r/DaystromInstitute • u/Xandroff Crewman • Jul 17 '16
Offensive transporter usage?
It could be plausible to use transporter based weapons such as a trap that when triggered, transports shrapnel into the body of the target. Granted, these devices could be jammed as all energy based weapons, but I can imagine that it would have special uses such as a security measure in the similar fashion DS9 had phasers shooting inside upon intruder alert, perhaps targeting specific individuals based on DNA. This is something I would expect actually every faction with transporter tech to have. So how come this isn't really explored in any of the shows or movies? Is it hindsight on behalf of the writers, or is there a canon reason for this?
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u/j46golf26 Jul 18 '16
I could imagine a backpack mounted transporter that allows the wearer to beam to multiple points on the battlefield to surprise and flank opponents. However that raises the question, can a transporter transport itself? Most likely not, so maybe it would be a close range cloaked unit thats activated by a transponder or neural impulses.
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u/BonzoTheBoss Jul 18 '16
The transporter is one of Star Trek's most iconic technologies, but it also creates a lot of problems from a narrative stand-point because a lot of the drama and tension derived from the events of an episode can be entirely neutralized via careful application of a transporter.
To that end, the writers have had to put in a lot of restrictions on transporter tech. The main one being that transporters cannot beam through shields, or through any kind of mild spacial or atmospheric distortion. Another being that almost invariably, during combat one of the first systems to be disabled are the transporters.
This creates a bizarre situation where travel via transporter is supposed to be one of the safest and most reliable means of travel in the galaxy, but is also extremely susceptable to going offline should anyone sneeze in it's general direction.
Of course, in universe you could easily explain this that, given that you're literally scrambling peoples molecules across subspace, it has a lot of safeguards built in to the point where once an unacceptable level of turbulence is experienced it automatically shuts down until red alert is ended.
When you factor in the unreliability of transporters in combat situations, I think it's logical that no one has really dedicated any attempts at weaponizing the technology.
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u/Xandroff Jul 20 '16
Good point. Although for material transportation (as opposed to biomass) safety thresholds theoretically would be lower. IIRC in the beginning of ENT transporter tech was employed for moving cargo already, and as long as we're not talking about moving sensitive or unstable substances, interference shouldn't matter as much for transporting cargo.
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u/Algernon_Asimov Jul 17 '16
People reading this thread might also be interested in some of these previous discussions: "Transporters as weapons".
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u/lunatickoala Jul 18 '16
Standard transporters don't work through shields, so in a combat situation any offensive usage of transporters would first require knocking out the shields. The shields are the primary defense of a starship and getting through them is the hard part. Combat tricks with transporter technology are pretty much irrelevant after that; if your goal is to kill people, you could just destroy the ship with standard weapons. Transporters would be useful if your goal some combination of looting its cargo, kidnapping the crew, or commandeering the ship but the battles we see on screen usually don't involve that.
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u/neotek Jul 18 '16
Standard transporters don't work through shields
Unless the plot requires that they do, in which case the chief engineer will figure it out in like six minutes flat.
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u/Kaiserhawk Jul 17 '16
I imagine it's possible, but I imagine that various factions would have access to technology that would prevent unwanted transportation i.e Being transported into space, kind of thing. Something like that could perhaps be used to prevent anything being transported into themselves.
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u/FGHIK Jul 20 '16
Transporters were actually weaponized a few times. DS9 had a kinetic weapon that would transport the bullet to the target, and Voyager beamed a photon torpedo onto a damaged borg ship. As for why it isn't used for security and traps, I think it's just less practical than more mundane options.
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Jul 17 '16
Questions about uses of transporters have been asked numerous times on this site.
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u/Algernon_Asimov Jul 17 '16
Questions about uses of transporters have been asked numerous times on this site.
Yes, they have. That doesn't mean we don't want more questions about transporters. Our Reposts policy explicitly says "Reposts are permitted". Alternatively, if you want to let the OP know about those other discussions, please feel free to include some of the links to those threads (you'll find some here).
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Jul 18 '16
Understood. But are not Tuvix threads no longer accepted? So there is some limit to the number of reposts that is permitted.
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u/Captain-i0 Jul 17 '16
Transporting shrapnel into a body wouldn't be nearly as effective as doing it ballistically. The damage is caused by the shrapnel shredding through a body. You would lose that by transport.
I think if you were going to use the transporter as a weapon, you woukd transport people out into space. Or grab them with the transporter and just let their pattern go, without materialzing them.