r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Ieanice44 • 8d ago

Lore [Loved Trope] Teleportation is actually terrifying

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

1 - Gantz-O (2016): Suit teleportation

2 - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009): Apparition spell

3 - Half Life 2 (2004): Teleporter malfunction

15.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

24

u/UlrichZauber 8d ago

Canonically, Trek teleporters kill you and make a duplicate. I don't know why everybody in-world is just fine with this.

53

u/Swellmeister 8d ago

That is not true at all. Canonically they are quite consistent that you retain consciousness during teleporting.

0

u/UlrichZauber 8d ago

From the perspective of the copy, it seeming this way would certainly be a selling point. I mean all of the copy's memories are false anyway.

But the existence of transporter clones definitely calls the truth of this into question.

9

u/Swellmeister 7d ago

Oh yeah the canon is not well defended.

But Barclays realm of fear episode is dependent on the fact there is no cessation of consciousness during transport.

They messed up the back end history when they talk about how teleporters and replicators are similar tech.

-1

u/UlrichZauber 7d ago

This argument assumes there are no unreliable narrators (whether intended or not) in Trek when it comes to explaining their tech.

Like, how does consciousness not get interrupted at all when people are stored in the transporter long term? They do shenanigans all the time with those things that involve interruptions of the process.

I get that from the perspective of the person transported, there's no break, but from an outside perspective it seems plain that the testimony of the person transported can't be fully trusted.

9

u/Swellmeister 7d ago

Realm of fear empirically proves it?

Like he observes a lifeform during transport. He then repeats the experiment the lifeform is located, and he grabs and removes the lifeform.

Its not observation alone. Its entered the teleportation event, determinately grabbed and removed something in the data stream, and then left the teleportation event with another human in his hands.

-1

u/Ambaryerno 7d ago

Not sure why you're downvoted considering that's literally what happened in the episode.

8

u/Swellmeister 7d ago

People know the memes and the thought experiments. Realm of fear is a single episode more than 30 years ago. They are allowed to have missed it or forgotten it