A Fragile Peace... and transporters

While I was reading through the book and thinking about running the story I came across a technical problem maybe someone can help me out with.

At some point in the first scenario, the crew beams over some cargo from the Orion freighter. No biggie. Now, there's this hidden Tal Shiar operative in one of those containers. She escapes detection because the container is designed to give false readings when being scanned. So how does she survive being transported aboard? In my estimation she would either have been detected during transport by the transporter technician "Hey there's a chick in that crate!" or because of the false readings been reduced to a collection of replicated individually wrapped doses of medicinal goo. Am I missing something?

CP

Dramatic license + technobabble + sci-fi tech = Unexplained things occuring.

Seriously enough, when it comes to Star Trek, transporters are the biggest issue when it comes to technology and what it can do. Its to the point where I banned mentioning any episode that used the transporter as a solution as a way to justify player ideas in my campaigns. The one thing I LOVE about Enterprise is that they avoid using the thing, which means less issues with it.

My suggestion is to ignore the problem because this is a game and not to be taken so seriously. If your players bring it up, just tell them it was needed for part of the adventure and to just get on with the story.

Proving or disproving the theories of ST tech isn't what the game is about, the story is. :D

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Originally posted by Alex Pryde
If your players bring it up, just tell them it was needed for part of the adventure and to just get on with the story.

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As a side note. Never, EVER use those words to describe this situation, rather explain it as;

"The handwavium technobabble do-hickey is the cause of this event, and in actually the whole system did, does, and still works perectly. Its a testament to the production quality of the transporters systems that such a dampening device can be used and the individual survive rematerialisation intact. Now doesn't that make you feel more secure anout stepping onto a transporter pad in the future?"

That should drop the hint that its a plot hook, and not neccesarily something they could do anything about. Whilst also reminding them that as players they too are likely to uyilise plot holes in the Treknology availabe at some time...

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Originally posted by senussi@hotmail.com
So how does she survive being transported aboard? In my estimation she would either have been detected during transport by the transporter technician "Hey there's a chick in that crate!"

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What the Transporter Technician would read on his display would be just a jumle of data that would indicate biological matter. He sure wouldn't have a complete 3D display of all there is in the cargo container on his display.

Second, something that is intended to foil tricorders or ship's sensors doesn't have to fool the transporter as well. The transporter scans molecule by molecule, while a Tricorder tries to get the "whole picture". Besides, you can always tell your players that the Orions switched off the sensor scrambler just long enough to beam the crate aboard. ;)

Third, how do you think we solved this mystery when we ran this adventure?
We suspected something was wrong with the crate found out Tricorders wouldn't help us and decided to recreate the interior of that crate on the holodeck using the transporter logs.
I am still proud of comming up with this idea. OTOH I always regreted comming up with this idea when I was the narrator myself ever after. :rolleyes: ;)

Actually the first thing I thought of when you mentioned it was that cargo transporters usually run at Molecular resolution, so she would have beamed up dead in either case :D - However since it was organic medicine, it would have been switched to quantum resolution anyway.

To be honest the whole problem of sensors VS transporters seems to be a problem in Trek. Quite often they cannot get sufficient sensor resolution to tell the difference between a Borg and a Breen ship, but they can happily scan and disasociate your molecules over a range of several thousand kilometers and it won't have a problem with that! it occurs to me why they don't ditch their regular sensors and just use the transporters! :D

In that sense the transporter would be able to bypass the dampening fields, in a way in which the ships internal sensors and tricorders can't. The transporter logs could be a problem, but then the answer is presented in the guide to the episode - have the Orion with the Isoninear hacking device alter the transporter logs! Saving that, simply have all the cargo moved aboard via a docking hatch, giving some technobabble reason about an increase in thoron radiation interfering with the transporters, Or simply state that the cargo is to delicate to transport, and you avoid the issue all together.

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Originally posted by Lancer
What the Transporter Technician would read on his display would be just a jumle of data that would indicate biological matter. He sure wouldn't have a complete 3D display of all there is in the cargo container on his display.

