Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!wivax!decvax!tektronix!tekecs!orca!davidl From: davidl@orca.UUCP Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: could Spock return? Message-ID: <1419@orca.UUCP> Date: Wed, 27-Jul-83 01:26:38 EDT Article-I.D.: orca.1419 Posted: Wed Jul 27 01:26:38 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jul-83 02:57:54 EDT References: sri-arpa.3099 Lines: 36 Yes, the transporter was used in an animated episode (more than one, if memory serves) to restore old people to youth. An extremely dangerous concept, plotwise, which is just another flaw in Star Trek's believability. (In the live-action series, Rodenberry probably would have prohibited this gimmick for the same reason he made it impossible for characters to initiate a beam-up using their communicators from the surface: it made it all too easy for a character to thumb his nose at danger, and too easy to get out of it.) However, I have this habit of trying to explain bozo mistakes like this within the framework of the work of fiction (in this case, the Federation universe). Now, suppose that transporting someone is VERY expensive. (You may suggest that the frequency with which it was done implies that this is not the case. Read on.) Note that Starfleet is a military organization, and compare transporters with military jets in our own armed forces. High-performance fighter aircraft are among the fastest things flying today, and the Air Force uses them every day because they can accomplish tasks which nothing else could do. However, they are monstrously expensive to use and maintain. Now, there are several instances I can think of where fighter aircraft technology could have civilian uses. Transporting blood and drugs to hospitals, injured people likewise, Federal Express, who knows? Yet no private organization could afford to maintain these beasts, even assuming that this would not be construed as a violation of national secrity. Therefore fighter aircraft are used only by the armed forces, and only for specific kinds of duties. Exceptions are rare. Now apply this back to Star Trek. Transporters are used by Starfleet because they can accomplish the job as nothing else can. However, they are too expensive for the civilian uses the concept suggests, and they are in such heavy use (or have so much downtime: you remember how unreliable they are) that experiments such as bringing injured people back to health are performed only in the gravest, most immediately mission-threatening circumstances. However, I think that idea could be the basis of a fine story. See also "Theory and Practice of Teleportation" by Larry Niven (in the collection "Inconstant Moon," I think). - David D. Levine ...decvax!tektronix!tekecs!davidl