Transporter Troubles (Star Trek)

The Transporter is really the safest way to travel in Star Trek, honestly.
There, however is still a lot that can go wrong. So let's take a look at that shall we?
If you want to see basically how the transporter works, here's part one:
• How Transporters Work ...
Music from bensound.com, purple-planet.com and freesfx.co.uk
Star Trek Online developed by Cryptic Studios and Perfect World.
Star Trek, Star Trek Enterprise/Voyager/Deep Space Nine/Discovery/Lower Decks/Picard and The Next Generation are all owned and distributed by CBS.
Star Trek Films are owned and distributed by Paramount Pictures
This Video is for critical purposes with commentary.

[@joncarter3761]

I'm still convinced it's a murder machine that creates a copy of you wherever you were supposed to transport.

[@erichanastacio9695]

It's the perfect murder. The original is killed, and the clone is walking around pretending that the original is still around.

[@ixiahj]

I think one of the characters from TNG had a fear of transporters because of that idea. I think his name was Barclay. He said when going into a transporter, it disintegrates you where you are now effectively dead then it reconstructs/replicates a copy of you at another pad. Its a copy of you but its not you because you're already dead.

[@F_Mothering]

Honestly, this is the only realistic way for transporters to function. (It could even be just a dark secret in canon. Who knows) If you were to convert your entire body's mass into energy, Einstein's famous equation holds true. E=mc^2. To put that into perspective, the energy released from a photon torpedo is 3kg of matter and antimatter. Your typical Starfleet officer would become a beamed equivalent of 20+ photon torpedos... Yeah... No. Just no.

[@donovanulrich348]

Jon You and I are brothers It is a high tech clone transport Folded space gateways or portals/wormholes only thanks XD

[@donovanulrich348]

And mister foxxo Polaski had a fear of transporters They had to give her a plot reason to trasport so they could revers her aging in that episode XD She never used the transporters She had Data fly her

[@THATGuy5654]

That's where the extra mass goes - the mirror universe. Why do you think they're all so cranky? Big piles of organic mush just plop out of nowhere at random times and places.

[@keirfarnum6811]

Does that mean we could use transporters as weight loss devices?

[@Nx57ytre]

Picard is turned into a child by an accident on the transporter. Meanwhile, in the mirror universe, a pile of meat appears on the Enterprise. Mirror Picard: Guys, who committed homicide and forgot to clean it?. I only have one rule about that.

[@TimothyMorigeau]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@merryc.5466]

Hahaha _snort_ Serves them right!

[@richmcgee434]

That reminds me of a trashy scifi series from the 80s called Time Wars by Simon Hawke. The "good guys" invent a technology fairly early on in the series that lets them use nuclear fusion-warhead hand grenades by using modified time travel tech to "clock" the vast majority of the explosion to some other continuum, so you got 20' globes of utter destruction and almost no damage beyond that. About three or four books after they start using the fool things they suddenly get attacked by a bunch of their own dopplegangers trying to undo the original timestream in revenge for all the sudden atomic explosions they started having in their own home continuum. Terrible books, but fun reads if you can suspend your disbelief long enough to get through them.

[@PowerPC601]

If adult Picard had an artificial heart, what about child Picard? Did the transporter recreate his natural one?

[@brianjones8899]

Good point. The writers must've overlooked that part.

[@legacyoftheancientsC64c]

It got turned into a Jarvik model from 1986.

[@Corbomite_Meatballs]

It turned the extra mass from adult Picard into hair for teenager Picard.

[@williamozier918]

Man, I was just impressed that the transporter also had a tailor subroutine that refitted their clothes, but I hadn't caught that it also re-created a biological child heart, and then rebuilt n artificial one.

[@altha-rf1et]

Good thinking

[@stolasburrito74656]

If Janeway had the choice between infinite coffee and killing Tuvix, she’d clone Tuvix and kill him twice. The replicator already produces infinite coffee

[@nobodyimportant2470]

The replicator couldn't produce infinite coffee. It could produce infinite shuttles though.

[@NW-sm8xq]

After finding out how to separate them, why couldn't she clone Tuvix then separate one of the clones/duplicates?

[@mrJety89]

@@nobodyimportant2470 btw Tuvix only lived for Two weeks

[@fenrisvermundr2516]

@@NW-sm8xq Because Tuvok didn't want to pay child support. Legally Tuvix would be defined as the offspring of Tuvok and Neelix. And Neelix would be the mother.

[@kev3d]

A murder so heinous they promoted her to Admiral.

[@JaredLS10]

You left out half the senior staff of DS9 having to get there patterns put in a holosuite program.

[@jeffumbach]

Silly concept but "Our Man Bashir" was such a fun holodeck episode. The only way Worf could have been funnier is if he suddenly had a French accent as well.

[@Matthew-is7zs]

​@@jeffumbachhaha I loved his character in that 😂

[@DanteCorwyn]

Main reason I'd never use a transporter. I've watched The Fly.

[@pvgmartin]

LOL. DKM.

[@richardlahan7068]

No phase discriminator.

[@LetsTakeWalk]

Well, Tuvix happened, so not that weird.

[@iamdmc]

@@LetsTakeWalk Tuvix was an absolutely stupid concept, which disobeyed the laws of physics. It was an interesting episode, though, about the morality of taking one life to save 2 others

[@brianstiles1701]

This is how Tuvixfly, uh, eats. *vomits into his plo'meek soup*

[@scottmantooth8785]

*to quote from the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy on this topic: "“I teleported home last night with Ron and Sid and Meg ...Ron stole Meggy's heart away and I got Sidney's leg.”*

[@scottmantooth8785]

*i'm perfectly happy as to the placement and functionality of all my internal bits as intended...i have no desire to see them dismantled at the molecular level and then resembled hastily elsewhere missing a few vital atoms that alter my overall viability*

[@Taz.B]

I'd definitely be a little wary... I'm like Bones....Give me a shuttlecraft any day! :D

[@scottmantooth8785]

*same here...i'll keep my bits in place as intended...thank you very much*

[@LasVegar]

I would enjoy the view traveling of a planet

[@ANTIStraussian]

Transportation is safer then traveling by shuttle craft. Also every 7 years your body has replaced its atoms anyways so don't be so obsessed with keeping your atoms together.

