Star Trek questions

[Darren]

Vulcans having warp capability is a pivotal plot point in "Star Trek: First Contact." The fact that they detect Cochrane's warp signature near Earth is what brings them here in the first place.

Independently developing warp technology would later become the basis for first contact from the Federation (cf. TNG's fourth season episode "First Contact").

[Dahak]

Don't you mean Soval?

Yeah I meant Soval but the point is the same. It is very unlikely that the Andorans stole and improved transporter technology by about 100 years in 2 years. Of course what transporters can and can't do varies week by week but still I would say it's more likely T'Pol was mistaken than the Andorans didn't have transporters.

[Erik Pasternak]

Yeah I meant Soval but the point is the same. It is very unlikely that the Andorans stole and improved transporter technology by about 100 years in 2 years. Of course what transporters can and can't do varies week by week but still I would say it's more likely T'Pol was mistaken than the Andorans didn't have transporters.

Seeing as the inventor of Earth's transporter is still alive (the upcoming episode "Deadalus") and is young enough to have a small daughter, I think the one-hundred year figure is slightly off. I'd say Earth has had it for no more that fifteen years at best.

[Jarnin]

It is very unlikely that the Andorans stole and improved transporter technology by about 100 years in 2 years.

Real world example:

USA builds an A-Bomb in 1945.
Soviet Union builds an A-Bomb in 1949.

The reason they were able to build theirs so quickly was due to the fact that they had great spies.

[Dahak]

Ok let me explain by what I meant by 100 years. Earth transporter technology is 15 years old.
But the Andoran's transporter technology is about 100 years better than Earths. Human transporters would not be able to beam Soval into a chair. They still need to use the transporter pads. As a matter of fact Kirk needed to use transporter pads but we will just ignore that. So Andoran transporters are better than human transporters which makes it likely they had them at least as long as humans have had them if not longer.
Plus wouldn't they have stolen the idea from the Vulcans anyway? Unless the writers are saying the humans gave transporter technology to the Vulcans. The Andorans and Vulcans both consider the other as the main enemy and something with such great military advantages as transporters would quickly be stolen. Much like the A-bomb was on Earth.

[LordAnubis]

Seeing as the inventor of Earth's transporter is still alive (the upcoming episode "Deadalus") and is young enough to have a small daughter, I think the one-hundred year figure is slightly off. I'd say Earth has had it for no more that fifteen years at best.

How do we know that the Humans didn't invent the transporter concept and then gave it to the Vulcans and other aliens? I mean, in First Contact, the Vulcan ship had to actually land and they got out of the ship to meet Dr. Cochrane. No transporters. Also, in the Enterprise episode where Vulcans allegedly crashed on Earth in the 1950s, there was no mention of transporters at all; they too had to use conventional means of entering and departing their ship.

I think it's possible that humans created transporters and they did this on their own without help from any other race. I don't see why that can't be. Cochrane created warp on Earth independently from other races, but if Vulcan transporters existed before we created them, then it's impossible for any human to create a transporter independently from the Vulcans, with whom we've been in contact for 100 years.

Logic dictates that among the humans and Vulcans, the humans created the transporter. If not, then there is no way the dude in "Daedelus" independently created squat. He would be copying a Vulcan transporter, which once again, makes us lame and stupid. I don't buy that crap. We designed it, conceived of the idea, and created it. We gave it to the Vulcans and maybe others. It's possible, however, that other races got it independently.

Although, personally, I think Klingons are too warlike and stupid ( and I mean that, they are not known for their great intellect) to create anything that's advanced; they probably stole most of their tech. There is no way a stupid Klingon could stop fighting and killing long enough to conceive of warp drive or transporters. Maybe the Romulans, but chances are, if the Vulcans didn't have something first, the Romulans wouldn't have it either, unless it pertained to defense and war. The Vulcans appear to be more creative than Romulans. In TOS, the Romulans did not have warp drive, only impulse.

[Madeleine]

Real world example:

USA builds an A-Bomb in 1945.
Soviet Union builds an A-Bomb in 1949.

The reason they were able to build theirs so quickly was due to the fact that they had great spies.

True, there'll always be spies.

Not to mention the many discoveries that were discovered totally independantly at around the same time. Sometimes when several large populations are at a comparable level of technological or scientific achievement certain discoveries or inventions are just sitting there waiting to be happened upon. Like telephones, vaccination, non-Euclidean geometry and cats-eyes, all of which were actually invented / discovered by two or more unconnected people more-or-less concurrently.

[SP90]

Ok let me explain by what I meant by 100 years. Earth transporter technology is 15 years old.
But the Andoran's transporter technology is about 100 years better than Earths. Human transporters would not be able to beam Soval into a chair. They still need to use the transporter pads. As a matter of fact Kirk needed to use transporter pads but we will just ignore that. So Andoran transporters are better than human transporters which makes it likely they had them at least as long as humans have had them if not longer.
Plus wouldn't they have stolen the idea from the Vulcans anyway? Unless the writers are saying the humans gave transporter technology to the Vulcans. The Andorans and Vulcans both consider the other as the main enemy and something with such great military advantages as transporters would quickly be stolen. Much like the A-bomb was on Earth.

I think the correct terms your looking for is "site-to-site transport" and "intraship transport". With site-to-site transport you could potentally beam from one place like your bed to say the kitchen without ever stepping on a transporter pad. This is useful in medical emergencies when you want to move the injuried from where they got hurt directly into a medical facility, onto an operating table even. In the case in Kir'Shara, it is also useful in abduction.

In terms of the tech, I think the first time we see site to site transport is in the TOS episode Day of the Dove. I could be wrong, but I remember Kirk and a bunch of red shirts beamed into engineering where the Klingons were holding out to try to negociate with them or something. They may have started off on the transporter pad in which case it was intraship transport. I remember Scotty was worried that if the calculations were off by even a little they could rematerialize between decks of inside bulkheads.

By the time the NCC-1701-B was launched, site to site transport has been perfected since Captain Harriman told Scotty to beam the El'Aurians "directly" to sickbay. He looked at Kirk and said something like its okay, but maybe that line was only in the novelization, I forgot. Their energy pattern went through the transporter buffers but they didn't rematerialized in the transporter room, but rather sickbay.

As for the Andorians having the ability, they must have been hiding the fact that they had transporter technology really really well or they have some really creative engineers who are apparently also very good at reverse engineering. I doubt the High Command will hide the fact that Andorians have transporter tech from its officiers. Their officers might be abducted too if they don't know about the tech and take measures to protect themselves. Having your high ranking officiers like a sub-commander abducted by the enemy is bad for business.

Technically speaking, if you have sensors with high enough resolution and sensitivity, you could potentially map out a suitable beam-in area for a site-to-site transport. It would also require extra power to the transporters because now it has to rematerialize the object elsewhere. It is almost like two transports because you beaming the object into the pattern buffer then you beam it out the destination to be reintegrated. So if the Andorians have the sensors and paid their electric bill, then I guess its possible.