Transporting the Doc's Mobile Emitter

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

I always had a problem with the way they beamed the Doc from point to point. I think it would have made more sense to have a small transporter beam encompass only his mobile emitter and have his projected form disappear during transport. When he reintegrated from a transport, his projector should have simply been beamed into mid-air. The moment it emerged from the beam, his holo-form would have been regenerated.

Any in-universe reason that wouldn't have made more sense?

 

[Akiraprise]

Not really. I always thought that is how it should have been too.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The transporter is being super cautious?

The parameters of his photonic body are impersonating something in contact with his holoemitter, just like how whatever a person is holding is also transported despite not being alive or part of the transportee's body, and in the case of that Whale Doctor Lady jumping into Kirks arms when he was transporting, even Klingons have enough default safety precautions with their transporters to make sure that no one is cut in half if they get to close or into direct contact with a transportee or if the transportee is carrying somethign irregularily shaped and perhaps dangerous or toxic or explosive.

 

[votd]

When the Doc goes on away missions he must surely carry medical equipment, tricorder etc, if his form disappeared his equipment could fall to the floor and break.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I wonder if the Doctor ever wears "real" clothes? he must be able to take his holographic clothes off for one reason or another, which would dissipate out side of a holodeck or sickbay as soon as he lets go...

 

[The Grim Ghost]

The Doctor and Odo both have some strange "is the combadge real, or part of them?" things going on.

 

[Guy Gardener]

In either case of Odo or the Doctor, the com badge and the holoemitter ( in the doctors case) would be much safer inside these people, but again it could be a superficial affectation to be part of the gang.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

In either case of Odo or the Doctor, the com badge and the holoemitter ( in the doctors case) would be much safer inside these people, but again it could be a superficial affectation to be part of the gang.

Speaking of Doc's communicator, why exactly does he need one? Given that he's a computerized projection, shouldn't he be able to tap directly into the ship's communications system, not needing the physical tie to it?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Imagine in general if someone wanted to make the perfect person to be their perfect friend but when they finished making this person, he was too smart, so they strangled him enough times causing incremental brain damage until he was just smart enough not to make that person feel like an idiot all the time.

The Doctor has numerous limitations built into him to make him more personable to the salt of the earth decent people.

 

[Gary7]

The clothes and combadge are holographic... has to be. The holoemitter is the only solid object. You're right and make an excellent point--the holoemitter should be what dematerializes. The Doc's image should wink out, just as when he is turned off. But I guess the effort to keep doing that everytime he is transported would be extra effort the production staff wouldn't want to bother with.

The only time we see holodeck images "transported" is back in TNG, the episode with Moriarty. But that was a flawed premise to begin with (the image is being generated from stored data--you don't need to "disassemble" the image, just use that data to recreate the item as matter).

Speaking of Doc's communicator, why exactly does he need one? Given that he's a computerized projection, shouldn't he be able to tap directly into the ship's communications system, not needing the physical tie to it?

It's part of the uniform appearance, that's why it's there. But you make a good point--he should never have to tap it with his hand!

 

[Timo]

But the tap is also part of the "uniform appearance"...

Why should the EMH go through the extra trouble of shutting down the projection when transported, and then turning it on again? It makes just as much sense for him to stay "whole", and for the transporter to grab all that there is.

It's not as if they would "save power" by only beaming the emitter. Power is never an issue with transporters: they always have enough to spare, and never ever engage in any sort of conservation measures. If there ain't a safe power margin, you don't transport...

And it's not as if the projected Doctor would be "unreal" or otherwise impossible for the transporter to grasp. He's a forcefield construct, probably with a few replicated elements here and there - and the transporter can grab forcefield constructs just fine. They are basically as physical as you and me (even if the forcefields holding us together are electromagnetic in nature while the Doctor's fields might be gravitic or something else).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[votd]

This reminds me of the scene in Ship In A Bottle where the doc is sent to Alpha Quadrant, an opposite premise to transporting; his data is transmitted but not any solid form, in the ep his holographic form seems to dematerialise and I expected his holoemitter to fall to the floor, but iirc it dematerialised with him.