[@scottmantooth8785]

@@ANTIStraussian *in theory perhaps ... but my atoms my business*

[@ANTIStraussian]

@@scottmantooth8785 no its not a theory. Your body is always losing and replacing its atoms. And about ebrry 7 years you have all new atoms. You aren't born and die with the same atoms 😅🤣

[@donjuan4067]

That vulcan that screamed as they were turned inside out due to the malfunctioning transporter was terrifying.

[@tornadoe13]

Is that what happened? Nasty.

[@pwnmeisterage]

The scream sounded female. Or maybe it was both of them screaming. Hard to tell with all the distortion.

[@ai6894]

Source from novelization. Commander Sonak, as a Vulcan, was silent but in agony. Lieutenant Commander Lori Cianni (a gal pal of Kirk's who Admiral Nogura sent along) was the screamer. 😱😨😰

[@gina7288]

@@ai6894 She was the one letting out the horrible screams she was played by Susan Sullivan and I have got to say I would of screamed exactly the same if I was in her heels it's an horrible way to die.

[@jacobsheehan9715]

Now imagine if that was a human

[@seakelp3508]

You didn't mention the rifle that used transporter technology to shoot through walls.

[@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker]

To my mind, that was the most overdue use of transporter technology in the whole series. A great idea.

[@mammutMK2]

Maybe because it was a step back in technology on first thought and not possible. Energy weapons were first and sensors with low resolution still needed a lot of space and energy, then the transporter developed und improved over the years with the improvement of sensors and energy cells. Throw everything together with a for that usage developed projectile weapon it is actually a whole new type of weapon it self. And yes it is awesome and one of my favorite episodes

[@Taladar2003]

Didn't they also use transporter technology to store your different weapons in one of the games?

[@samuelmeasa9283]

Something to save for a third video. Unique transporter uses, Uses we see only once or twice across all the movies/shows/games/books.

[@theFLCLguy]

Awe yes, the farsight XR-20....

[@weareorigin]

Not Main Character: hi everyone Viewers: rest in peace.

[@BennyLlama39]

Refresh my memory-- isn't the technical term "Red shirts"? 😀

[@lillyanneserrelio2187]

@@BennyLlama39 yup. He meant to say: Red shirt: Hi everyone Viewers: RIP Mr. No name....

[@giladpellaeon1691]

@@lillyanneserrelio2187 "My name is Roberts!" "Oh, that just makes your death more tragic."

[@Mate397]

@@giladpellaeon1691 "But I haven't even said that I have a pregnant wife or that I have 2 days before retirement!"

[@Bobby90]

Most don't even get lines. Aside from implied, "Hi, I'm two days from retirement".

[@XX-sp3tt]

The Cardassians experimented on Thomas Riker hoping to figure out the key to his creation. Hoping to create an army of transporter clones. The scientist assigned to him eventually invented the lie that he'd actually come from a parallel universe.

[@iamdmc]

either ST teleportation is quantum teleportation and T Riker is from a parallel universe, or ST teleportation is not teleportation but matter read and matter write, where the "transporter" just creates doppelganger replicants, and can theoretically make as many copies of the original as desired

[@Steve-kl1gg]

I always assumed the Nervala IV distortion field provided the energy which the transporter then used to convert into matter to create Thomas Riker. I would say the unusual properties of the field prevent it from being created elsewhere.

[@qdllc]

Matter = energy. Energy = matter. Beam clones should be easy but for the fact that you apparently can’t just use any energy...it has to be akin to what’s in a matter stream. For example, replicators don’t make things from pure energy...they convert a base substance into the desired product.

[@keirfarnum6811]

@FanOf Dueling With the personal transporters in Disco, I would bet they’re set up so that if someone is sucked into space, they’re immediately emergency transported back to the ship; probably directly to Med Bay.

[@Karlandra]

@FanOf Dueling Section 33 would like to have a conversation with you....if you'll just step into the teleporter please.

[@andrewgilbertson5672]

The transporter de-aging was also used in Kirk's time- in TAS: The Loreli Signal.

[@richmcgee434]

Ayup. Poor TAS, everybody likes to forget it and pretend it's not canon, but I'll take it over half the existing series any day, limited animation and all.

[@patrickmccurry1563]

@@richmcgee434 As a kid, I just pretended that every episode was from a different Trek Universe. That way you don't get the absurd lack of consequences from learning how to give everyone telekinetic powers, eternal youth, etc.

[@johnbockelie3899]

The first ever transporter beam ever was shown in the 1939 movie serial " Buck Rogers in the 25th century." It was used to get to the underground secret headquarters.

[@protorhinocerator142]

In TAS, the transporter was the magic cure for half the series. Just run it through the pattern buffer.

[@Stanf954]

The inhuman scream during the transport in TMP still haunts me to this day.

[@glenneric1]

I've always thought of a transporter as a fax machine combined with a shredder on the sending side. The new guy thinks he's still the old guy and everyone else thinks that the guy stepped in one machine and exited the other. No-one's the wiser, except the guy who got shredded; and he's not talking.

[@RS-nk7bd]

So saying that the person who invented the teleporter has in ST the highest kill count in the galaxy.

[@woodrobin]

Since the transporters use something called a "Heisenberg Compensator" to suppress the normal Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (can't determine the exact position and velocity of a particle simultaneously, to hideously over-simplify), it's possible that the conditions created by beaming might actually make weird things like crossing between parallel realities and creating quantum duplicates vastly more likely as a necessary side effect. Sometimes when you fiddle with quantum mechanics too much, it decides to fiddle back. Side note: in the MCU, shrinking allows you to cross into the Quantum Realm, which is a reality that connects with normal space/time in non-linear ways. So, given a one-in-a-billion genius to discover the Pym Particle, and another IIIAB genius to create a mathematical model to allow navigating the Quantum Realm, it's possible to enter the QR, navigate its twisted connections to our universe, and emerge at a chosen set of space/time coordinates, similar to wormholes in the Star Trek universe.