Third, how do you think we solved this mystery when we ran this adventure?
We suspected something was wrong with the crate found out Tricorders wouldn't help us and decided to recreate the interior of that crate on the holodeck using the transporter logs.
I am still proud of comming up with this idea. OTOH I always regreted comming up with this idea when I was the narrator myself ever after. :rolleyes: ;)

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Do transporter logs allow a 'recreation'? If possible on the holodeck then it should also be possible on the transporter pad, recreating/doubling persons.

For me transporters work as: Turn matter into energy, contained briefly within pattern buffer, then send by by ABC beam and reconstructed ('falling back in natural form'). While in pattern buffer you are NOT digitally encoded, more in 'gasious' form.
[turn person magically into energy, move that packet of energy and turn magically energy back into person]
You can run a 'scan' for virusses, energy discharges etc etc. Imagine many books with their pages loose all floating around and you try to find some information there. Searching for the word 'star trek' (aka virusses) might be done or a red page (energy discharge), but searching for complicated lifeforms or structures requires alot of searching often not possible within 7 seconds of pattern buffering.
A transporter log keeps track of how much 'energy/matter' was send around, by who, any special scans performed etc, but it does not retain enough information to reconstruct an person (ignore episodes in which this happens, because else noone ever dies, you just save his transporter log and after death 'rebeam' him.)

Or is my idea of transporters wrong?

Ahh cue the old *use transporters to live forever* gag :D

Ok, yes and no. Transporters do indeed store a digital copy of you. We know this because when the transporter failed on DS9, the 4 characters were saved in computer memory. However what was also clear was that this amount of digital information is vast. So to store a complete pattern of someone every time they transport is unrealistic. It must be the case that the Transporters do log what went back and forth, but it is not a complete copy, more of an overview. So while it might not be technically possible to recreate every thing exactly in the holodeck, you could look over the overview and know a Romulan was in there.

Holodecks cannot be used to recreate people in this way, in the same way as Transporters cannot - which has been stated several times in the show. The piint in case for this is Professor Moiriarty, who could not be physically created by the holodeck or tranported off. Holodeck matter is not really matter at all. It is a lose collection of particles which are held in place by tens of millions of mico tractor beams (read here http://www.ditl.org/scitech/hedholodck.htm for more info) In essence they are not actual physical objects, but amalgams of particles. It's probable they don't even go much further than skin deep, because to do so would be a waste of computer proccessing and memory. When you turn off the holodeck they evaporate.

Transporters can't be used to clone people either. it appears that the Transporter needs to have the 'active' pattern, to be able to replicate an object at quantum resolution. - Computer files appear only to be able to reproduce something at 'molecular' resolution - I.e. not sufficient accuracy to record the quantum interactions of neurons, peptides, and enzymes at the exact point of capture. Something would rematerialize, but it would be an exact duplicate, only instantly die, because the internal arrangements of the molecules and electrons are averaged out and approximated, not stored exactly.

In the same sense this is probably why some of the super dense amalgams, such as latinum cannot be replicated. Latinum Disentenide is made from 2 elements beyond our periodic table. This means that they are both ultra dense, and highly unstable (Most transhanic fishibles un the upper periodic table have only ever lasted for fractions of a second in a neuclear accelerator) It is likelly that for whatever reasons these elements have formed stable molecules and electron configurations. If you transport these - fine, if you tried to replicate them, then the result would be 'averaged out' and BANG you have one very powerful neuclear bomb of titanic proportions, since the elements would undergo fision dozens of times before achieving a stable configuration - aka Nuclear Fission :D

The Biofilter works on the active stream so is able to see the particle configurations of known diseases etc. however, it is not a universal Pannecea, as it cannot recognise unknown diseases. That said, a person could be held in a forcefield in the transporter room, and his condition analysed by the medical staff - and then the organsism could be removed by the biodfilter once it was reprogrammed, and he was re-transported.

Addionally, if you use the transporter to change someone back to a previous age, using an old pattern log, the side effect is that that person is simply the person from the younger age - he loses all of his memories, experiences, and loves. - So unless you have a Vulcan handy who will store your Katra in a buffer for you when you rematerialise, then why bother!

