Transporter size limits

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Could someone beam an entire starship or station from one place to another, all in one piece, without blowing out the transporters?

 

[Tosk]

It depends.

Whose starship, and whose transporter?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Is it a feat which is technically possible? I suppose generating and/or making use of a wormhole would be less messy (no nasty beaming accidents!)

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Is it a feat which is technically possible? I suppose generating and/or making use of a wormhole would be less messy (no nasty beaming accidents!)

We see the Voth literally transport the USS Voyager from outside their City/Mother ship to inside their cavernous hull.

So it's very much possible, anti-matter and all.

It just requires a ridiculous amount of Transporter Buffer / Computer Memory to pull off.

It's one thing to transport a smaller StarFleet Shuttle, it's another to transport a entire StarShip.

The sheer amount of matter is crazy.

 

[blssdwlf]

Is it a feat which is technically possible? I suppose generating and/or making use of a wormhole would be less messy (no nasty beaming accidents!)

Definitely yes. The Kelandan outpost in "That Which Survives" used their version of a transporter to move the TOS Enterprise over 900 light years away. It wasn't a perfect transport but it displayed that the ability exists to transport a ship from one place to another.

 

[Ithekro]

Would require at lot of power and computer space and processing speeds to beam something that huge a distance that it couldn't just warp to easily in the same time frame. We are not talked Q level stuff, they are on planetary or greater levels, plus temporal levels.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Spoiler: Voth City Ship Beaming USS Voyager into it's cavernous hull and controlling Voyager.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Deks]

Could someone beam an entire starship or station from one place to another, all in one piece, without blowing out the transporters?

Starfleet starship transporters are able to beam something the size of a shuttle (AT LEAST). We've seen it in Nemesis, and it was done on VOY too (they've done it with Type 6 or 9 shuttle and Delta Flyer which is effectively double the size of Types 6 and 9).

However, VOY transporters were able to beam 200 Klingons at the same time whose combined overall size and mass go WAY beyond a Delta Flyer... though in fairness this is something they don't like to do for safety reasons (still, I imagine the safety reasons are due to live people).

In terms of non-organic matter at least, I'd surmise that the upper size and mass limit for VOY transporters could be equivalent to about 200 Klingons without issues in that case.

Larger ships might have higher capacity pattern buffers, so something the size of a Galaxy or Sovereign class might be able to handle an equivalent of 300 to 400 Klingons in emergency, and same equivalency in size/mass for non-organic matter.

The Voth were able to beam the VOY inside their city ship, but they were also quite advanced and employed elaborate use of dampening fields - plus their city ship was massive compared to VOY too, so there's that.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Starfleet starship transporters are able to beam something the size of a shuttle (AT LEAST). We've seen it in Nemesis, and it was done on VOY too (they've done it with Type 6 or 9 shuttle and Delta Flyer which is effectively double the size of Types 6 and 9).

However, VOY transporters were able to beam 200 Klingons at the same time whose combined overall size and mass go WAY beyond a Delta Flyer... though in fairness this is something they don't like to do for safety reasons (still, I imagine the safety reasons are due to live people).

In terms of non-organic matter at least, I'd surmise that the upper size and mass limit for VOY transporters could be equivalent to about 200 Klingons without issues in that case.

Larger ships might have higher capacity pattern buffers, so something the size of a Galaxy or Sovereign class might be able to handle an equivalent of 300 to 400 Klingons in emergency, and same equivalency in size/mass for non-organic matter.

The Voth were able to beam the VOY inside their city ship, but they were also quite advanced and employed elaborate use of dampening fields - plus their city ship was massive compared to VOY too, so there's that.

Just imagine how many more (Transporter Buffers / Computer Storage) you can fit in a Voth City Ship.

@_@

 

[Deks]

Just imagine how many more (Transporter Buffers / Computer Storage) you can fit in a Voth City Ship.

@_@

Sure, but I don't think that the Voth would necessarily go with the brute force type approach.
They have the benefit of being more advanced, so they probably don't have to go with that kind of approach.

Given the UFP has the benefit of over 150 member worlds cooperating in the late 24th century, along with the premise of exponential developments and returns (Which is almost never used sadly in Trek for UFP - because they'd be PERFECT example of this), my suspicion is that the UFP would reach Voth level of technology by the 26th .... and probably surpass it by the 29th (at least until the idiotic Burn happens, and then its back to late 25th or mid 26th century level where almost 0 time actually passed since the 24th).

For Starfleet in late 24th century, going with more transporter buffers and computer storage would likely be the way to go for them (sort of like brute forcing the way to beaming large objects), however, for the Voth, they merged a Tractor beam with a transporter (not a difficult thing to do since the raiders who mugged VOY were able to do something similar on a much smaller scale by finding items of value and beaming them off the ship) and are likely going with 'less is more' approach (aka, far more advanced technology in much smaller space - their tractor/transporter emitter is likely advanced enough to not need many redundancies or networked pattern buffers and computer storage).