[@scottmantooth8785]

*perhaps transporters utilize a momentary stasis field within their confinement beam just prior and moments after a transporter cycle to keep everything in place to prevent atoms from leaping to the left when they were intended to move to the right*

[@JaelaOrdo]

A transporter twin seems absolutely terrifying, I already have one twin and I don’t need another

[@ponyperson7513]

glad my twin isn't a factor, but a quantum duplicat would be unsettling

[@richmcgee434]

I rather like the idea of some mad scientist type figuring out how to recreate that little accident Ryker had and making a legion of himself. Themselves? Whatever. Of course, that sort of thing always goes wrong eventually, as seen here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pmrElXx9rptqask

[@STho205]

Better original SF writing about transporters had two people when used. You here, a copy there made from energy and mass there. What do you do? Kill you and the copy does their thing, transports back and that copy one is killed/vaporized. Or let the copy do the action there, report on it to you, then kill the copy there. Or end up with three yous. The Lentilla Effect.

[@STho205]

Time travel too. What happened to Lone Pine Marty when Twin Pines Marty discovered Doc had worn a bulletproof vest. Glad Lybians don't take the head shot.

[@elbraddock7711]

You're the transporter clone

[@kuribayashi84]

_"Oh, no! They're forming again!" Rand recognized this as her own voice. Shapes were materializing on the platform again ... _*_but frighteningly misshapen, writhing masses of chaotic flesh with skeletal shapes and pumping organs on the outsides of the "bodies." A twisted, claw-like hand tore at the air, a scream came from a bleeding mouth_*_ ... and then they were gone. The chamber was empty._ _"Oh, my God." Rand recognized the voice again as coming from Kirk. "Starfleet, do you have them?"_ _Starfleet came in. The voice was unsteady, but quiet. "Enterprise, what we got back . . . didn't live long. Fortunately."_ - Quote from the Novelisation of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", written by Gene Roddenberry himself

[@GSharp66]

I would never use a transporter, I guess I've got Transportaphobia but I'm convinced that what comes out the other side isn't actually me just someone who has all my memories and looks like me

[@panagiotischristo]

Lol....it's like when you go to sleep, when you wake up are you you or just a duplicate?

[@BennyLlama39]

Sounds like the start of one of those Its-2-AM-and-I-just-smoked-a-joint philosophical debates. 😀

[@Naptosis]

@@panagiotischristo that is you. Your consciousness may not be fully conscious, but the other 90% of your brain and 100% of your body functions as normal with continuity.

[@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker]

DS-9 answered this question definitively in the pale moonlight............ It’s a faaaaake!

[@GSharp66]

What I mean is my consciousness might not be carried over, since we don't fully understand what it is

[@BigJwlz]

The beaming effect from _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_ is gorgeous. I wish it was used in other films.

[@thefurrybstard1964]

In the TOS episode Enemy Within it was strongly suggested that both Kirks were somehow incomplete on a physical level not merely a mental one.

[@iamdmc]

Unless both Kirks were about half the mass of a regular Kirk, and a human could somehow survive with only half their mass and half their cells (brain, heart, liver, blood cells, etc), that could not have happened What is more likely is that the ST transporter of the time is the same as the replicator, and it created 2 imperfect copies of the original Kirk, before then destroying those 2 copies and creating a more perfect copy of the original Kirk. This kind of non-quantum teleportation is not teleportation of matter or energy, but rather a very detailed reading of a collection of molecules from one spot and a very detailed replica of that in another spot Hence, Star Trek created replicants

[@thefurrybstard1964]

@@iamdmc You're not wrong, but end of the day it's just a plot device. Pity they didn't know about space folding back in the day. Imagine if they'd gone with a Space Folding Transporter.

[@graysonvirtue4058]

that would have avoided the philosophical issues with it as well (the whole deconstruction thing). I would have preferred a stargate type wormhole thing

[@thefurrybstard1964]

@@graysonvirtue4058 Ahh but the Stargate Wormhole actually demolecularises you so effectively it's a transporter beam too.

[@graysonvirtue4058]

@@thefurrybstard1964 ah shame. I thought it would make an interesting ancillary feature for the warp engines to essentially power a miniture warp tunnel type thing.

[@rambysophistry1220]

I happen to think teleporting would kind of feel like, stepping into a box, seeing a blinding light, and then nothingness eternal. So no thank you.

[@Scottlp2]

If you are saying it kills you and creates a new one at the other end, there are sf stories based on that premise.

[@Kustonius]

Someone has watched CPD Grey's video about transporters.

[@rambysophistry1220]

@@Kustonius Indeed I did. And it seriously changed my mind about transporters, from something that would be cool, to holocaust machines.

[@Kustonius]

@@rambysophistry1220 yeah after leaning about the no cloning theorem transporters goes from this super cool thing to a thing of utter horror.

[@xenophon1999]

Its easy! The transporter works when the plot needs it to work, and it goes wrong when the plot needs it to go wrong.

[@kev3d]

Yeah, like when the "transporters are down" for whatever reason, and no one ever seems to think "Gee, what about the transporters on literally a dozen or more shuttle craft we have onboard? Did all of those fail at the same time too?"

[@Not-TheOne]

That Star Trek transporter error, gave me the chills when I watched it when I was very young, still make me cringe...one of the top scenes in Star Trek that I remember vividly.

[@TheCheshireMadcat]

Yeah, I was a kid, and it scared the crap out of me.

[@watermelonhelmet6854]

Here's the thing: Transporters disassemble you atom by atom, convert that matter to energy, 'beam' that energy somewhere, where it's then converted back to matter and you're re-assembled. Fun fact, having every single one of your atoms separated from each other isn't survivable. Converting matter to energy and back again means it isn't even the same matter. Conclusion: Every time someone is transported in Star Trek, they die, plain and simple.. The original is destroyed (literally atomized), and then an exact duplicate who THINKS they're the original is created in their place. The transporter is basically a murder machine.

[@mirandalockey7334]

I don’t remember where, but I remember somewhere that souls were like a canon thing, and the transporter separates the soul (which would be a sort of energy), and the body would be rematerialized, and the energy is placed in it. Don’t quote me on it.

[@watcher24601]

A murder machine connected to a 3D printer

[@ClokworkGremlin]

@@watcher24601 It's hilarious that canonically, the UFP had transporters basically since their foundation, but they never managed to invent replicators, which *only do half as much.* Replicator technology was actually stolen from a random pirate repair space station!

[@jakethornton4856]

The transporter literally kills the person on the pad and creates a new one with all the physical characteristics and memory's of the person who was just destroyed.

[@maxhax367]

and that is when it works correctly

[@dwavenminer]

Starfleet decided that isn't the case...not come to agree that, decided...and my guess the deciding party was section 31, who don't seem to use it much themselves...

