- 5 minutes ago
It's one of the few pieces of tech from Star Trek that has yet to be invented. Or, is it?
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Outside of Warp Drive these magical creations are probably the most well-known piece of
00:05technology to come out of this franchise and also to make us all really really upset whenever we
00:10have to queue for a plane or a bus or a car or pay for petrol. With that in mind
00:15I'm Sean Ferrick
00:16for Trek Culture and here are 10 things you need to know about transporters. Number 10. They were
00:23invented to save money and time. The earliest pitches for Star Trek had to deal with the
00:27challenge of getting the crew down to the planets each week. Support shuttles were suggested as was
00:31landing the Enterprise itself though both would have proven prohibitively expensive in the beginning.
00:36So the producers were backed against a wall and came up with the idea of the matter transporter.
00:40This became part of the pitch and part of the reason that Star Trek was given the green light,
00:44twice. It helped to sell the cage first of all. Now rather than committing to large scale models
00:49for the pilot that may or may not take off this fantastic new technology could be used instead.
00:55When the cage failed to make any traction the show was given a new pilot where no man has gone
00:59before,
01:00though it was actually the man trap that helped Star Trek survive. The depiction of the transporter
01:06in that episode excited the network so much that they bumped it up for broadcast meaning that it was
01:10shown to audiences before the first episode. Number 9. The first transporter was achieved with
01:16practical effects. The actual look of the transporter beam is quite striking in its various iterations
01:21and is most often achieved by means of CGI. Star Trek Voyager and Star Trek Discovery heavily
01:27redesigned the original transporter beam adding a slower blue dissolve in the former with a golden
01:32circular pattern appearing in the latter. The original series achieved the look by dropping aluminium
01:36powder between the camera and a black background. This was then superimposed on the images of the
01:41various crewmen who were then dissolved out of the shot. This was most often achieved with the actual
01:46footage being frozen as it would be a little later in the franchise before technology would allow people
01:50to move while in transport. Between that wall and the brightly lit floor and ceiling pads the transporter
01:56set was able to overpower the stage lights allowing an easier transition for overlaying the shots of the beam
02:02itself. Number 8. The Heisenberg Compensator. The Heisenberg Compensator is part of the transporter that
02:08specifically deals with Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. In quantum mechanics the principle is any of a
02:13variety of mathematical inequalities that place a limit on the accuracy that certain pairs of physical
02:19quantities of a particle can accurately predict. So what does this mean in English? First published in 1927
02:25German physicist Heisenberg posited that the more precisely an object's location can be determined
02:31the less likely it is to predict its momentum after initial findings. This theory was then put into the
02:36makeup of the transporter in Star Trek. In the episode Realm of Fear Barkley and O'Brien are seen
02:41examining the Heisenberg compensator which is shown to be a component of the overall device. This is
02:46their workaround for Heisenberg's theory. Now it goes without saying that the compensator is an entirely
02:51fictional invention while the transporter itself does have a basis in reality, more on that later,
02:56the compensator also became a handy plot point, something that the crew would look to when there
03:01was an issue with a transport that was either out of their control or an easy scapegoat when trying to
03:06install the Moriarty hologram in ship in a bottle. Number seven, transporters can be used as weapons.
03:12The transporter has a very dark capacity while remaining the easiest method of travel in Star Trek's universe.
03:17Once an area is unshielded, it can serve to pluck any living thing from its location and beam them wherever
03:23the
03:23operator chooses. For example, there are several occasions in the original series when some poor red shirts stepped onto the
03:29transporter pad, only to find themselves floating in space moments later. The transporter can be
03:33co-opted as well. In the darkness and the light, while Dax and Worf are attempting to beam a member
03:38of Kira's old resistance cell to their runabout, the transporter pattern is scrambled. This is deliberate.
03:43The deranged Cardassian Sileron Pryn had been systematically wiping out the Shakar's cell.
03:48He hit a tiny pattern scrambler on the poor victim which ended up killing her in a horrible fashion,
03:53all while Dax and Worf looked on, unable to stop it. More recently,
03:567 of 9 used the transporters aboard La Sirena to beam several Neo Borg drones into the foundations
04:02of Chateau Picard, killing them instantly as they rematerialised with half of their bodies fused to
04:07the stone. Number 6, Emergency Transporters. The first obvious use of the emergency transporter
04:13came in Star Trek Nemesis. This was used by Data to rescue Captain Picard, though at the cost of his
04:18own life. It was a small device, fitted with its own power source, giving it the ability to send a
04:22signal
04:23back to the Enterprise-E without having to rely on either that ship or the Scimitar's power sources.
04:28By that year it was still considered a prototype due to its limitations. Earlier incarnations of
04:33emergency transporters were closer in design to those standard personnel transporters found
04:37aboard most starships and starbases. These were designed to send larger groups at a time often
04:42used during evacuation procedures. By the 32nd century these smaller transporters had become
04:47standard practice, embedded into Starfleet COM badges. Starfleet Discovery's 3rd and 4th seasons
04:51seemed to have done away with the standard transporter rooms altogether as the COM badge
04:55contains enough power to send the wearer from ship to planet, whereas this was beyond the
04:59capabilities of earlier models. A combination of the personal transporters and the pattern buffers
05:03allowed the crew of the Discovery to escape disintegration as the ship exited a void as part
05:08of their search for the cause of the DMA. Number 5, No, Beam Me Up Scotty was never said out
05:14loud.
05:14Though now it's well known, the exact phrase Beam Me Up Scotty was never actually said on screen in Star
05:19Trek.
05:20Many variations of the command were issued throughout the years including near misses like
05:24Scotty, Beam Me Up. The misquote started to appear in popular media roughly 10 years after Star Trek's
05:30debut. It was both connected to the franchise itself and became slang that was used in other contexts.
