[Futureguy]

Originally Posted by Saquist

The whole transport thing in this movie made so much less sense. It's like playing a video game that forces you to aim rockets from an Apache manually when in real life you know there is radar and tracking to make sure that warhead gets to target. What kind of advanced society puts the fate of peoples lives in this sort of aim and shoot target lock? I thought I was watching Galaxy Quest for most of the movie and I don't think that's a bad description. GQ made fun of contrivances but 2009 actually used them seriously in the same way....It's like parody but ...not....but is...

I can see that.......

[Futureguy]

Originally Posted by I-Am-Zim

My sentiments exactly. The functionality of the transporter in STXI wasn't even consistent within the movie itself. It couldn't lock onto NuKirk and NuSulu in freefall but could lock onto NuSpock, NuPike, and NuKirk all at the same time even while NuSpock was traveling at ramming speed in the Jellyfish. Yet it couldn't hold a lock on Amanda while she was essentially standing still. And the STXI transporter reminded me of the "digital conveyor" from GQ. Even the controls were similar.

The one really good time I appreciated the transporter "malfunctioning" was in "The Enemy Within", where a given reason for malfunction was introduced, the other.....make that two, two good examples of problems, was in "The Doomsday Machine", then there was a third.....three, make that three good examples of problems, maybe a fourth.....yes a fourth, make that four good examples after "Mirror, Mirror" aired.

The problems were environmental, not man-created, as most of the actual transport, by necessity, seemed to be computer controlled with the operator merely setting the dial/slides to transport out or in. Though in TMP, the transporter wasn't "smart" enough to sense an impending problem and shut the thing down before transport or offer a "fail-safe" secondary means of completing the process. What happened to redundancy of systems at Starfleet? lol

[Futureguy]

Not wanting to go off on a tangent on previous post. Just making a Python-ish commentary on failures that seemed to work despite the ability of the transporter system at the time to overcome the situation.

The basic premise of the transporter, as well as impulse or warp drive never changed for the worse from one episode to the next in TOS, was expanded upon in TNG, (warp scale changed, for one) but in my opinion, there was an established protocol for transporter capabilities that was ignored in nu-Trek. How about that Amanda could have been hit by debris before transporter took hold? That would have worked and added to the drama. Otherwise the transporter should not have even been "man-rated" as NASA would put it. The whole system seemed too slow and randomly faulted. Checkov should have had a real mental and script dilemma feeling responsible for loosing Amanda, another point that could have added some emotional tension to the crew make-up. Spock could have had it in for Checkov which would have been overcome by a "logical" assessment of the situation that they ALL have to work together to save the ship and universe.

[omegaman]

…not to mention the fact that RED SHIRT thought he was God's gift to the Federation and jeopardised the mission by getting himself killed. Was he trying to prove to Kirk and co that he had balls but no brains… or did he suffer from lack of air due to a suit malfunction?

On the subject of the Transporter its a magical device pure and simple, ready to do what the writers called for.

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by omegaman

…not to mention the fact that RED SHIRT thought he was God's gift to the Federation and jeopardised the mission by getting himself killed. Was he trying to prove to Kirk and co that he had balls but no brains… or did he suffer from lack of air due to a suit malfunction?

To be honest, there are a lot of mishaps that are actually the result of someone who is more experienced and knowledgeable in the evolution. This is particularly true with firearms. Generally speaking most experienced people are professional enough not to do stupid ****, but every once in a while you get a few that just completely blows my mind. Hell I even get annoyed when I get flagged by someone holding a fake gun in a training environment. Of course in a class room setting it's kind of expected that you'll get flagged, but it's still encouraged to keep it to a minimum.

[Futureguy]

Originally Posted by omegaman

…not to mention the fact that RED SHIRT thought he was God's gift to the Federation and jeopardised the mission by getting himself killed. Was he trying to prove to Kirk and co that he had balls but no brains… or did he suffer from lack of air due to a suit malfunction?



On the subject of the Transporter its a magical device pure and simple, ready to do what the writers called for.

Battlefield conditions.......Red Shirt was just a bit (over-zealous?) in trying to get the job done and pressed certain limitations to the "jump". They were descending at a fast rate...speed of sound? He did not suddenly decide that he could defy the laws of physics and make an accurate jump by ignoring protocol. He just "ScrewDD the Pooch". The red shirt did not help though...lol

Yes, but there were generalities of how it operated in TOS that though the writers would incorporate failure into it's operation. I never saw it being as difficult to operate as in STXI, where, if it were to be safe for "biological life-forms" it would have to be a lot more redundant and dependable than it was portrayed in STXI. Even "Enterprise" recognized the then limitations of the transporter and at first did not officially rate it safe for living organisms...man for instance. Her captain only used it for himself as a last ditch effort. The system was either going to work, for him, or not. That reference, as in TOS and later never used the premise that.......OMG! I don't think the computer could do with the transporter what I'm about to do with it on manual operation and then nearly or partially (fail several times.) Software/programs would have to be "fixed" for improved reliability of the system. To go into a battle condition with something that prone to programing limitations would be lame. They were close to the pooch and even stepped on it.......until the new (Scotty's) programing was incorporated into the equipment.