[@jdraven0890]

Yes, this has to be true. Even if it legitimately takes your solid form and converts it to energy to beam elsewhere to be reassembled back into a solid form, and the same matter is preserved the whole time (it just changes states)....don't you still die from being converted into energy?!!

[@thepuzzlebox6620]

It appears to break down matter so that it becomes pure energy and then transfers it as a quantum potential. The energy then reconfigures at the destination to recreate the recipe for mass. So no, it doesn't kill the original and create a copy on the other end.

[@thepuzzlebox6620]

@@jdraven0890 No. The entire process happens instantly.

[@DyslexicGamer]

That's going to be a huge no way for me has there's way too many variables and unknowns throughout the process. Whether it kills me and just copies me or who knows what kind of horrific accidents could happen I've always sort of told myself I'd avoid using teleporters if they were ever invented

[@Marconius6]

Quantum Physicists: So there's this thing called the No Cloning Theorem...

[@vezero317]

Theres also somethin called the no-teleportation theorem.

[@LadyLexyStarwatcher]

Ah! Here we are. The ting I was looking for. This is a real world proven ting. You cannot clone quantum systems with out already having a clone of that quantum system. Humans by their very nature are several quantum systems, so the "clones" might be biologic cones at best but would not be an exact copy.

[@iamdmc]

Fun fact: if ST teleportation uses "quantum teleportation" then Tom Riker would never have been made, as the quantum state of those atoms would have been altered when the entangled atoms 'rematerialized' William Riker If ST teleportation is simply energy-matter conversion like the replicators, then every time someone is transported they are killed and an exact-enough copy replaces them. In the aforementioned example, Tom Riker is actually the original Riker who never got off the surface, and William Riker is the doppelganger copy

[@MichaelClark-uw7ex]

Exactly, the being that steps out of the transporter is not you, you are dead, it is a perfect replica that thinks its you.

[@autisticspaceman9397]

It's funny, how people are quick to defend transporters as "the safest means of travel", and conviently ignore this argument

[@VoidplayLP]

@@autisticspaceman9397 i mean, it depends, i guess if it stores the entire area around you as a quantum state, that would be the closest you get to it actually being you, but then you couldnt alter it either so...

[@protorhinocerator142]

Agreed. The you that comes out of the beam is not the real you. But that also means Thomas Riker wasn't the real Will Riker either. They beamed him down to the planet. Thomas Riker was already a clone. The real Will Riker was lost years earlier. Here's a fun idea. Start up a new Trek episode where they can PROVE that you really die if you use the transporter. Everyone on the show freaks out because they've all used it, except for maybe a couple ensigns working the cargo bays who never go on away missions. Now Star Fleet has to deal with a moral issue that's been ignored for 200 years. A huge outcry to ban all transporters. But conflict that with the great convenience of using them. Now add another twist. Religious groups decide that since the new people created each time (like in The Prestige) aren't saved, the transporters are creating millions of humans and sending them all to Hell. Civil War starts.

[@iamdmc]

@@protorhinocerator142 If ST uses quantum teleportation, it's actually teleporting some ineffable essence of what is you (namely, the quantum state of your atoms) onto an identical set of atoms, with the original set of atoms then losing this quantum state. The teleported person is not the original person, who was necessarily destroyed, but they are an exact copy while still being essentially the original.

[@Scorpwanna]

That other officer in the Motion Picture was Janice Rand, she popped up in a lot of the movies in cameo fashion and no one even noticed :(

[@ExpLizard]

At least it doesn’t explode when a child gets stressed

[@redapol5678]

Neither portrayal is any more realistic than the other, especially with all the weird examples in this video - Tuvix, extra matter for Kirk and Riker, disappearance of matter and becoming children etc

[@DC-of7lp]

Lmao

[@TimothyMorigeau]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@RogueTwo]

No, but In the TOS era it would malfunction if anyone sneezed near it. Of course in the TNG era the holodecks would malfunction if someone sneezed inside one. So it all evens out.

[@nicksteve5392]

Facts

[@TheC.O.-VISIT]

That scene from the motion picture was dark and disturbing, one I'll never forget.The high pitched screeches, great scene though.

[@DocWolph]

Transporter Devices are MAGIC. The Iconian Folded Space portal, from the TNG Episode "Contagion", which is just a less compact, concise, and slightly less magical (At least there are clear rules to its operation) Stargate, and IS an actual portal system, makes more sense.

[@Ragitsu]

I would give space-folding a chance.

[@the11382]

Stargate makes use of matter-streams too. The Stargate disassembles and reassembles you, with a matter-stream going through a wormhole. Furthermore, there are rings(which switch the matter between them) and then there’s Asgard beaming tech that puts Teleporters to shame. Notably, the ancients have more qualms about preserving your matter.

[@mikeinqueens7854]

We're hosting a delegation of Maudlinians today. Remember, after they beam aboard, they say a little prayer for the version of themselves that just sacrificed itself. There is no greater offense in their culture than interrupting the prayer. Wesley, through cracking voice:

[@TheSquad4life]

One of the technology in sci- fi I always scoffed at because of how happily people used it. Just sounds like a mess

[@RealLordVoldemort]

@Atheos B. Sapien that's a great point. Same would probably go for submarines, boats, vehicles that can travel at 100's of miles per hour. Even scuba diving equipment. Harnessing nuclear energy. Antibiotics or vaccines. Not to mention going back in time and explaining that the earth is not flat or the center of everything. Lol

[@Naptosis]

@@RealLordVoldemort We're still getting fearful bullshit about vaccines and nuclear energy. In a global pandemic. Consider that.

[@RealLordVoldemort]

@@Naptosis exactly. Maybe in the future they will be more accepted.when improvment to tech will make it safer.

[@giladpellaeon1691]

When locomotives first started up people were afraid 30mph was too fast and would crush the passengers. They were wrong though, they merely caught fire from embers blowing back from the engine stack.

[@TheSquad4life]

@Atheos B. Sapien exactly my point, I’m thinking solely from a 21st century point of view/our reality. It sounds bonkers haha

[@Blasted2Oblivion]

You did a great job dating this video. You mentioned Boimler getting phased by the transporter then immediately talk about how Riker is the only transporter clone...when it literally happened to Boimler in the next season. I love your videos.

