Trek Transporter ever used offensively?

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2003-02-21 04:27pm

Darth Servo wrote:
Kamakazie Sith wrote:I'm curious about the transporter/tractor beam deflection incident. What episode did this happen in?
TNG's "Attached"

See the database

Scary......

Don't you see it? There is evidence of continuity, three episodes with basically the same conclusion. B&B are rabid warsies!!!!!!

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2003-02-21 04:29pm

The largest amount of material ever beamed was accomplished by the Voth IIRC. They beamed Voyager into one of their cargo bays. Once again IIRC.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-02-21 05:32pm

Kamakazie Sith wrote:The largest amount of material ever beamed was accomplished by the Voth IIRC. They beamed Voyager into one of their cargo bays. Once again IIRC.

I remember that. Fucking 65 million year old dinosaur species which supposedly built interstellar spacecraft despite having brains the size of peanuts, and then evolved into large-brained bipedal humanoids (as EVERYONE does in Trek) millions of years AFTERWARD. One of the top contendors for dumbest Trek idea (although there are so many, it's always hard to choose).

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-02-21 06:05pm

Darth Wong wrote:I remember that. Fucking 65 million year old dinosaur species which supposedly built interstellar spacecraft despite having brains the size of peanuts, and then evolved into large-brained bipedal humanoids (as EVERYONE does in Trek) millions of years AFTERWARD. One of the top contendors for dumbest Trek idea (although there are so many, it's always hard to choose).

Wait--they gained space, THEN evolved intelligence? I thought they were an intelligent dinosaurian species that had already existed, for whom it just so happened there was no fossil evidence. I didn't see the episode, mind you, so this is why I might have jumped to a conclusion that isn't stupid.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2003-02-21 07:48pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Kamakazie Sith wrote:The largest amount of material ever beamed was accomplished by the Voth IIRC. They beamed Voyager into one of their cargo bays. Once again IIRC.
I remember that. Fucking 65 million year old dinosaur species which supposedly built interstellar spacecraft despite having brains the size of peanuts, and then evolved into large-brained bipedal humanoids (as EVERYONE does in Trek) millions of years AFTERWARD. One of the top contendors for dumbest Trek idea (although there are so many, it's always hard to choose).

I couldn't have said it better.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2003-02-21 07:52pm

RedImperator wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:I remember that. Fucking 65 million year old dinosaur species which supposedly built interstellar spacecraft despite having brains the size of peanuts, and then evolved into large-brained bipedal humanoids (as EVERYONE does in Trek) millions of years AFTERWARD. One of the top contendors for dumbest Trek idea (although there are so many, it's always hard to choose).
Wait--they gained space, THEN evolved intelligence? I thought they were an intelligent dinosaurian species that had already existed, for whom it just so happened there was no fossil evidence. I didn't see the episode, mind you, so this is why I might have jumped to a conclusion that isn't stupid.

I assume they gained or always had intelligence. However, the Trek writers don't realize that a space faring society would leave behind a lot of infrastructure which wouldn't just evaporate.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2003-02-21 08:04pm

I think every use of transporters is offensive to the laws of physics.....but other than that....nope they are never really used offensively....

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2003-02-21 10:17pm

Technically, any occassion in which the likes of Wesley Crusher, Janeway, Tom Paris or Neelix were beamed anywhere could be considered an "offensive" use of the transporter.

HappyTarget · Post by **HappyTarget** » 2003-02-22 01:41am

Of course you ignore the point about Transporters requiring several seconds to materialize and giving your enemies a warning sound to let them know you're comming.

No, I just assumed that everyone knew that this effect of transporting was a given to begin with. I wholeheartedly agree that using them in boarding actions "should" be very detrimental to the boarders health.

But what I am looking for is reasons why the transporter isn't used to do things like disarm enemies, beam boarders back to their ship/into the brig/into space.

Most likely reasons for the first one are that shipboard sensors lack the fidelity to lock on to a small power source (weapon power cell) or attacking alien's life signs (shooting from behind cover at the command staff laced landing party) in a firefight accurately enough to be "nice" to them (the chance of a horrible accident is just to great, so rather than ensure their away teams safety, they let them get fired uppon.