05:36Perhaps unsurprisingly for the period, i.e. the 60s and 70s, it quickly became associated with taking
05:41mind-altering drugs, allowing the user to disappear into another place, mentally. James Doohan used the phrase
05:48as the title of his autobiography in 1996 and the quote was so connected to him that it's included
05:53in his obituary despite the actor never having spoken the lines nor responded to them. William
05:58Shatner did however include the line in an audio recording of his novel Ashes to Eden. The rebooted
06:03Kelvin films have continued the tradition of almost using the quote as there are several examples where
06:08Kirk and other characters quickly bark the order Scotty, Beam us out. Number 4, Transwarp Beaming.
06:14Transwarp Beaming was demonstrated in the Kelvin timeline films to a mixed reaction. In the film,
06:19it's Montgomery Scott who perfected the theory, though in the time that Spock Prime travels back to,
06:25Scotty has yet to master it, much to the chagrin of Admiral Archer and his prized Beagle. Spock shows
06:30him the theory required, however this has a knock-on effect. In Star Trek Into Darkness, rogue Section 31 agent
06:37John Harrison uses it to escape Earth and travel all the way to Cronos. Though the film depicts this,
06:44as a single beam, the novelization states the device used didn't have enough power requiring
06:50Khan to beam to a ship, then use that ship to beam to the Klingon homeworld. Though this miracle device
06:56would seem to make Starfleet obsolete, it had actually been suggested by Gene Roddenberry in
07:01the initial development of Star Trek The Next Generation. He put it forward as another cost saving
07:05method, removing the need for a starship at all. Thankfully writer David Gerald shot that idea down
07:11straight away. The Enterprise is the hero, he said, delaying this technology for about a further 20
07:17years. Number three, does the transporter send the atoms and the bits, or just the bits? The canon
07:23definition of the transporter states that it sends both the atoms of the person or item along with the
07:28information around said atoms. To put it another way, the transporter is said to send the original file
07:34in whole instead of a copy. Now with that being the case, there's a number of issues in how this
07:40is
07:40depicted in the franchise. In the episode The Enemy Within, Captain Kirk is split into two halves. There
07:46is the passive good Kirk and the highly aggressive evil Kirk. Though a fun story, written by Richard
07:51Matheson no less, if one is to follow the canon explanation of the transporter this would be impossible.
07:57Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss wrote in his book The Physics of Star Trek that if the atoms and the
08:02information are being sent in a transporter beam then splitting into two distinct people would be
08:06impossible as the beam could only rematerialize the exact same number of atoms. To split Kirk in this
08:13fashion the poor man would have to be bifurcated. However, if the transporter only sends the information
08:19each time then transporter clones are entirely possible. This would account for Evil Kirk, Thomas Riker
08:24and William Boimler all of whom were created as transporter copies along the way. Number two, God bless
08:31the pattern buffer. The pattern buffer is the part of the transporter that stores the information due to
08:35be sent from one location to the next. This, combined with the Doppler compensators, allowed the device
08:41to factor in any changes during transport that may have occurred after hitting send. With that said,
08:47there were many more uses for the component beyond its initial design. The most well known jury rigging
08:51of a pattern buffer came when the Enterprise-D discovered the downed USS Ginolan on the Dyson Sphere.
08:56With that ship all but destroyed, Captain Montgomery Scott and another crewman, Matt Franklin,
09:02programmed the pattern buffers to lock into a continuous diagnostic cycle, effectively keeping
09:06them in stasis. The theory was only half successful, Scotty rematerialized, but Franklin went the way of
09:11the redshirts. The pattern buffers also stored all information from each transport, which in turn
09:16allowed them to keep something of medical history for travellers. In Favourite Sun, the crew of Voyager were
09:22able to determine the truth behind Harry Kim's supposed return home as alien DNA is traced back
09:28through his trips in the transporter. The buffers could be extended to carry several dozen travellers
09:32at a time, though this was rarely advised as too much information could cause them to malfunction.
09:37Number 1. Teleportation in reality. The idea that led to the transporter, namely teleportation itself,
09:43is a far older phenomenon than Star Trek. The first usage of the term was coined by American writer
09:48Charles Fort in his 1931 novel Low. Though in the novel he prefaces by saying that many will accuse
09:55him of making up nonsense, he proceeds to at least attempt to define it. The term comes from the Latin
10:00words for remote, tele, and carry, portare. Fort was using the term to describe the strange disappearances
10:06and appearances of anomalies. A similar idea had existed in fiction for a while with examples as early
10:11as 1897 combining both teleportation and time travel, though at that time the word had not yet been coined.
10:18Quantum teleportation suggests that it is possible to transmit the information of a subject across
10:23distances without actually moving them. This would tie in with Laurence Krause's theory that it would
10:28allow for transporter clones. Now while there's no conclusive verifications of this type of transport
10:32to date, in 2014 researcher Ronald Hansen and colleagues from the Technological University Delft
10:38in the Netherlands demonstrated information teleportation between two entangled quantum bits
10:43that were three meters apart. Now the aviation and motor industries can relax as this may not be a
10:48precursor to matter transportation just yet, but it is certainly a rung on that same ladder. Thank you
10:54very much for joining me for this video everybody, if you want to get in touch you can catch us
10:57on
10:57Twitter at TrekCulture, you can catch myself at Sean Ferrick on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok where I post
11:03daily little tidbits about Star Trek. Check that out, let me know, give me a follow, you guys are all
11:07awesome. Make sure that you live long and prosper, make sure that you look after yourselves, much love,
11:12thanks very much.
Comments