[@wtk6069]

The technology would seem better used as a way to back up humans and simply create copies when they die.

[@kevinerose]

Could you save people on the cloud, and then bring them back as needed?

[@KalRandom]

You didn't mention the time Kirk was caught in the transporter and became a ghost on the ship.

[@thunderbird0024]

That was do to the space they were in. When he split into the good and evil kirk

[@giladpellaeon1691]

It was the only episode someone else got more lines than Shatner.

[@MichaelRainey]

Or when TNG doubled down and turned LaForge and Ro into ghosts.

[@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker]

@@MichaelRainey they weren’t ghosts, they were just out of phase. Conveniently. Well, except for their feet I guess. Conveniently.

[@MichaelRainey]

@@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker Convenient that they could walk through walls but didn't drop out of the starship through the floor.

[@joeywall4657]

I'm relieved that someone else has had that dream were you wake up, take a shower and start putting your clothes on after you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock LOL.

[@jdraven0890]

And then it's like three times as hard to get out of bed and "do it all over again" 😂

[@WildBluntHickok]

My alarm clock is intentionally too far away to turn off without getting up.

[@talideon]

The transporters are just something I accept as part of the Big Lie within the fictional universe. I would like to say I've managed to reduce the Big Lies down to a single Big Lie, but I haven't. ST is thus _very_ soft SF.

[@the_flyattractor8656]

I would still have to ask.. Wouldn't a Full Functional and not doing wacky things transporter kind of make a doctor kind of irrelevant?

[@johnbockelie3899]

Must have spooked out Riker to see young Picard with hair.

[@allistair61]

Would have been interesting to see if they could bring wounded or killed crew back to perfect health

[@jdraven0890]

Yes, I thought the same thing. If anything, ST underestimates how powerful transporter technology is, because if not there would be no stakes. It could cure you of any infection or parasite, perform instant surgery, even recreate you if need be.

[@the_flyattractor8656]

@@jdraven0890 It could bring a whole New Meaning to TRANS-Gender.

[@kevinerose]

I'd like to use it to loose about 20 pounds.

[@nairbvel]

I remember a long discussion with a young cousin of mine when he was 11 or 12 (yeah, the kid's brilliant). He was trying to determine, among other things, 1) is what arrives at the transport destination the original person, a perfect duplicate of the person, or a totally new person who just happens to pick up exactly where the original left off; 2) Does the disassembly of the person constitute murder; and 3) Is it necessary to fully read the original's matrix at a molecular, atomic, sub-atomic, or quantum level? We could never really arrive at any answers (especially in regard to whether or not the act of beaming someone somewhere is actually an act of murder and resurrection), but my mind explodes all over again when I try to review that conversation...

[@Fif0l]

Transporters essentially remove me from existence and replace me with a clone somewhere else. It's exactly the problem with transferring your consciousness to a computer or an android. The android will think it's you, but you will actually be dead.

[@saltypaladin9488]

exactly!!!

[@jamesbizs]

Which is why you’re supposed to remain conscious, and have your consciously simultaneously transferred over, while still being aware. Datas dad did that in one of the books. Makes perfect sense. Kinda like blinking. You don’t disappear when you close your eyes and and reappear when you open them, because you’re still aware of your existence. Or hell, transfer over each and every single neuron one by one, and slowly gain consciousness in the new body, while losing it in the old. So you’d be both of the bodies, until you’re not.

[@FunnCubes]

6:40 happened to Brad Boimler as well now.... I know, I know, that episode came out less than a week ago and this video came out waaaay before..... but yeah. Just a fun fact.

[@jdlech]

Imagine you get up in the morning and before you go on to your daily routine, you step onto a pad in your room. The transporter scans you and transports you to nowhere. You step off and go about your business. Hours later, the ship enters combat. The ship survives, but takes heavy damage. You are killed in the line of duty. But nobody cries and there is no funeral. The captain enters your room, goes to the transporter pad and enters a code. The transporter then produces a perfect copy of you sans any experience you had since the last time you scanned yourself. Every morning when you step into the transporter, it simply scans you and stores your pattern in the buffer. After your death, the captain simply completed the transport. The captain explains to you how you died, and you are given a day off to absorb the information. Your permanent record shows that you were killed in action, but recovered for the fifth time in your career. Some of your crew mates suggest you could be a little less heroic, but you see no reason or benefit to playing it safe.

[@liljenborg2517]

"The point of the transporter is that the molecular structure that makes you, you, is transferred in its entirety, not simply copy and pasted." That's exactly the Big Issue with the transporter isn't it? Because what makes you YOU is not just the body, the molecular structure, but the mind or even the soul. And, so far as we can tell neither the mind nor the soul are material things (to the point many materialists today deny their existence). Or, to use the frequent way they put it in Star Trek scripts: if the "total is greater than the sum of the parts", and the transporter only transports the _parts_ around, sometimes the greater "whole" might get a little messed with (say, split into "positive" and "negative" emotional versions), or conversely, if you mess around a bit with the _parts_ (say turn Picard's body 13 again or merge the parts of two characters like Tuvok and Nelix) how does that mess with the "whole". I recall reading in some magazine back in the day that around season 3 of TNG, the producers had to lay down some rules for dealing with the transporter, because too many writers were using it as a _dues ex machina_ to get them out of the corners they'd written themselves into. Any device that can take matter, convert it to energy, and then flawlessly reassemble that matter, or, if needs be, manipulate that process enough to disarm weapons or filter out viruses, was basically a magic do-anything machine, and writers were starting use it that way. Okuda mentioned in the Enterprise-D Technical Manual that too many writers realized that they only needed to move those "three magical levers" on the transporter control panel to make all their plot holes magically vanish. The producers wanted to keep the transporter what it was originally designed to be, a fast way to move characters from ship to planet without needing to film shots of shuttles launching and landing.

[@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker]

And lo: immediately there after, the series was canceled. Coincidence? I think not.

[@Jeddostotle7]

@@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker TNG was cancelled immediately after season 3?

[@liljenborg2517]

​@@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker On the contrary, Next Generation went on four more seasons. It's best seasons, some of the best of Star Trek. And four movies (not exactly the best of Trek).

[@thomastakesatollforthedark2231]

@@liljenborg2517 I think he confused it with Enterprise

[@capnsteele3365]

@@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker the next generation at seven seasons

[@v.sandrone4268]

Never wear red in a transporter.

