Transporters

[ray gower]

Has anybody noticed that although the crew do not trust the transporters, they are actually far more relaible than the one's in use in their future brethren?

On TOS, TNG and Voyager they always use shuttles because the transporter will not work due to interference of some flavour.

Yet in Enterprise the transporter can be guaranteed to penetrate the foulest electrical interference even if it is impossible to get through in a shuttle.



Trick-or-Treat clue number 8:
Padders has a brilliant idea in the alien creche as our little aliens get christened.
ghouLs

 

[Dave]

LOL

The writers obviously need a 'last resort' to turn too.

You are correct though. I think that GL came up with Transporters so that the costly special effects of landing the ship each week weren't necessary. They were meant to be a fully tested technology.

Shuttlecrafts weren't in the original The Star Trek Writers Guide, but were added later in August 1966, first mentioned in 'Conscience of the King' TOS, and then finally seen in 'The Galileo Seven' TOS when (you guessed it) the crew were stranded on Taurus II. All the shuttlecraft sets and models were built for that episode.

Although McCoy didn't like to use them, they seemed safe enough, apart from splitting Kirk into two halves and the mirror universe episode.

It seems that as history progressed they began to get more dangerous. It is only into the TNG/DS9 era that we learnt of 'Transporter Psychosis' (sp), Riker's double, accidental time travel, and frequent mirror universe travel. I agree with Barclay -- stay clear of them.