If someone dies, why can't they use the transporter to make a new version?

Even with a strong moral code against doing so, there surely would be those who were tempted into doing it

Though I've seen a lot of ST, DS9 is the only series I've seen in totality. I just finished it on Netflix and started in on Voyager.

bearamedic99 said:

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If someone dies, why can't they use the transporter to make a new version?

Even with a strong moral code against doing so, there surely would be those who were tempted into doing it

Though I've seen a lot of ST, DS9 is the only series I've seen in totality. I just finished it on Netflix and started in on Voyager.

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there is a tuvok/neelix episode in season 2 that will blow your mind

There was also the angry Will Riker clone in tng.

Both that and the Tubak/Neelix episodes were accidents. I'm not sure if it's ever addressed whether that could be done on purpose.

To the best of recollection, they never had any moral or ethical dilemmas about recreating a dead person, so I tend to think it wasn't possible.

If it were possible, it seems like Kardassians or Romulans would have done so to replace dead soldiers. And the Orion Symdicate or the Ferengi would have done it on the black market beyond the Federation's reach.

Sometimes they just transfer the memories of a dying person into an android.

Well yes, if you are transporting a dead body

But what if Jerry dies and his buddy Tom pulls up the transporter log from yesterday and has the transporter materialize a new Jerry using the schematics/data stored from the last transporter use.

07ag said:

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bearamedic99 said:

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If someone dies, why can't they use the transporter to make a new version?

Even with a strong moral code against doing so, there surely would be those who were tempted into doing it

Though I've seen a lot of ST, DS9 is the only series I've seen in totality. I just finished it on Netflix and started in on Voyager.

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there is a tuvok/neelix episode in season 2 that will blow your mind

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Yep

It wouldn't happen with the transporter. The Enterprise would fly speedily around the planet in the opposite direction of it's rotation to reverse time and bring someone back to life. Wait a sec. wouldn't everyone who recently died come back to life?

Do you think that the transporter actually makes a copy of the person, and the original ceases to exist?

So like, the first time you use a transporter you actually die, but no one ever knows it.

Well, think about it.

Your atoms are made up of the same subatomic particles and mostly open space as the air around you, and ground under you, with a few protons and electrons arranged slightly differently.

So what are "you" really?

Is a transporter really moving your atoms or just rearranging atoms in the target zone to match yours? Either way, all you particles are in constant motion, and blinking in and out of the universe and whatnot. So whatever shows up on the other end is not "you"

So in a way, transporter tech has to have also mastered god, consciousness, and the soul.

Funny what you come up with at 4am.

Fwiw, insomnia may be just the opposite.

I think the answer here, though it's nonsensical, is that basically your transporter file size is too large to store. They can send it somewhere, but they can't store all that data. They can even edit it while beaming (like the Pulaski example), but there's no way to store a copy of a pattern.

Now, you can store a pattern in the "pattern buffer" for a long time if you lock it into a cycle and have enough energy (like Scotty in "Relics") but when you do that nobody else can use that transporter and there's still only one copy of yourself.

double aught said:

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Do you think that the transporter actually makes a copy of the person, and the original ceases to exist?

So like, the first time you use a transporter you actually die, but no one ever knows it.

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Ever since I saw the Prestige I've thought this about teleporters particularly in Star Trek. If you have to use different mass to recreate someone then leave me the ef alone, Reginald Barkley has every right to fear the transporters and I will never blame him one bit.

If you pushed Roddenberry I'm sure he would have said some magic about the "pattern buffer" ensures that it's the same person, mainly because he didn't think about the "prestige" angle.

A prestige scenario is what happened with Riker in 'Second Chances,' but that episode shows that that isn't what happens every time.

The accident with the Vulcan science officer in ST:TMP shows that they don't have a "restore from backup" option, which probably means they also can't make copies.

(at least not with TOS technology)

bobinator said:

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A prestige scenario is what happened with Riker in 'Second Chances,' but that episode shows that that isn't what happens every time.

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Yeah because you're disintegrating the original.

Let me just take this moment to say Riker was such an uninteresting character that I would even rate Neelix over him.

That's all. Back to transporter talk.

This was discussed in an old ST novel from the 70s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spock_Must_Die!

Jimmy Akin's podcast discussed this. Go to minute 8 to hear. Audio play is near bottom of page.
http://jimmyakin.com/2020/11/are-transporters-murder-machines-more-weird-questions-jimmy-akins-mysterious-world.html


It's pretty nerdy discussion of moral and ethical uses of different types of theoretical teleportation.


I think a future Star Trek could upgrade transporter tech (amount of memory, whatever) could respawn people who have died and have a whole lot of implications. It would be an interesting morality/ethical episode. They can already create non-living things from energy in replicators. You have to imagine that that technology would progress to the point of replication a living thing.

The problem with it being an episode is that once that's in the canon, it becomes a question of why the bad guys aren't using it more often.

Though i guess that's the case for a lot of things in Star Trek.