[@richmcgee434]

How much trouble could it possibly be for a transporter operator to reprogram the thing to swap the shirts around in a group transport? Let's see how the damn bridge officers (Scotty excluded, of course) like wearing "marked for death red" for a change. Of course, the poor security guy who gets Kirk's shirt out of the deal probably winds up having it torn off in short order the way Shirtless Shatner always seemed too. "Man, just look at the stitching in this thing. You'd think a captain could get a uniform that isn't so shoddily made."

[@LadyLexyStarwatcher]

Unless you have a first and last name. If you have those you tend to be fine.

[@erichanastacio9695]

I read in a novel that someone reprogrammed the transporter to allow only the transfer of organic components, and block non-organic components because of the bombs, poisons, hidden weapons, etc... Well... The thing is... The next one who went in the transporter was an admiral... and came out NAKED since his clothes weren't organic or biological in nature.

[@DracoVanReign]

So you would prefer transport the way the Iconians did it

[@xXStochasticityXx]

Hands down I’d choose the Iconians transportation, seems safer to me.

[@Rubidius]

Maybe if they study the bajoran wormhole long enough they can figure out how to make wormholes small enough for away teams to use.

[@silvadelshaladin]

The Iconian way is the best way.

[@samuelmeasa9283]

To be fare the Iconians are centuries beyond us in technology. Its like comparing the Goa'uld to the Gate Builders from Stargate.

[@silvadelshaladin]

@@samuelmeasa9283 Good things come to those who wait.

[@XX-sp3tt]

8:30 I took it as the transporter computer panicking and trying to assemble them with what was there in a human form. Basically a failsafe invented after what happened in Star Trek The Motion Picture.

[@masondeming964]

For the unaccounted mass in case of riker or when picard and etc become kids, I always thought that a transporter was described as a matter energy conversion. Holodecks work on the same ish principal, with one of the sheerlock episodes they say that matter and energy are interchangeable when explaining the holodecks to moriarty (I think that's his name). So idk maybe the excess matter (energy) is lost or fed back into the system somehow. Idk what I'm talking about though

[@VoidplayLP]

that would indicate that something has seriously gone wrong though, and the transporter system probably wouldnt allow it.

[@erichanastacio9695]

Holodeck are just hard light technology.... Images projected over forcefields. When you cut power to the Holodeck, all projected images disappear. Moriarty, solid as a true human... But actually has no physical mass so he can't get out of the Holodeck.

[@kev3d]

@@erichanastacio9695 That's contradicted in several episodes. Moriarty's drawing of the Enterprise, for example, is taken out of the holodeck and exists just fine on the other parts of the ship. A holodeck character kisses Picard on the cheek and the lipstick remains, once again, outside the Holodeck. And most importantly, Data explains in Encounter at Far Point, that much of what appears on the Holodeck "is real", being composed of simple patterns that can be created and annihilated as needed, just as a replicator can replicate organic matter, plates, flatware etc. or the transporter can produce certain patterns. I wonder then, does the Enterprise have a huge store of energy that can be converted to matter, or is there a big tank of standby matter that can be converted by some kind of techno-babble transmutation of lead-to-gold, or goo-to-tea, Earl Grey, Hot.

[@tag1462]

When your CMO expresses doubts... that should tell you something.

[@TheKrensada]

The transporter accident in Star Trek TMP still hits hard. It's so horrifying.i saw that scene when I was only 7 years old and understood what happened. It was ghastly. And it is also one of my favorite Trek scenes.

[@NikkiWrightVGM]

Doesn't the idea of a "backup pattern buffer" pretty much reveal that in some (not all) cases the transporter actually kills the original person only to create an exact duplicate? Like if you were being beamed but something went wrong and they had to switch to the backup copy of the matter stream that would mean you as a person are destroyed and essentially a clone of you is made.

[@PC4USE1]

As James Blish explained in his star trek novelization-Transporters kill the original and create a perfect duplicate-no thank you-I'll stick with McCoy in the shuttle LOL

[@Starham2000]

I have a solution to the matter question. Ships have always been shown to have stores of matter on board, originally shown with food dispensers. Even with replicator technology, ships still carried various forms of matter on board in case it was necessary. I propose that transporter accidents happen more often than not, and part of the transporter operator’s job is to fill in the gaps if you will.

[@thethirdchimpanzee]

The Replicators use that stored base matter too. People (including me at one time) assume that the replicators make matter out of energy, which probably they could do in a pinch, but to work this way regularly would be horribly inefficient. See, E=MC² says that we can get a HUGE amount of energy from a tiny amount of matter. Which is why the matter/anti-matter drive is such a cool thing - a tiny bit of matter and a tiny bit of antimatter are combined and you get a HUGE amount of power. That's converting matter into energy. But if we want to go the other way, and convert energy into matter, and we run this all in reverse, just as we could get a MASSIVE amount of energy from a tiny bit of matter, we would need MASSIVE amount of energy to make a tiny bit of matter. And just where would you even store all of that energy? Giant batteries? The more likely and effecent senario would be too keep a lot of base matter in the form of simple needed molecules like proteins, fats, complex carbohydrates (starches) and simple carbohydrates (sugars), as well as an assortment of individual atoms (carbon, hydrogen, gold, etc) that can be called upon using the replicator's transporter abilities, and reassembled into food or whatever you need. The replicators could also take the individual atoms in storage and combine them to make whatever molecules are needed. Irl, as Data once explained, use a process akin to nucleosynthesis in a star, to build up heavier and atoms. Start with a hydrogen atom and keep adding protons and neutrons and protons and electrons until you get the atom you want, them use those atoms to build whatever molecules that you need, and so on.

[@alexanderscott9001]

There was an episode on DS9 where Kira's former cell member was killed by a Romulan REMAT device that had been placed on her, which scrambled the transporter signal. The results were not pretty...

[@mousalope]

In 1967 the original series scripts were published in collections of short stories as adapted by James Blish. In one of these Blish explained McCoy's reluctance to step in the transporter. The Doctor was uncertain if the breakdown and reassembly of the physical body would likewise copy and transfer the SOUL. I never saw that further developed but I always thought it would be a very understandable fear for a humanist like McCoy.

