Is the transporting bullet gun from DS9 possible?

[Luckyflux]

I don't remember the episode very well, but the pyscho Vulcan spending time on DS9 had a projectile gun on DS9 that would transport the bullet to the target. At least I thought that was the case but I might be wrong.

But if that was the technology being used, could it really work? Can the transporter "transport" the velocity and force of the bullet? I thought that once the transporter locked in, when the bullet reappeared it would just simply appear and not continue on it's flight.

I might be wrong with the type of weapon being used and they better explained on that episode, but in any event, could the transporter transport a bullet and have it reappear with its trajectory?

 

[Garibaldi O'brien]

I remember this DS9 episode. IIRC the technobable about the gun indicated that normal transporters had some form of inertial dampeners, that would stop the object from moving forward (much like we see O'brien disable Data's Phaser-weapon discharge before he materializes him). The Transporter rifle (TR-116 Assault Rifle) had no such safeguards, so when it materialized the bullet at the location, it continued on at full speed into the target.

I thought this was one of the best weapon concepts DS9 offered Trek. The transporter has massive potential as an offensive weapon, but it's seldom explored. Leave it to a crazy Vulcan to put the weapon into action.

 

[Delta1]

If a transporter sapped all inertia out of objects, it would kill anyone who used it--imagine all chemical reactions, even the orbitting of electrons ceasing instantaneously.

 

[David cgc]

It doesn't necessarily remove all inertia, but it does compensate. Otherwise, anyone who beamed to a planet from a ship that was moving relative to the ground would go flying or smash into the floor. Or beaming between two ships moving at different velocities.

The phaser beam deactivation was something different. Apparently, the transporter can put some things together differently, even if its just the difference between a phaser that's firing and one that's idle.

Both of these functions were probably used in Nemesis, when the Enterprise beamed aboard the Reman fighter, despite it being in motion and under power at the time.

 

[Meredith]

Aperture Science Portal technology is very good to preserve momentum and it doesn't preserve velocity either.

 

[Timo]

Remember that every time somebody is beamed up from a planetary surface to an orbiting starship, there is a massive differential in speed, momentum, angular velocity and angular momentum between the starting point and endpoint. The transporter routinely handles that. And it simultaneously preserves the minor movements within the body, allowing the life processes to continue.

So it would be ridiculous to claim that any transporter worth the name would have problems with handling a target that moves merely at the speed of a bullet. At the very most, we could argue that the tiny transporter at the gun muzzle was a simplified children's toy that lacked the ability to alter speed and momentum - not a complex super-unit that did more than normal transporters do.

What is more relevant here IMHO, though, is that since the transporter can compensate for these velocity and momentum differences, it can also by default create such differences out of nothing. So the crazy Vulcan shouldn't need any gun. The transporter alone should suffice: it would grab a bullet (or a spoon, or whatever) lying on a table, transport it to the victim's room, and hurl it at the victim at the speed of sound.

Then again, the Vulcan was crazy. If he specifically wanted to kill with a chemically powered gun, who are we to say that he should have used a simpler method?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Luckyflux]

Timo said:

What is more relevant here IMHO, though, is that since the transporter can compensate for these velocity and momentum differences, it can also by default create such differences out of nothing. So the crazy Vulcan shouldn't need any gun. The transporter alone should suffice: it would grab a bullet (or a spoon, or whatever) lying on a table, transport it to the victim's room, and hurl it at the victim at the speed of sound.

Wow, ya know I never thought of that! That would make an awesome weapon! All of a sudden objects just appear out of nowhere and start flying at you with deadly intent. Cool.

That would make for one heck of an anti-intruder system! Someone gets on board the Enterprise-D and Picard says "Chief, intruders are detected on deck 8, send a volley of silverware down the corridor"

Or Riker is playing a praticle joke on Worf and hits him with a pie in the face from Transporter Room 2!

 

[Dayton3]

In a real world situation, transporter technology if it was an spare with energy usage as portrayed on Trek, would have far more impact than FTL.

If it's so easy and safe to use a transporter as ST:TNG and later Treks show..............

...........why do starships even have corridors?

It is a staggering waste of interior volume. Why not just eliminate all of them aside from a few for emergencies?

 

[Trekker4747]

It is a staggering waste of interior volume. Why not just eliminate all of them aside from a few for emergencies?

Because space isn't a premium? And transporters aren't perfect, have the faults, can go down, and still consume energy.

 

[Rarewolf]

Luckyflux said:

Timo said:

What is more relevant here IMHO, though, is that since the transporter can compensate for these velocity and momentum differences, it can also by default create such differences out of nothing. So the crazy Vulcan shouldn't need any gun. The transporter alone should suffice: it would grab a bullet (or a spoon, or whatever) lying on a table, transport it to the victim's room, and hurl it at the victim at the speed of sound.

Wow, ya know I never thought of that! That would make an awesome weapon! All of a sudden objects just appear out of nowhere and start flying at you with deadly intent. Cool.

Just as deadly in reverse - beam someone's heart out, or the whole person in into space.

 

[ed629]

^ Like Rarewolf said. No need to beam anything in, all you need to do is just give the person you're trying to kill a bit of a scramble. Lock on to his brain and use the transporter to give it a stir, or even use it as a matter converter, turn the brain into oatmeal.

If you really want to have fun, do to the person what happened to the pig lizard in Galaxy Quest. So many interesting ways to kill a person.

 

[Dayton3]

Scrooge4747 said:

It is a staggering waste of interior volume. Why not just eliminate all of them aside from a few for emergencies?

Because space isn't a premium? And transporters aren't perfect, have the faults, can go down, and still consume energy.

Space is ALWAYS a PREMIUM. And always will be no matter the technology.

 

[Timo]

Well, not really. If you want to accommodate a thousand people aboard a starship, and you have all the vacuum in the universe to place the ship into, you simply build a big ship. No reason why one shouldn't built fifty cubic kilometers of personal space for each of those thousand.

...No reason except perhaps the scarcity of resources such as energy or building materials. And if those are scarce, you can't use transporters limitlessly. So the happy medium might be to build the sort of ships we see in TNG.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JuanBolio]

Delta1 said:
If a transporter sapped all inertia out of objects, it would kill anyone who used it--imagine all chemical reactions, even the orbitting of electrons ceasing instantaneously.

The Transporter kills everyone who uses it anyway.

Dematerialization teleporters are a dumb way to beam someone, anyway. Quantum entanglement is much more elegant... though it also kills.

 

[Saturn0660]

Rarewolf said:

Luckyflux said:

Timo said:

What is more relevant here IMHO, though, is that since the transporter can compensate for these velocity and momentum differences, it can also by default create such differences out of nothing. So the crazy Vulcan shouldn't need any gun. The transporter alone should suffice: it would grab a bullet (or a spoon, or whatever) lying on a table, transport it to the victim's room, and hurl it at the victim at the speed of sound.

Wow, ya know I never thought of that! That would make an awesome weapon! All of a sudden objects just appear out of nowhere and start flying at you with deadly intent. Cool.

Just as deadly in reverse - beam someone's heart out, or the whole person in into space.

lol funny you would say that.. I remember a long time ago on here us talking about going to the bathroom in ships.. Some of us talked about just beaming the poop out of you so you didn't have to go..