Not sure how big the Voth are on redundancy though, but given its a city ship, they would likely have similar dedicated (but separate) systems installed in most sections of the city ship.
Or its possible they use them individually but have the capability of networking them together to increase capacity and overall capability should the need arise.

However, if a larger Sovereign class ship is able to outclass an Intrepid class in terms of pattern buffer storage (or at least, one would THINK it can)... one has to wonder what the capabilities of a Starbase would be such as the one in Earth's orbit if they are indeed using size to install more computer memory and pattern buffers to 'brute force' their way to beaming larger objects and improving safety (at least until the technology becomes more advanced).

Beaming large objects is probably not an issue for them, but my main problem is how they are using (or not using) the said technology.
For example, they could leverage replicators and transporters to replicate large sizes of (almost anything) into existence with enough energy (solar comes to mind since its massive and starbases are usually located in star systems that have stars - so space based solar should really be a thing) and then assemble them (sort of like prefabrication works today - you manufacture components and then assemble them on site).

Starfleet (since it probably doesn't materialize whole ships in existence) would probably replicate smaller sections of a starship and then assemble them on-site using tractor beams or transporters - or at least its likely the drydocks would do it that way - but for some reason, the writers opted NOT to showcase this approach, even though the technology is definitely capable of doing this.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Sure, but I don't think that the Voth would necessarily go with the brute force type approach.
They have the benefit of being more advanced, so they probably don't have to go with that kind of approach.

Hard to say, we didn't see much of the City Ship other than the inside & outsides of it's hull; along with a court room.
The thing we really know is that it's MASSIVE in size and can cause space quakes when emerging from Trans Warp.

Given the UFP has the benefit of over 150 member worlds cooperating in the late 24th century, along with the premise of exponential developments and returns (Which is almost never used sadly in Trek for UFP - because they'd be PERFECT example of this), my suspicion is that the UFP would reach Voth level of technology by the 26th .... and probably surpass it by the 29th (at least until the idiotic Burn happens, and then its back to late 25th or mid 26th century level where almost 0 time actually passed since the 24th).

You believe in exponential developments, I'm far more skeptical on that, but we've talked about our differences before, so no need to rehash old debates.

For Starfleet in late 24th century, going with more transporter buffers and computer storage would likely be the way to go for them (sort of like brute forcing the way to beaming large objects), however, for the Voth, they merged a Tractor beam with a transporter (not a difficult thing to do since the raiders who mugged VOY were able to do something similar on a much smaller scale by finding items of value and beaming them off the ship) and are likely going with 'less is more' approach (aka, far more advanced technology in much smaller space - their tractor/transporter emitter is likely advanced enough to not need many redundancies or networked pattern buffers and computer storage).

I'd argue that the tractor beam is more for keeping the target still, like how the transporter locks a person from moving before disassembling them. If you want accurate fast beaming of a massive object, keeping them still makes things relatively easy.

Not sure how big the Voth are on redundancy though, but given its a city ship, they would likely have similar dedicated (but separate) systems installed in most sections of the city ship.
Or its possible they use them individually but have the capability of networking them together to increase capacity and overall capability should the need arise.

Given how many rooms and surface area, I wouldn't be surprised if they have a massive amount of redundancy spread across the vessel.

However, if a larger Sovereign class ship is able to outclass an Intrepid class in terms of pattern buffer storage (or at least, one would THINK it can)... one has to wonder what the capabilities of a Starbase would be such as the one in Earth's orbit if they are indeed using size to install more computer memory and pattern buffers to 'brute force' their way to beaming larger objects and improving safety (at least until the technology becomes more advanced).

Depends on how many Transporter Buffers / Computer storage they dedicate to each StarShip/Base.
Obviously, the larger the facility, the more Transporter rooms / Cargo Transporters should be in each facility, spread about.

Beaming large objects is probably not an issue for them, but my main problem is how they are using (or not using) the said technology.
For example, they could leverage replicators and transporters to replicate large sizes of (almost anything) into existence with enough energy (solar comes to mind since its massive and starbases are usually located in star systems that have stars - so space based solar should really be a thing) and then assemble them (sort of like prefabrication works today - you manufacture components and then assemble them on site).

The main problem with replicating is that certain objects / materials can't be replicated and that's fine. You need limits, but for building things in space, certain materials that are super complex probably can't be easily replicated, like the hard metal hull platings or metal skeletal structures of StarShips. The dense metals necessary for the frame work probably has to be built the old fashioned way, but via automated metal forging via a large factory system. Then assembled together.

Starfleet (since it probably doesn't materialize whole ships in existence) would probably replicate smaller sections of a starship and then assemble them on-site using tractor beams or transporters - or at least its likely the drydocks would do it that way - but for some reason, the writers opted NOT to showcase this approach, even though the technology is definitely capable of doing this.

Certain sections could probably be easily replicated, others, not so much. I think it's a mish mash of parts based on what types of metals you use. Super Heavy Metal alloys might not be easily replicable or even possible to replicate while simpler stuff should be pretty easy.

 

[Ithekro]

One wonders if the Both transporters have anything to do with their transwarp technology. And if the Federation managed to get to that brand of transwarp before the Burn.