 

[Timo]

That'd be "Message in a Bottle", actually. And the EMH mentioned his mobile emitter to his Alpha Quadrant counterpart, but we saw that he did not actually take the device with him - his sleeve was free of it from the beginning of his Alpha trip to its very end, right until the end credits. Which is funny, because he was still wearing it at Astrometrics when his program was sent over to Alpha and his holo-body dissolved...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

and the transporter can grab forcefield constructs just fine. They are basically as physical as you and me (even if the forcefields holding us together are electromagnetic in nature while the Doctor's fields might be gravitic or something else).

But the transporter cannot beam through a forcefield, so why can it beam a forcefield somewhere? I suppose another alternative is that the mobile emitter uses some sort of advanced holo-forcefield technobabble that the 24th century transporters 'think' is a physical object. Or perhaps the doc's forcefields shut down leaving only a hologram and the holoprojector has a little built-in antigrav device that hold it and any physical objects afloat until the forcefields come back online.

I think those are crap arguments, though. The emitter should have been the only thing that got transported, and the Doc should have had the limitation of not being able to hold onto anything when he transported anywhere. Maybe he would have had to set what he was holding on the ground before transport, or just hand it to someone else.

As an aside, I always wanted them to shrink the Doc to about 6 inches high and send him through an air duct on a mission.

 

[Timo]

But the transporter cannot beam through a forcefield, so why can it beam a forcefield somewhere?

Good question - but it's probably not quite that categorical. A transporter might be unable to beam a "hostile" forcefield of combat type around, but a "benign" field might be manageable. After all, the transporter can beam just about anything, including things that aren't baryonic matter - why not "hard light"?

We know transporters can handle shuttlecraft. If they can't handle active forcefields, then probably something would go kaboom in the shuttle during such a transport... Hell, Wesley manages to have antimatter transported in "Peak Performance", supposedly without raising any alarms or othewise acting out of the ordinary and taking special measures.

The emitter should have been the only thing that got transported, and the Doc should have had the limitation of not being able to hold onto anything when he transported anywhere.

That would have been a fun limitation on the character. But I don't think a hologram is that different from a person consisting of protons, neutrons and electrons. Hell, for all we know, a hologram consists of those things, too - only suspended a bit more loosely in a forcefield, and probably just skin deep.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[votd]

That'd be "Message in a Bottle", actually. And the EMH mentioned his mobile emitter to his Alpha Quadrant counterpart, but we saw that he did not actually take the device with him - his sleeve was free of it from the beginning of his Alpha trip to its very end, right until the end credits. Which is funny, because he was still wearing it at Astrometrics when his program was sent over to Alpha and his holo-body dissolved...

Timo Saloniemi

My bad, faulty brain wiring touched a few TNG neurons!

 

[USS Triumphant]

I agree that only the emitter should have had the transporter effect on it, but I don't see why the Doc would have had to "shut down" - if momentum and even phaser fire can be preserved, why not the energy of whatever forcefields he is made of? He'd have simply disappeared - "pop" - when the emitter entered that weird transporter stasis state and no longer had enough cohesiveness to maintain him, and reappeared - "pop" - when the emitter beamed in "enough". Objects he is carrying wouldn't matter, because at the point he disappeared, they'd be in that transporter stasis state, and he'd reappear just as they were released on the other end.

It would have been nice to see a distinct effect for all that.

They could have avoided all of that, and generated some interesting complications, by having key components in the emitter made out of untransportable latinum.

 

[Gary7]

I didn't mean to suggest that the doctor needs to shutdown first. His projection would just wink out as his mobile emitter is dematerialized. Then in the target location we see the emitter begin to materialize in air, and as it completes his projection "winks" back in. Dematerializing his projection is just plain redundant and unnecessary. But I understand why they didn't do it... because every time he'd be transported, the audience would take notice of it... distracting from whatever else should have prime attention.

 

[Sephiroth]

what I allways wondered from Voyager and even the Moriarty TNG eps, why not just build holo-emitters along corridors and in rooms so that the doc could freely roam the ship? (especially if he needed to leave sickbay for a medical emergency)