Heck, my smart phone GPS gets a better "lock" on me than STXI's transporter did on Amanda. It should have had a caveat' of not being rated for such uses. It was just too slow and seemingly cumbersome for use in such circumstances.

I did keep waiting on TOS to figure out that the transporter could have been used as a means to deliver a weapon just as easily as beaming all the tribbles over to the Klingon ship. I doubt that STXI's transporters could have handled that task...lol

[kevin]

Not being rated for what uses? Having an established lock that was lost because of a planet collapsing under her?

The transporter system in the film generally operates in the same way that it did in TOS (although if one wants to complain about it's lack of ability compared to TOS itself one could always point out that the Abrams film takes place 8 years before TOS and so therefore actually legitimately could be an inferior system 'in-universe' that was later improved upon as it evolved) when people were being transported in the same way that we almost always saw them do.

Standing still and being stationary through the transport cycle.

In ST09 the two times it proved that it was more difficult, and highlighted that the system had limitations was when the person was in essential freefall (or where the lock that had previously been held on Amanda was lost because her position suddenly shifted thanks to the ground collapsing under her - losing a transporter lock or finding it difficult to establish a lock in the first place is not a new phenomenon in the field of transporting and it's the lock that's most important. Establishing it, keeping it.) or at least NOT standing or being motionless somewhere from the site they were being transported out from.

It's simply not the preferable method of 'safe' transport using the system.

The fact that this sort of falling is harder to lock onto is reasonably fine to accept and not particularly disproven by anything in TOS or later series because (certainly in TOS) I don't believe there was ever a time that they tried to beam anyone out in such circumstances.

Chekov's intervention in the matter only shows that it is something that is hard to do and sometimes doesn't work out, because of the limitations of the system and humans. Neither of which are ever infallible 100%. But sometimes restoration of the human factor might be able to do something. The fact that he was successful once and not twice reinforces that it's difficult but it is not in any way wildly inconsistent - it would be analagous to the season 3 episode of TNG 'Booby Trap' where Geordi and Leah Brahms compute the course corrections the Enterprise would need to make in order to escape from the trap, and when they run the simulation with exactly the same computer changes the ship simulates escaping one time, and yet doesn't on the second - despite doing the exact same thing. It ends up being human intervention that gets the ship out, not the high-falutin' computers.

Or even trying to make a shot from 100 feet away from the hoop. Sometimes, yep - sometimes nope.

Group transports and transports from shuttles were seen in obviously seen in TOS several times (Scotty only points out that doing it from multiple locations to one pad simultaneously is something that had not been tried before, because it was difficult - which again since we rarely saw it in Trek before would seem consistent, and it helps make him 'the miracle worker' anyway) as well, so in principle I don't think there's anything wrong or especially grievous with the ST09 issues either.

[Saquist]

Originally Posted by I-Am-Zim

My sentiments exactly. The functionality of the transporter in STXI wasn't even consistent within the movie itself. It couldn't lock onto NuKirk and NuSulu in freefall but could lock onto NuSpock, NuPike, and NuKirk all at the same time even while NuSpock was traveling at ramming speed in the Jellyfish. Yet it couldn't hold a lock on Amanda while she was essentially standing still. And the STXI transporter reminded me of the "digital conveyor" from GQ. Even the controls were similar.

Good examples!
What I was started by is that suddenly this transporter could track moving targets in some of these examples and then it could and then at the End they beam aboard a ship much further away moving faster than ANYTHING that had been transported before...just because of an equation? What happened to the manned element at the end?

Originally Posted by Futureguy

Not wanting to go off on a tangent on previous post. Just making a Python-ish commentary on failures that seemed to work despite the ability of the transporter system at the time to overcome the situation.

The basic premise of the transporter, as well as impulse or warp drive never changed for the worse from one episode to the next in TOS, was expanded upon in TNG, (warp scale changed, for one) but in my opinion, there was an established protocol for transporter capabilities that was ignored in nu-Trek. How about that Amanda could have been hit by debris before transporter took hold? That would have worked and added to the drama. Otherwise the transporter should not have even been "man-rated" as NASA would put it. The whole system seemed too slow and randomly faulted. Checkov should have had a real mental and script dilemma feeling responsible for loosing Amanda, another point that could have added some emotional tension to the crew make-up. Spock could have had it in for Checkov which would have been overcome by a "logical" assessment of the situation that they ALL have to work together to save the ship and universe.

