Here’s one of the most fascinating and potentially troubling questions in all of Star Trek fandom:
what happens to people who use the transporter?
If Dr. McCoy beams from the Enterprise to a planet, is the Dr. McCoy who materializes
on the planet the same person who dematerialized on the ship a moment ago?
Or did the Dr. McCoy who stepped onto the transporter pad die when the transporter was
energized?
Is transporter chief Kyle Star Trek’s most prolific killer?
I was going to devote this video to answering those questions.
But while doing a bit of research I discovered two things.
First: Lots of other folks have already explored the “does the transporter kill you” question
in videos and written articles.
And second: There isn’t really a simple answer to the question.
Over the last fifty years, Star Trek’s portrayal of how the transporter works has been extremely
inconsistent.
So that inconsistency will be my subject instead, in this video which I am still titling
“Is Star Trek’s Transporter Actually a Murder Machine?” because, you know, it might
be.
There are two primary possibilities here, as I see it.
Possibility #1: The transporter conducts you from point A to point B in a phase-shifted
state.
In Star Trek, phase-shifting can allow phased objects to pass through unphased objects.
So a person who has been phase-shifted is still in one piece, just in a different state.
When you arrive at your destination following transport, you are shifted back to your original
state, the same person you were before you stepped on the transporter pad.
Possibility #2: The transporter disassembles you at point A and recreates you precisely,
right down to your memories, at point B, so the you who arrives at the destination is
not the you who stepped on the transporter, but essentially a duplicate of the previous
you, who thinks they are the exact same person, but aren’t, not that anyone except the now
annihilated previous version of you would know the difference.
There is evidence throughout the Star Trek TV series and films to support both of these
possibilities.
I’ll just offer a few examples of each, since the purpose here isn’t to exhaustively
document every reference to how the transporter works – it’s to illustrate how impossible
it is, in my opinion, to settle on one of those possibilities to the exclusion of the
other.
Oh, and before I get too much farther into this, there is a third possible answer.
Possibility #3: Who cares?
The transporter is a made-up thing on a made-up show.
It works however the characters on the show say it works, if it’s inconsistent that
doesn’t matter because it doesn’t actually exist and we’re not supposed to think it
does.
And this, I think, is the proper answer.
But it’s also a not a very fun place to start, so let’s boldly set aside the wise
advice of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 theme song to repeat to ourselves it’s just
a show, we should really just relax, and push on, full ahead.
The strongest evidence in favor of Possibility #1 is that this is clearly how the characters
of Star Trek think it works.
The transporter has been established as being safe, generally.
Remember that TNG episode where Barclay’s like, “Hey, I have serious anxiety about
using the transporter, by the way.”
And Geordi’s like, “There’ve been like two transporter accidents in the last ten
years!
It’s super-safe, so quit being such a goddamn baby.”
Sure, if you use it during an ion storm it can send you to a parallel universe populated
by evil versions of your friends, but hey, no technology is perfect, am I right?
That same episode, “Realm of Fear,” also demonstrates that people are conscious throughout
the transporting process – Barclay is able to see and even interact with other beings
in the transporter beam, who turn out to be crew members from another starship who had
been trapped in their transporter.
This consciousness during transport had been previously established in Star Trek II, where
we see Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Saavik conversing while being transported, and in
an earlier TNG episode, “Darmok,” where we see Picard protesting as he’s being beamed
up.
And there are other examples, too, but those are the only ones I’m tellin’ ya about!
Remaining conscious during transport is important because it means the journey from point A
to point B in the transporter is an uninterrupted one – you don’t lose consciousness (or
possibly die) at the beginning and regain consciousness at the end.
You’re awake, experiencing the entire thing from start to finish, like a ride in a fancy,
glitter-filled turbolift.
A final bit of evidence for Possibility #1: whenever characters express misgivings about
the transporter, they’re always worried about the transporter failing in some way.
Correct me if you know better
(actually, don’t bother – I don’t really care)
but I don’t think there’s ever been a Star Trek character that has objected to the
transporter because they felt it was dangerous even when it was working properly.
The “transporters kill you every time you use them” concern doesn’t seem to exist
for these people.
And yet, I find quite a bit of evidence for Possibility #2.
Let’s start with that episode of TNG I mentioned a minute ago, “Realm of Fear.”
In the same scene where Geordi declares the transporter to be the safest way to travel,
Barclay describes how freaked out he was when he learned that the transporter converts your
body into data.
