Star Trek: The Original Seriesdelivered on its promise to show Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the Starship Enterprise on their mission"to explore strange new worlds"through the ingenious use of the transporter. Showing the USS Enterprise or a shuttlecraft touching down on every new planet would incur additional expenses, soStar Trek: The Original Series' writers invented the transporter to cheaply move landing parties from ship to planet and back. Since then, the transporter has been a staple ofStar Trekstorytelling ineveryStar Trekshow.
Star Trek’s transporter works by converting matter to energy at a subatomic level. The energy stream is fed through the pattern buffer, then the emitter array, and transmitted through subspace to be rematerialized at the desired location.Beaming back from a location back to a transporter room requires the transporter operator to get a lockon the individual to be transported using a targeting scanner. Generally speaking, the transporter can’t be used while a starship is at warp, cloaked, or has shields up, though there are some exceptions to this rule throughout theStar Trektimeline, especially as transporter technology evolves.
Star Trek’s Transporter Has Been Invaluable To The Franchise’s Storytelling
Transporter Malfunctions Are A Class Of Star Trek Stories On Their Own
Star Trek’s transporter has been invaluable to the franchise’s storytelling since moving personnel quickly means plots can move just as fast.Storytelling necessity breeds innovations to transporter technologythat have helpedStar Trekstories move even faster.Star Trek: The Next Generation’s 24th century has site-to-site transport, which eliminates the need for a stopover in the transporter room, since personal signals in Starfleet officers' comm badges allow transporters to function more efficiently. In the 32nd century,Star Trek: Discoveryhas personal transportersthat double as holding space for items, making characters' inventory virtually limitless.
While initially unintentional inStar Trek: The Original Series, a modified transporter had become a reliable way to get to and fromStar Trek’s Mirror Universe inStar Trek: Deep Space Nine.SeveralDS9characters purposefully visited the Mirror Universe using the transporter in an ongoing series ofStar Trek: Deep Space Nineepisodes.
Of course, advanced technology is also prone to malfunctions, andStar Trek’s transporters are no exception.Transporter technology can backfire in countless ways,creating a whole new staple trope forStar Trekstories.Star Trek: Enterpriseshowed early transporter tests were deadly, andStar Trek: The Motion Picturefeatured a particularly gruesome transporter accident. More interesting cases includeStar Trek: Voyager’s Tuvix(Tom Wright), and Ensign Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) being half-beamed inStar Trek: Lower Decks. With so many potential problems, it’s no wonder that characters like Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and Lieutenant Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz) don’t trust transporters.
The Transporter Problem Star Trek Has Never Fully Managed To Resolve
The Plot Will Always Be Stronger Than Star Trek’s Advanced Technology
There’s still one problem with thetransporter fromStar Trek: The Original Seriesthat the franchise has never managed to resolve. Because the transporter allows for such easy travel between locations,Star Trekhas had to create reasons that transporter travel is impossible whenever the plot demands it. If transporter use would provide a simple solution to a necessary problem, the transporter operator"can’t get a lock.“Blocks that prevent beaming endangered parties back to safety have come from naturally occurring phenomena like ambient radiation or ion storms, and from devices like planetary dampening fields or fluctuations in power.
Transporter Inhibitors Include:
The problem of being in a place whereStar Trekcharacterscan’t use the transporter does create an interesting balance. It’s comparable to modern stories where having a working cell phone would solve the whole dilemma, but characters suddenly lose reception, or discover their battery is dangerously low.Even skilled transporter operators like Scotty (James Doohan) and Chief Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) have been thwarted by conveniently-timed"interference”,whether that makes transport impossible or only delayed. By design, it’s a problem that can’t ever be solved, since the plot is stronger than the skill ofStar Trek’s greatest engineers.
