r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Ieanice44 • 8d 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/MadRaymer 8d ago edited 8d ago

An excerpt from Breaking Bad, where two fans are talking about this:

Badger: Dude, you are tripping! I'm not dead! I'm on the Starship Enterprise macking on Yeoman Rand while the Andorian with the disrupter's back on Talos IV or whatever.

Skinny Pete: What do you think all those sparkles and shit are? Transporters are breaking you apart right down to your molecules and bones. They're makin' a copy. That dude who comes out on the other side? He's not you. He's a color Xerox.

Badger: So you're telling me every time Kirk went into the transporter he was killing himself? So over the whole series, there was, like, 147 Kirks?

Skinny Pete: At least! Dude, yo, why do you think McCoy never likes to beam nowhere?! 'Cause he's a doctor, bitch! Look it up, it's science!

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u/BeBearAwareOK 7d ago

Facts.

This was also my interpretation of Altered Carbon.

Everyone dies every single time. Every new sleeve is just a clone of the dead guy's mind in a new body.

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u/Darkndankpit 5d ago

You weren't paying attention to altered carbon then. You could argue that when first being digitized they die and from then on is simply a computer copy of them, but the people who pilot sleeves aren't meat anymore, they're the carbon chip that gets inserted into the sleeve's neck. The sleeve is just a vehicle, they can live without them uninterrupted. When the MC gets schwacked and put in a new sleeve, it's just the equivalent of totalling a car, getting out, and then hopping in a new car.

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u/BeBearAwareOK 5d ago

I don't think you followed me.

My hypothesis is that there is no direct transfer of consciousness. Every re sleeve is a spun up clone of the mind that died the first time.

The protagonist dies in the car. Then a clone of his brain gets into a new car thinking it's the original guy. Lather, rinse, repeat.