Transporters and antimatter

[suicide junkie]

On the other tentacle, from the point of duplication on, the twinned characters' experiences will differ

Yes, but both copies are You, just having different experiences.
I wonder what would happen if a powerful telepath was copied? That person could maintain a solid mental link between the two, and essentially have two bodies with the exact same mind!

Say a non-typical aggressive betazoid, copies themself & becomes an army! All of his bodies are in contact will all others, and form a sort of Zergish overmind.

Great villian for a movie - some telepath running around with a hundred bodies, taking revenge for something, and is defeated by using that interconnectedness against him. Maybe because there is a limit beyond which all of his energy is diverted into keeping a connection between all of his selves, and each body can't think as well. Too many bodies, and he basically turns into a group of borg, dumb units with extreme motivation and a master plan, but without the fancy tech.

-----------
Note: Feel free to use this in a game, just tell me how it turns out

[This message has been edited by suicide junkie (edited 03-17-2001).]

[SIR SIG]

Maybe that's taking it a little to far. I mean 100's of bodies all interconnected?

C'mon now!

What happened to the Rikers was a bizarre transporter accident.

------------------
'...The Borg have stopped at deck 10...'
'...Deflector Control, no vital systems...'

Not a vital system! What the heck do you think stops the ship going 'poof' every time it goes to warp?

- ST:First Contact; Lt Hawk

[darkwing duck1]

What happened to the Rikers should not have happened at all! It is a violation of Trek's own tech rules. Transporters (and relpicators) do NOT create matter out of energy. They break down and manipulate existing matter. The "transporter trace" is an extensive, but NOT comprehensive, record of the general state of the transport subject at the time of its most recent trip through the system. It DOESN'T store the "Brownian Motion" data that typifies a "living subject". Storing that amount of quantum-level data is well beyond even Federation computer technology. That's why Scotty had to keep the pattern buffers active in "Relics". The quantum data was not stored, but continuously transmitted and received by the system, which only had to "store" the microscopic data fragment that represented that split instant in the matter stream.

On another note, several people have expressed amazement at the firepower of a starship. In TOS, it was said ONE starship could devestate a planet in less than a day. In "The Die is Cast" (DS9), a flotilla of some 30 starships devestated nearly 1/3 of the total surface area of a small Class M planet in their first volley of fire.

------------------
Deo Vindice!

[SIR SIG]

Well I guess if you look at it that way then Thomas shouldn't exist.

But also the energy field around the planet may have in some typical trek wierdness; reconstituted the energy that was reflected into matter.

On the other hand Will was getting beamed up, and so the cloud must have reflected a portion of the matter stream back. That could indicate that the Riker twins aren't identical to start with.

May have to watch it again.

------------------
'...The Borg have stopped at deck 10...'
'...Deflector Control, no vital systems...'

Not a vital system! What the heck do you think stops the ship going 'poof' every time it goes to warp?

- ST:First Contact; Lt Hawk

[suicide junkie]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by SIR SIG:
What happened to the Rikers was a bizarre transporter accident.</font>

That's why you need a mad scientist willing to take extrordinary risks with a transporter make a duplicator device.


OTOH, I suppose he could simply make clones of himself using some stolen Jem Hadar tech, and get the same results.

[Owen E Oulton]

"What happened to the Rikers should not have happened at all! It is a violation of Trek's own tech rules."

There's precedent which predates those "rules" by over 25 years - the third regular series episode of TOS, The Enemy Within, has a similar accident, where Kirk is duplicated.

[Antonsb214]

On Transporters:
Transporter Chief,"Hey, all I know is that I pull the levers and it goes."
If it helps your story do it. If you have to explain why it does or does not or is a one-shot deal, that's what technobabble is for.

------------------
"Retreat?! Hell, we just got here!"

[Roy Cowan]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by suicide junkie:

I wonder what would happen if a powerful telepath was copied? That person could maintain a solid mental link between the two, and essentially have two bodies with the exact same mind!
</font>

There was a sci-fi novel trilogy that featured Paratwas, genetically-engineered twins that shared one mind. Between their physical enhancements and the fact that they had perfect coordination with one another, they made devastating combat teams.

I've wanted to throw something like this into a game, but figuring out fair mechanics that actually make a real game difference has usually been a little difficult.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by darkwing duck1:

On another note, several people have expressed amazement at the firepower of a starship. In TOS, it was said ONE starship could devastate a planet in less than a day.
</font>

Actually, you could do the same from orbit with a bunch of rocks, if you had tractor beams to drag-n'-drop 'em. A useful tactic to remember in a pinch.

As far as beaming anti-matter as combat maneuver, I'd think it would be fairly limited in utility. If their shields are down and you can afford to drop yours long enough to beam it over, the fight's pretty much over already in most cases. Given the demonstrated requirements, it would also need to be prepared ahead of time, and I doubt that it would be useul often enough to keep a properly contained supply and properly configured transporter on standby.

In essence, I'd think it would a rare mission-specific tactic rather than a routine option.

-- Roy