Poll of the Week: Beaming With Pride

[Randal Shayne]

 

Everyone has their own opinion of JJTrek. I’ve watched the movies, and I am far from impressed. However, in their own way, these new iterations of the franchise we know and love bring up topics for discussion. After watching Star Trek Into Darkness, and a certain parody YouTube video, I began to consider the merits of the revolutionary technology introduced in the movie; transwarp beaming. 

These devices can be used to hurl individuals and objects hundreds, even thousands of times farther than a regular transporter would be capable of. Essentially, the transwarp transporter allowed instantaneous travel between destinations lightyears away from the start point. 

With such an incredible advantage, however, presents a rather unpleasant logistical dilemma. Put simply, it is this; would we need starships any longer? They have been the means by which the Federation has explored the galaxy, sought peace, and defended against the innumerable alien threats lurking in deep space. With transwarp beaming, journeys that would take days at warp could be achieved in the blink of an eye, without the complications that a starship brings to the equation. Indeed, we have seen defense platforms and drones used by various species and organizations in Star Trek- it stands to reason that the Federation could use these technologies as well. With a hypothetical transwarp beaming device, the question is, how much of our standard operation should we keep? 

This week’s poll asks you to tell us what your feelings are on this. Do you embrace transwarp beaming as the new, better way to traverse the galaxy? Or do you prefer the standard method of starships and starbases? Perhaps a combination of the two? Or neither? Let us know in the comments section below! 
 

 

[Blake]

My engineering character Tristam (whom I've taken to calling the "anti-propulsionist") is very much pro-transporter in the face of slipstream drive and warp factors - I've begun toying with a transporter concept, not necessarily transwarp beaming as of yet, that he's been working on in his spare time in-sim. To simply get from point A to point B with next to no hassles, I see this is the way to go.

That said, exploration should still be important, and completed with starships. The transporter shouldn't be the main transportation in areas that haven't been fully charted/colonized by the faction that's employing it (in this case, the Federation).

[Laria Herren]

Sure, use them if you feel that you absolutely must. But you need to always keep starships in reserve. Think of cases like Thomas Riker, child Picard, those poor people in the Motion Picture. We can't even trust the regular transporters. Transporter malfunctions are terrifying enough without the added terror of then being trapped years away from the nearest allied base. If we got rid of starships and we find out about some unforeseen problems with the transwarp beaming devices, how could you mount a rescue? We can use new fringe technologies but we need to keep what we know works around until we're absolutely sure about this new technology.

[Evan Delano]

My guess is that no matter how long distance you can beam, there'd still be use for starships to help deal with situations where some form of interference made beaming dangerous or otherwise unfeasible. There's also the fact that a starship is self-contained, and carries with it a suite of equipment that can be used to observe all kinds of things a person would struggle to see from the ground. So... transwarp beaming represents a great convenience for many people, but doesn't serve to make starships obsolete. 

[Mei'konda]

Like Evan said above, I think that Starships are more than just personal conveyance.  They're mobile platforms to deal with all sorts of situations.  If you're planning on exploring an area that's not particularly hospitable, then you really need your starship to support your crew. 

We also don't know just how transwarp beaming would work for actually retrieving someone or something from a location.  How easy would it to be to scan for and find the signal of a person tens of lightyears away?  There's also the potential for exponential increases in energy costs for utilizing this technology.  It could be that it's really only practical and safe to send or retrieve someone from two very defined locations, sort of like the quantum entanglement communications between two set locations in the Mass Effect games.  It was, after all, a big risk to send JJKirk and JJScott to the Enterprise in the 2009 Star Trek.  

Starships allow for a degree of flexibility and immediate response to a situation that transwarp beaming never would.