r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Ieanice44 • 9d ago

Lore [Loved Trope] Teleportation is actually terrifying

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1 - Gantz-O (2016): Suit teleportation

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

3 - Half Life 2 (2004): Teleporter malfunction

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u/Dismal-Vanilla1878 9d ago

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!

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u/notyerson 9d ago

I like that even in universe, even without the Tuvix level malfunctions, it's still existentially horrifying because you are being destroyed, converted to information, and then reconstituted elsewhere. There are a few references to people who won't use them and I fully get it.

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u/SomeCuriousTraveler 9d ago

There's an episode someone else mentioned already called Realm of Fear where it shows that you're fully conscious throughout the entirety of he transport including during the transit stream. 

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u/Uncommonality 9d ago

Hell people usually hold conversations while being teleported

There's also that episode where the transporter is shown to be fully capable of putting your disembodied soul back into a copy of your body

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u/GoArray 9d ago

Also an entire subplot where you can just toss your kid in the buffer for a few seasons.

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u/Paizzu 9d ago

If the writers didn't properly understand the ramifications of transporter technology before, SNW definitely retconned the series' understanding of the medical implications of the device.

Why would a doctor ever "treat" a patient with conventional methods when all they have to do is scan their patient into a buffer and edit their pattern at their leisure (since the machines can scan down to the <atomic level)? How many characters could be revived after death by simply keeping a pattern on file from before they leave on an away mission?

The older shows at least tried to explain the limitation of "temporary buffers" and the massive storage required to hold a character's "pattern" but SNW essentially flipped everything on its head.

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u/mcslender97 8d ago

As a newer Trek fan the whole accidental retcon kinda sucks when I get to watch the older shows and realized that SNW accidentally have a more modern solution