[@PapaRoboto]

An interesting concept for Trek would be a slight transporter malfunction that changed one of the bridge crew’s personality ever so slightly. The setup would occur episodes before the one where it’s the actual dilemma, and the episode in question centers around the temptation to return to their original self. Drama ensues.

[@TheHartonGroup]

I’d love to see a video about how transporters could be used as a weapon: what’s been done and what could theoretically be done.

[@Peregrine57]

Captain Archer Season 1: "I don't know about these new fangled transporter things. They might turn us inside out!" Captain Archer Season 4: "Did I ever mention my dad was, like, best friends with the inventor? Totally safe! Trust me!"

[@zippy-zappa-zeppo-zorba-etc]

I wouldn't trust it. My dad transported to the store for a pack of smokes when I was 9 and that's the last we saw of him

[@ClintLowe]

If you have read the book, Star Trek Enterprise: By The Book, the crewman who materialized with debris in his skin still had sand deeply in bedded in his skin and Dr. Phlox let his skin naturally pass it out. He had painful acne with white heads full of sand.

[@travcollier]

There should definitely be groups of people who don't use transporters for philosophical reasons.

[@jamesbizs]

There are?

[@FriendlyNeighborhoodNitpicker]

Rick: I was totally going to ding you about that Heisenberg compensator, right up until the last possible minute. Good show! And no, I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of the things. Because I am pretty sure you’re right that the only way to use one is to be caught dead in it. Over and over again. No thanks.

[@randomkoreanguy]

I subscribe to the theory that the transporter is a murder machine that scans and vaporizes you and then creates a copy on the other side... Which is why I would never use one.

[@giladpellaeon1691]

A two-way suicide booth?

[@Raja1938]

Simply a sped up version of what happens to you every second of your life. You inhale & consume new atoms & molecules of stuff and exhale/excrete the old. The being you were a second ago is dead.

[@randomkoreanguy]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that being disassembled all at once instead of gradually over time is completely not the same and would result in death even if you were reassembled later. One key difference is continuity of consciousness. Your consciousness continues onwards in an unbroken line from your birth whereas with the disassembler, it doesn't.

[@randomkoreanguy]

I think the Tom vs Will Riker thing proves that whatever unique thing it is that makes you who you are doesn't carry over or it wouldn't have been duplicated, it would've just created a dead soulless shell. The transporter is just a combination photocopier/shredder. It copies the original, then shreds the original, and then lets the copy continue onwards.

[@XX-sp3tt]

My hand-wave for 'where the matter came from' is how once you get down to the scale the transporter is using, the laws of physics begins to work differently and you can have 'gray eras' in concrete reality.

[@whirledpeaz5758]

E=MC2 goes both ways

[@Tsuki737]

DS9 also showed that matter streams can be temporarily kept inside a holo projector for longer storage.

[@wingedfish1175]

There's was also the tng episode in with Scotty successfully modified a transporter buffer to store a pattern for like 80 years or so if I remember the timeline correctly

[@ernestuz]

The Heisenberg compensators work very well, thanks.

[@RandomYT05_01]

If caught in the star trek universe, I'd be careful about my soul everytime I went though that transporter. Mostly because if it killed you, I would not want to be caught in hell due to suicide.

[@TheCheshireMadcat]

The soul things gets me every time, does it go to the new form, do you lose it, does it go to the afterlife?

[@justanotherhuman-d6l]

Don't forget Archer's prized beagle in the Kelvin timeline.. RIP Porthos. You will be missed.

[@TonksMoriarty]

So you wouldn't use a Stargate then? That pretty much disassembles you & shoots you across space to another Stargate.

[@FFX2KH2Master]

asking the real questions here. His last statement about a folded space gateway made me think about stargates. Id definitely take a transporter before I stepped through the iris though

[@testicularoxide5055]

Copy of you at the other end too...

[@MichaelClark-uw7ex]

No its different, it is more like an instantaneous wormhole that your physical being travels through.

[@mischiefwargaming]

I'd jump through a gate in a heartbeat copared to using a transporter. The only real 'mishaps' with the gates were almost always a direct result of Earth using their jury-rigged dialing system. Travel to and from anywhere else would be essentially risk free.

[@VoidplayLP]

@@mischiefwargaming and even then some of the issues were just caused by having multiple gates in the same location

[@patrickmccurry1563]

As a kid, I loved the offhand reference to Heisenberg compensators in TNG. Because I understood even then that one big reason transporters are impossible is that no one can know a subatomic particle's position and velocity exactly and simultaneously.

[@CheezyDee]

You forgot to mention Porthos, then again Scotty shouldn't have been messing with Archer's dog.

[@erichanastacio9695]

Scotty's improved equation got him dunked in a main waterline, almost killed him.

[@burgerking2242]

Well done on the 100K subs

[@mardethkellerman1182]

The transporter, safer than airplanes... Airplanes, safer than cars... Cars...total death traps!!!

[@MrClobbertime]

Except that while you are more likely to be involved in a car wreck than a plane crash, you are far more likely to survive a car wreck than a plane crash.

[@jamesbizs]

@@MrClobbertime yeah. Only 40,000 deaths out of the 3 million car accident injuries. Sure, the 2,960,000 people survive. But 2,000,000 of those have permanent injuries. I think I’ll risk it on a plane and just die if it crashes

[@aggroknight4259]

Cars: Least likely to be fatal in the event of an accident. Planes: Literally everyone onboard dies whenever there is an accident. Transporters: Accidents almost never happen; sure; but the tech is designed to pretty much destroy all the matter you're made of whenever you use them. So you die every single time. On purpose.

[@MichaelP833]

at about 12:50 my mind wondered towards Moriarty and the use of transporters there. then 13:03 you perfectly mention the Heisenberg compensators

[@TimothyMorigeau]

Transporters are scary af. I'd never want to use one.

[@Leaglestalon]

Thier was a quick reference in a ST:TNG where counselor Troy said "for a moment I felt like i was in the wall..to which Worf replied "for a moment you were" another terrifying prospect of transporter failure.

[@AvangionQ]

Transporters and airplanes: they're used millions of times, and there's a colossal fuckup a handful of times that makes everyone think there's a bigger problem than there is.

[@oddpoppetesq.3467]

Its not about a bigger problem than there is, its a safety thing.... Im wary of flying myself as if something goes wrong, its pretty much a guaranteed game over, same thing with a transporter beam I guess....

