Transporter technology

L31mr0d

Was remembering the book "Timeline" by Micheal Crichton, where he tried to elaborate on his views of the time travelling device they used in it and it got me to thinking about the transporter in the Star Trek universe.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the transporter is effectively killing the individual (by destroying the persons physical form and turning them into energy), then using this recorded image of them in the buffer to recreate them from memory on the other side.

My question is the original matter is lost, they are effectively creating a clone correct? What is stopping them from using this image in the buffer to make as many of that individual as they wished?

Or, say a persons dies on an away mission, why can't they use the image in the buffer to just recreate a new version of that person? (I'm kinda glad this wasn't an option in regards to Tasha Yar :rolleyes:) We know they keep an image of them in the buffer because they use it on numerous occasions throughout the series (in TNG anyway I can think of a handful of episodes where they use the persons previous buffer image to restore them) I think I remember the morality of the transporter being brought up in an Enterprise episode also.

There's also the question of what form a person takes when they are de-materialized . Like in TNG: "Lonely Among Us" Picard beams himself off the enterprise in energy form. His energy isn't dispersed in space so Data is able to re-materialize him from the last physical record they have in the buffer.

Anyone ever thought about it?

Kiith

L31mr0d wrote: »

Anyone ever thought about it?

Not really

My guess is that the record they have in the image buffer is like a schematic. They have the knowledge to put something back together, but they dont have the ability to create organic tissue from scratch. So they can rearrange a person, after having broken their bodies down to the atomic level (or whatever level it is), and then rebuild them using the already existant matter.

Unless someone is actually stored in the transporter (i.e. Scotty for 80 years or whatever), then they cant be reconstituted. So thankfully, we wont ever see multiple Janeway's running around the place.

Although multiple 7 or 9's i something i shall have to ponder

Myrddin

The persons pattern will degrade in the pattern buffers if its not materialized failrly pronto (the scotty case was different). I guess the reason thats cannon is because of your original question....

I think the archived pattern is purely used for comparisons (similar to what kiith says above), its no use without the actual person, its more like a schematic/blueprint