
08:37 This, combined with the Doppler compensators, allowed the device to factor in any changes
08:42 during transport that may have occurred after hitting send.
08:46 With that said, there were many more uses for the component beyond its initial design.
08:50 The most well-known jury-rigging of a pattern buffer came when the Enterprise-D discovered
08:54 the downed USS Ginola on the Dyson Sphere.
08:57 With that ship all but destroyed, Captain Montgomery Scott and another crewman, Matt
09:01 Franklin, programmed the pattern buffers to lock into a continuous diagnostic cycle, effectively
09:05 keeping them in stasis.
09:07 The theory was only half successful.
09:09 Scotty rematerialised, but Franklin went the way of the Redshirts.
09:12 The pattern buffers also stored all information from each transport, which in turn allowed
09:17 them to keep something of medical history for travellers.
09:19 In Favourite Son, the crew of Voyager were able to determine the truth behind Harry Kim's
09:24 supposed return "home" as alien DNA is traced back through his trips in the transporter.
09:29 The buffers could be extended to carry several dozen travellers at a time, though this was
09:33 rarely advised as too much information could cause them to malfunction.
09:37 1.
09:38 Teleportation in Reality
09:39 The idea that led to the transporter, namely teleportation itself, is a far older phenomenon
09:45 than Star Trek.
09:46 The first usage of the term was coined by American writer Charles Ford in his 1931 novel
09:51 Lowe, though in the novel he prefaces by saying that many will accuse him of making up nonsense,
09:56 he proceeds to at least attempt to define it.
09:58 The term comes from the Latin words for remote, tele, and to carry, portare.
10:03 Ford was using the term to describe the strange disappearances and appearances of anomalies.
10:07 A similar idea had existed in fiction for a while, with examples as early as 1897 combining
10:13 both teleportation and time travel, though at that time the word had not yet been coined.
10:19 Quantum teleportation suggests that it is possible to transmit the information of a
10:22 subject across distances without actually moving them.
10:25 This would tie in with Lawrence Krauss' theory that it would allow for transporter
10:28 clones.
10:29 While there is no conclusive verification of this type of transport to date, in 2014
10:34 researcher Ronald Hansen and colleagues from the Technological University Delft in the
10:38 Netherlands demonstrated information teleportation between two entangled quantum bits that were
10:43 three metres apart.
10:44 Now the aviation and motor industries can relax as this may not be a precursor to matter
10:49 transportation just yet, but it is certainly a rung on that same ladder.
10:54 Thank you very much for joining me for this video everybody.
10:56 If you want to get in touch you can catch us on Twitter @TrekCulture, you can catch
10:59 myself @SeanFerric on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok where I post daily little tidbits about
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11:08 Make sure that you live long and prosper, make sure that you look after yourselves.
11:11 Much love, thanks very much.
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