This view of the transporter is also represented in the Deep Space Nine episode “Our Man
Bashir,” where an explosion during transport forces Odo and Eddington to save the patterns
of several crew members, inserting their physical patterns into the holosuite program Dr. Bashir
is running, and storing their neural information in the computer’s memory.
Eventually they use another transporter to reincorporate the minds and bodies of their
crewmates.
And let’s not forget the TNG episode “Relics,” where Scotty is able to survive for decades
in a crashed ship by storing himself in the transporter.
If the transporter converts you into digital information which can then be saved in computer
memory, allowing you to be retrieved decades later having not aged or experienced the passage
of time, it’s doing a lot more than moving you from point A to point B.
But there’s an even stronger piece of evidence for Possibility #2, and that is the transporter’s
repeatedly demonstrated ability to duplicate people.
This was first seen in the Original Series episode “The Enemy Within,” where a transporter
accident temporarily splits Captain Kirk into two people – a passive, weak version, and
an impulsive, amoral version that allowed William Shatner to throw down a gauntlet to
every other ham actor who would ever walk onto a stage or step in front of a camera
from that point on, for all time.
Remember this scene?
Where id-monster Kirk hears benign weakling Kirk making an announcement, and he flips
out, shrieking, “IIIIIII’M CAPTAIN KIIIIIIIRK!” while alone in his cabin?
I love that scene.
I’ve even got a birthday card with a shot from that scene on it.
See?
Anyway, there’s another episode that gives us an even better example of the transporter
operating according to Possibility #2.
It’s a Next Generation episode titled “Second Chances.”
Commander Riker leads an away team to retrieve scientific data from an abandoned outpost
he helped to evacuate eight years ago, and is shocked to find that a duplicate of himself
has been living there for the past eight years.
Whaaaaaaat?!
Back on the Enterprise, Geordi explains: See, the atmosphere on this planet generates a
distortion field that makes it extremely difficult to travel through.
When Riker was beaming up eight years ago, the transporter operator used two transporter
beams, just to make sure Riker made it back to his ship.
But it turned out the second beam wasn’t necessary, so the transporter op shut it down.
But the atmosphere of the planet reflected that extra beam back to the surface, which
resulted in one Riker materializing on the ship, and – unbeknownst to anyone else until
now – another Riker materializing back on the planet.
The rest of the episode makes it very clear that both Rikers are “the real Riker”
– there isn’t an original and a copy, there’s just the Riker who got off the planet
and the Riker that didn’t.
The Riker who beamed down to the planet eight years ago was split in two, like a cell undergoing
mitosis.
And just as the parent cell no longer exists after mitosis, leaving two identical daughter
cells in its place, the original Riker no longer existed after this transporter incident,
only the two identical, um, daughter(?)
Rikers.
By the way, something’s always bothered me about this episode.
At some point Lt. Riker reveals that he’s looked up the service record of Commander
Riker, which includes being promoted for his heroic efforts in the evacuation of Nevala
IV, the planet where Lt. Riker was trapped for eight years.
Which means that’s his promotion!
The only difference between Commander Riker and Lt. Riker is that one made it off the
planet and the other didn’t.
Up until the moment of transport, they were the exact same person, so technically Lt.
Riker should have been promoted to Lt. Commander Riker as soon as he was rescued.
Instead, look at this shit: he exits at the end of the episode, still a Lieutenant.
That is bullshit.
No wonder he joined the Maquis.
But I digress.
I think you see my point.
The question, “Is the transporter a murder machine?” is a good starting point for fun,
nerdy conversations – it’s a great excuse to talk about Star Trek, and who doesn’t
love those?
But the question doesn’t have a definitive answer.
Does the transporter simply conduct people from point A to point B, like a turbolift
only with glitter?
Yes.
Does it kill you at point A, convert you into data, and assemble an exact duplicate of you
at point B?
Yes.
How can both be true?
Because none of it is real, and sometimes its okay to sacrifice internal consistency
for the sake of a good story.
The producers, writers, and directors of Star Trek – that is, the people who make it all
up – don’t care, and ultimately, neither should we.
The transporter works however the characters say it works in that story.
If Geordi and Chief O’Brien say it’s safe, it’s safe.
I mean, who’d know better than those two, right?
All the same, I think I’d rather take the shuttlecraft.
Yo Barclay!
Wait up!
Why did I do that? That was silly. It's a picture. It can't hear me.