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Originally posted by Tobian
Ahh cue the old *use transporters to live forever* gag :D

Ok, yes and no. Transporters do indeed store a digital copy of you. We know this because when the transporter failed on DS9, the 4 characters were saved in computer memory. However what was also clear was that this amount of digital information is vast. So to store a complete pattern of someone every time they transport is unrealistic. It must be the case that the Transporters do log what went back and forth, but it is not a complete copy, more of an overview. So while it might not be technically possible to recreate every thing exactly in the holodeck, you could look over the overview and know a Romulan was in there.

it appears that the Transporter needs to have the 'active' pattern, to be able to replicate an object at quantum resolution. - Computer files appear only to be able to reproduce something at 'molecular' resolution - I.e. not sufficient accuracy to record the quantum interactions of neurons, peptides, and enzymes at the exact point of capture.

Addionally, if you use the transporter to change someone back to a previous age, using an old pattern log, the side effect is that that person is simply the person from the younger age - he loses all of his memories, experiences, and loves. - So unless you have a Vulcan handy who will store your Katra in a buffer for you when you rematerialise, then why bother!

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I dont remember the DS9 episode. Where they saved in memory or in pattern buffer (ala Scotty)??

So you say that a transporter log contains enough data for (re-)replication but not for re-transportation?
So if (back to thread) the PC can replicate the crate using the transporter logs on the (big mass) replicators, finding a dead romulan inside.
Or use the transporter logs to recreate a frozen 3D image on the holodeck (seeing a romulan inside).

Another question then:
When a romulan spy disguised as another race transports, could you detect his original race from the transporter logs?
In Fragile Peace they claim they changed the DNA, but could you detect that from the transporter logs?

I dont see how you can change someone age with transporters (that was weird episode), but if you can I still think many people would prefer to be made young again (without their experiences) instead of dying of old age (write yourself a some good advice first ;)

Basically the transporter was completelly offline. The computer saved their memory engrams using the entire Station computer core, and saved their physical patterns in the Holodeck, leading to an amusing epsiode where bashir had to stop them as his alter ego as a super spy :D

In the above example it took every bit of space on every computer system accross the whole station to successfuly save their patterns, so I am guessing it's not feasable for general use!

However also using the above example, it could be possible to reconstruct the Romulans physical appearance using the holodeck, though I would say it was an extremelly tricky manouver!

If a person has had his DNA structure physically altered, using the above analogy, you would not be able to know it had been altered, because there would not be enough information at the quantum level, which I would deem was neccessary to know something like that had been done. Only a physical exam of live tisue would reveal that.

I think the question would be moot with regards to the age reversal technique as it would be one of ethics over capability. Just because you own a neuclear bomb, doesn't mean you will or have to use it!

Thanks for correcting me, one of my players in my new campaign wants to play a transporter/holodeck/replicator expert...

I just see an episode coming up with a rich merchant hunting for a 'memory-saving' device so he can transport to a younger version of himself and have his memory restored..

Wait but how can you restore someone to his younger version if you only have a transporter log, everything 'recreated' from a log is 'replicated on a non-quantum level' and thus dead matter?

There was an episode of DS9 - where a rather unscrupulous person used an embedded transmitter (hidden in his fingernail) to transfer his conscieousness from one person to anohter. In this case he also created a clone of himself to implant those memories.

But - the replicator could not do this, because whatever emerged would be dead, beyond the capabilities of science to revive.

Sorry if I added a complexity to your game :D

Oh and while I remember, just to help you.. The person needed to aquire Biometric Gell, to use as a cloning agent. This, in the federation, is a highly illegal product, so this could either nod the wink to your players (if they are trying to catch him) or provide a mission (if they are helping him!)

Hi there!

I once played this adventure as a narrator, and had the same problems when i read it the first time. My players have done there homework and are more than able to point this kind of inconsistencies out.
To keep this kind of bug out of my game - and avoiding a discussion like this one - I just decided to let the merchant tell them that the medical suplies in the container cannot be transported. The Orion merchant insists that the crew may not disturb the container, or breach the seals on it. The supplies had to be brought in by a shuttle. And the Container was accompanied by two Orion Thugs who politly refused everyone to get a closer look at the container. The crew could only get the false readings on their scanner, and soon were more occupied by more pressing problems like some Orion hackers trying to retrieve secret data out of the Computer Core. After all Orions were arrested, the Players took a renewed interest in the container with the the Spy eventually catching her.

At least they diden´t raised the "transporter question" you ran into;)