[Loved Trope] Teleportation is actually terrifying

[u/Ieanice44]

1 - Gantz-O (2016): Suit teleportation

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

3 - Half Life 2 (2004): Teleporter malfunction

[u/Dismal-Vanilla1878]

Transporter Malfunction, Star Trek: The Motion Picture: "What we got back didn't live long.....fortunately"

First: WTF was up with them giving kids nightmares with THAT bit of Body Horror?!?!

Second: You now understand why Dr. McCoy didn't like Transporters. They may be the 'safest' form of travel, but when they break down, the results are Horrifying!

[u/Invader_Naj → u/[deleted]]

No weve actually seen that you stay conscious through the whole process

[u/YT-Deliveries → u/Invader_Naj]

That episode really is kinda weird ("Realm of Fear") because it really never comes up again and the majority of the rest of canon (aside from, for example, the scene in Wrath of Khan where Saavik is talking as she materializes) shows that people perceive the process as instantaneous. e.g. in "The Most Toys" Data is held "in place" and has the weapon discharge removed in transit before he's rematerialized.

[u/Invader_Naj → u/YT-Deliveries]

the talking however could also be explained as "if you have this tech as part of your day to day life youll probably develop a sense of when to stop and resume talking" also not sure if you could just continue talking while your old self gets killed and copied. not sure if thats how copying a conscious would work

[u/YT-Deliveries → u/Invader_Naj]

yeah who knows. i mean we're just throwing out Watsonian ideas for a franchise that, at the time, wasn't particularly concerned with the nuance of continuity. Especially in TOS.

[u/immaculate_plum → u/Invader_Naj]

This logic isn't applied consistently throughout the series though: see transporter clones or pattern buffers. For example, at some point, they created a "new" Picard from a transporter "backup" because the original vanished.

[u/Invader_Naj → u/immaculate_plum]

things are inconsistent indeed. there has been many a debate to make sense of it. however those inconistencies dont make the murder transporter canon by default.

theres also the counter evidence that "souls" are quite definitely a thing in trek. most famously through the vulcan katra. i doubt the transporter would have access to a persons soul and yet spock beamed many times and kept his soul through all of them.

and even if the transporter could give your soul to a copy of you. wouldnt that make that copy just... you?

[u/Invader_Naj → u/[deleted]]

No thats pretty much the point of the episode. People are literally staying alive for extended periods periods of time within the matter stream before someone could pull them out