[@Taladar2003]

@@oddpoppetesq.3467 But you are much more likely to be killed by crossing the street or driving or taking the train than by flying in an airliner.

[@kevinerose]

In a transporter, you would die 100% of the time. You may notice they never evacuate the destination site during the transport. You may not see it but there is air in the volume of space they are transporting the person. All that air would certainly kill you and has a good chance of setting of a nuclear explosion as 2 atoms collide on occasion.

[@Tokmurok]

@@kevinerose I'm assuming as you are slowly beamed in you push the air apart. Teleportation in 40k makes more sense, you see some sort of force push the air around you as you are reestablished.

[@kev3d]

The Dyson Sphere: an object so large that it makes the V'Ger entity look like a mole hill next to Mt. Everest, an object so strange and mysterious...that everyone forgot about it and never mentioned it again. Seriously, the discovery of the Dyson Sphere would be like First Contact 10,000x

[@martinbaxter2616]

After you said 'Captain Montgomery Scott', there should've been a heavenly choir sounding.

[@Simpson3k]

Without it Scotty would not have survived the crash on the dyson sphere..

[@seanabsher5577]

Weren't holoprojectors, (a la holodeck, holosuite, etc), transporter technologies, and replicator technologies all related to some degree?

[@jdraven0890]

Yes, I could swear they state that in more than one episode when explaining the holodeck. Then it's kind of BS to say that things in the holodeck aren't real: they would be as real as anything and only temporary via programmed deletion.

[@sugarsammy7209]

Remember the darmok episode where Picard litteraly yelled and moved around while they were trying to beam him out? I'm surprised you didn't show it.

[@TheSparrowLooksUp]

Fact that no one wants to talk about: Tuvix was a unique sentient being that deserved to live. Janeway was a monster.

[@adriansmith3427]

She had a choice! Kill one person or kill two people! If you add the fact that she knew both Tuvok and Neelix, then it is a very understandable choice she made! If you had a choice between your two old friends, and someone you had just met, who would you choose? I agree that it was a tough decision, but calling her a monster for making it is just wrong!

[@mrJety89]

She had two weeks to deliberate over the fate of Tuvix

[@SchneeflockeMonsoon]

*Gestures at a Stargate* “Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is the proper way to travel across the Galaxy.”

[@MichaelRainey]

But you're using a home brewed dialing device that bypasses or ignores error codes. Now the connected wormhole has gotten wrapped around a solar flare and you're in stuck in the past with no way home. Or the wormhole goes through someone's sun which is now dead because of you. Or you've connected the other end to a Stargate that's falling into a black hole. Or how many times were the native inhabitants at the other end just plain hostile?

[@SchneeflockeMonsoon]

@@MichaelRainey Proper, not safer.

[@MichaelRainey]

@@SchneeflockeMonsoon Oh well the real proper way is in the hold of a Spacing Guild Highliner.

[@SchneeflockeMonsoon]

@@MichaelRainey I mean, if you’re willing to pay their monopolistic prices.

[@zeusathena26]

Spaceballs cured me of ever wanting too 🤣🤣🤣

[@travelswithsi8932]

Rick, Im aghast! You mentioned a wake up routine of getting up, brushing teeth etc... no shower?

[@thatrealba]

Normal people shower before bed/after work so they can go to bed clean.

[@BlackHedgehog]

"In an instance that has never been recreated." - Que Lower Decks Season 2 with the Boimler clone.

[@davidbarnhart6228]

No thanks, I'll walk.

[@caspianmk1809]

To address what happens to additional or lacking matter: Much like Replicators, Transporters can convert energy to matter. While usually this is to adjust for particle drift, it can be used to recreate matter lost during transport. I would assume this is a two way connection, otherwise wherever a weapon is removed from someone beaming, it would either be atomized or beamed into a holding facility.

[@jorgnocke991]

Please can you make a doctor who video again thank you for your time please keep up your amazing work and live long and prosper

[@christackett35]

What always gathered from the shows was that the transporter literally destroyed the matter on the initialized and reconstituted matter on the other end from energy. Like the food dispensers. It remembers the current pattern, destroys original, and creates a whole new one.

[@gordondavis6168]

It switches your gender, that is why it’s called a “trans” porter.

[@andrewdaniels9698]

Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!

[@sagesheahan6732]

Transphasic torpedoes. Nuff said.

[@Tokmurok]

OUTLAW THE HERE- *cough cough* I mean it's just not safe innit? Trust me I am nice rouge trader.

[@kev3d]

"Alright men, we're beaming down to hostile territory, but there are a lot of civilians down there, so keep your heads down and your phasers on stun. " **BEAM NOISES** "Ugh, these shoes!"

[@knightbork]

My understanding is that the duplicates come from energy. As there is the energy-matter duality in physics (matter is essentially frozen energy) if you feed more energy into the system, you can convert that to matter. Each elementary wave/particle would have to be entangled with another wave/particle, creating an identical copy. in modern physics it would be assumed all transporters are essential photo copiers.

[@DruuzilTechGames]

Everyone who uses a transporter dies. Every time.

[@whirledpeaz5758]

"Murder Box"

[@JennsNH]

Glad to know I’m not the only one who dreams getting ready for work, then Wake up and do it again. It’s actually kind of irritating when a Monday acts like Groundhogs Day...

[@travis1240]

Every time you use a transporter you are killed and remotely cloned. This is the only feasible explanation for all the duplication accidents. No thanks. I need a shuttle craft.

[@KenVic02]

I saw the ST:TMP when it in theaters in 1979 as a young teenager. I have to say the transporter malfunction scene messed me up for a few days. After 40 years it's still a disturbing scene. The crew being conscious while they're being malformed makes you feel it.

[@billphillips5821]

Too many species developed this technology independently for my taste.

[@oholibama8888]

Like electricity, the wheel, building Houses, Clothing and space travel

[@Corbomite_Meatballs]

They could also have stolen it or bought it. They didn't necessarily need to come up with it on their own.

[@morikf1691]

It's longer than you think, Dad! Longer than you think!"

[@bipolarminddroppings]

I would, im lazy and dont care if it kills me because I wont know about it...

[@paulhunter6742]

One issue with transporter wasn't addressed. What about species like Thrill, ie Jadcia Dax, who carry second life form inside their bodies. How does transporter distinguish between the two?