THIS...

[horatio]

Originally Posted by kevin

Not being rated for what uses? Having an established lock that was lost because of a planet collapsing under her?

The transporter system in the film generally operates in the same way that it did in TOS (although if one wants to complain about it's lack of ability compared to TOS itself one could always point out that the Abrams film takes place 8 years before TOS and so therefore actually legitimately could be an inferior system 'in-universe' that was later improved upon as it evolved) when people were being transported in the same way that we almost always saw them do.

Standing still and being stationary through the transport cycle.

In ST09 the two times it proved that it was more difficult, and highlighted that the system had limitations was when the person was in essential freefall (or where the lock that had previously been held on Amanda was lost because her position suddenly shifted thanks to the ground collapsing under her - losing a transporter lock or finding it difficult to establish a lock in the first place is not a new phenomenon in the field of transporting and it's the lock that's most important. Establishing it, keeping it.) or at least NOT standing or being motionless somewhere from the site they were being transported out from.

It's simply not the preferable method of 'safe' transport using the system.

The fact that this sort of falling is harder to lock onto is reasonably fine to accept and not particularly disproven by anything in TOS or later series because (certainly in TOS) I don't believe there was ever a time that they tried to beam anyone out in such circumstances.

Chekov's intervention in the matter only shows that it is something that is hard to do and sometimes doesn't work out, because of the limitations of the system and humans. Neither of which are ever infallible 100%. But sometimes restoration of the human factor might be able to do something. The fact that he was successful once and not twice reinforces that it's difficult but it is not in any way wildly inconsistent - it would be analagous to the season 3 episode of TNG 'Booby Trap' where Geordi and Leah Brahms compute the course corrections the Enterprise would need to make in order to escape from the trap, and when they run the simulation with exactly the same computer changes the ship simulates escaping one time, and yet doesn't on the second - despite doing the exact same thing. It ends up being human intervention that gets the ship out, not the high-falutin' computers.

Or even trying to make a shot from 100 feet away from the hoop. Sometimes, yep - sometimes nope.

Group transports and transports from shuttles were seen in obviously seen in TOS several times (Scotty only points out that doing it from multiple locations to one pad simultaneously is something that had not been tried before, because it was difficult - which again since we rarely saw it in Trek before would seem consistent, and it helps make him 'the miracle worker' anyway) as well, so in principle I don't think there's anything wrong or especially grievous with the ST09 issues either.

I agree. When Kirk and Sulu fell Chekov had time whereas when Chekov tried to get a second lock on Amanda there was a lot of blinking on his console so the gravitation was too strong and/or the rocks which inhibited beaming made it hard to get a second lock.
There was really enough techywacky in the movie to explain it. They made more of a fuss about it than usually. At least I don't remember that the first time people were beamed without having firm ground beneath their feet required any tech-xplanation. Not to mention the numerous times when people were beamed through shields or whatever.

[Futureguy]

Originally Posted by kevin

Not being rated for what uses? Having an established lock that was lost because of a planet collapsing under her?

The transporter system in the film generally operates in the same way that it did in TOS (although if one wants to complain about it's lack of ability compared to TOS itself one could always point out that the Abrams film takes place 8 years before TOS and so therefore actually legitimately could be an inferior system 'in-universe' that was later improved upon as it evolved) when people were being transported in the same way that we almost always saw them do.

>>>>>

IDK.......Look at the (debated) visual level of technical advancement of the nu-E over TOS. Even the first TOS-ish pilot had a seemingly reliable transporter, though granted it was not script-tested to the degree the one in STXI was. It's basic functionality and capability continued on to TOS. Only mentioned problem was transporting through "shields" and outside "TIY" there was only the implied use of the system ship to planet or vise-versa or ship to ship in an undisclosed range. But in TIY the transporter was definitely working at a level far above what STXI's was and that was my original point. Transporting at extreme warp from the Enterprise, with the earth moving up and by just as quickly and they nailed the transport of Capt. Christopher not only back to earth, but right back into his plane. Pretty good job whether it was the automated controls or (Scotty?) making the calculations. Add to that the fact that time was also advancing exponentially and till then, time travel had not been a factor in beaming. They just did it without question.

Can't tell me that for all the visual advancement of the ship design and systems between TOS and STXI, the transporter was a big thing basically inferior to TOS? I'm still not sure about the nu-E's warp capability being at least equal to TOS either, but that's another discussion.