Transporter

The transporter "briefly converts an object or person into energy, beams that energy to another location, then reassembles the subject into its original form." A key element of the Trek-style transporter is the so-called annular confinement beam (ACB), a cylindrical force field that channels and keeps track of the transportee from source to destination. It seems that the ACB first locks onto and then disassembles the subject into an energy- or plasma-like state, known as phased matter. The subject's matter stream is fed into a pattern buffer (a hyperlarge computer memory that briefly stores the individual's entire atomic blueprint), piped to one of the beam emitters on the hull of the starship, and then relayed to a point on the ground where, all being well, the ACB will put the subject back together again. There's even a component of the transporter, called the Heisenberg compensator, designed to sidestep one of the most basic laws of quantum physics – Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

Heisenberg Compensators

In physics, the Heisenberg Principle states that you cannot know both the position of a subatomic particle and its momentum to a precise degree. The more you know about one, the less you know can about the other.

This comes into play when you consider that to know where everything is coming from and going to, you pretty much have to know near-exactly where everything is. By using this device, evidently, that's no longer a problem. The Heisenberg Compensators are probably used to keep everything in the matter stream exactly where it should be.

Annular Confinement Beam

The beam serves two purposes: The first is to maintain a "lock" on the subject, so the transporter knows what to beam out, and what to leave behind. The second purpose is to do the actual transporting, whilst keeping the subject in one piece subjectively.

Pattern Integrity

The pattern is probably highly complex. Pattern degradation occurs because the Annular Confinement Beams aren't perfect, even with the help of the Heisenberg Compensators. The matter stream comes out of alignment with the computer's pattern predictions for where things should be. Obviously, this is a bad thing.

A subject can be suspended in transport for up to 420 seconds before the degradation is too severe to attempt to reform the transportee.

Biofilter

The Biofilter looks for elements of the pattern which aren't found in normal beings/equipment, or those of known viruses and bacteria. It can simply erase those parts of the pattern, and those parts of the matter stream won't beam back in.

Pages in this Section

Starbase 10 is not affiliated with Paramount Pictures or CBS Studios. STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. Star Trek and related elements are copyright ©1966-2009 Paramount Pictures, all rights reserved and used under the terms of PPC online policy. Original cont - ent and graphics are copyright © MMIX Andrew Gelbman and Starbase 10, all rights reserved. Portions of this material are © 1983-2001 FASA corporation, All Rights Reserved, Used with Permission. No portion of this material may be reproduced in any form without the expressed permission of Andrew Gelbman. All persons, places and events mentioned on this site are fictional or are used fictiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, places or events is purely coincidental. The mention of any trademarked or copyrighted material on this site is not to be construed as a challenge to said trademark or copyright.