An ancient BoP was able to beam up two wales and a hell of a lot of seawatter. It should be a small thing to beam up a good sized hunk of solid granite to use as cover for a defensive position.

Shadow · Post by **Shadow** » 2003-02-22 05:32pm

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:"Probe" was the episode, IIRC. I'm pretty sure the ship didn't have its shields up though. After all these areBorgwe're talking about here.

No, the episode was "Dark Frontier Part I."

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-02-22 05:36pm

Kamakazie Sith wrote:
RedImperator wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:I remember that. Fucking 65 million year old dinosaur species which supposedly built interstellar spacecraft despite having brains the size of peanuts, and then evolved into large-brained bipedal humanoids (as EVERYONE does in Trek) millions of years AFTERWARD. One of the top contendors for dumbest Trek idea (although there are so many, it's always hard to choose).
Wait--they gained space, THEN evolved intelligence? I thought they were an intelligent dinosaurian species that had already existed, for whom it just so happened there was no fossil evidence. I didn't see the episode, mind you, so this is why I might have jumped to a conclusion that isn't stupid.
I assume they gained or always had intelligence. However, the Trek writers don't realize that a space faring society would leave behind a lot of infrastructure which wouldn't just evaporate.

Actually, the episode features an excruciatingly stupid sequence where they took a known dinosaur species from the fossil record, "projected" its evolution over the next 65 million years, and came up with a doppelganger for the Voth. Therefore, the idea of the episode was clearly that these dinosaurs somehow developed space travel in their primitive tiny-brained state and then evolved into large-brained bipedal humanoids over the next 65 million years. And yes, it's so stupid that it almost induces nausea.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-02-22 06:17pm

Darth Wong wrote: Actually, the episode features an excruciatingly stupid sequence where they took a known dinosaur species from the fossil record, "projected" its evolution over the next 65 million years, and came up with a doppelganger for the Voth. Therefore, the idea of the episode was clearly that these dinosaurs somehow developed space travel in their primitive tiny-brained state and then evolved into large-brained bipedal humanoids over the next 65 million years. And yes, it's so stupid that it almost induces nausea.

Sorry, but don't they mention how catastophic events like tectonics, ice age glaciers and such could have erased evidence of early civilisation, implying that they evolved intelligence first?

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2003-02-22 10:36pm

Frank Hipper wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Actually, the episode features an excruciatingly stupid sequence where they took a known dinosaur species from the fossil record, "projected" its evolution over the next 65 million years, and came up with a doppelganger for the Voth. Therefore, the idea of the episode was clearly that these dinosaurs somehow developed space travel in their primitive tiny-brained state and then evolved into large-brained bipedal humanoids over the next 65 million years. And yes, it's so stupid that it almost induces nausea.
Sorry, but don't they mention how catastophic events like tectonics, ice age glaciers and such could have erased evidence of early civilisation, implying that they evolved intelligence first?

Yes, they do mention that. Unfortunately:

A) Refined alloys would still be recognizable even after 65 million years, and we've never found any such thing laying in the ground (think about it: if a bone can survive ...).

B) They picked a micro-brained dinosaur as the model and then "projected" its evolution over 65 million years to precisely match the Voth. This means the micro-brained primitive version must have somehow developed space travel.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2003-02-23 08:59am

AdmiralKanos wrote:Yes, they do mention that. Unfortunately:

A) Refined alloys would still be recognizable even after 65 million years, and we've never found any such thing laying in the ground (think about it: if a bone can survive ...).

B) They picked a micro-brained dinosaur as the model and then "projected" its evolution over 65 million years to precisely match the Voth. This means the micro-brained primitive version must have somehow developed space travel.

Am I being really stupid here?
They have the Voth on one end of the spectrum, and a duckbill on the other. They used the computer to project it's evolution, but I don't see how this means the duckbills went to space. I don't remember them saying that they left Earth at the time dinosaurs became extinct. The gist I got was that they survived the mass extinction, evolved for a while, then left.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2003-03-09 09:49am

If ST novels are allowed, I can give you two specific instances, one of beaming grenades from point to point inside the same ship, the other of disintegrating enemies that were invulnerable to conventional Starfleet hand weapons.
In the actual episodes, not that I can recall.