Film Theory: 3 DEADLY Truths About the Star Trek Transporter

Thanks to Star Trek Infinite for sponsoring this video!

Today we boldly go where no theorist has EVER gone before: into the Star Trek transporter. While it seems like a fun sci-fi invention that transports you to and from planets into the Enterprise, it is the furthest thing from fun! In fact, we believe the transporter would KILL you. Please, don’t beam us up, Scotty!
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#StarTrek #NextGeneration #Trekkie #StarTrekTNG #StarTrekBeyond #StarTrekVoyager #StarTrekMemes #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds #Trekkies #Spock #Picard #Theory #FilmTheory #Matpat

[FilmTheory]

Who wins in a fight: Federation, Klingons, Romulans, or the Cardassians?

[cats-napping]

Not ONCE did an episode that heavily featured the transporters go by without my dad turning to me and ranting about how he would never trust using a transporter and he HEAVILY encouraged me not to either. And I just sit there nodding along because he’s totally right and I totally agree, but also don’t think that’s something I gotta worry about for a bit.

[Otto-wc]

One thing that Matt left out was you could also be teleported to a different universe. There was one episode in the original series and several episodes in Deep Space Nine where one or more people were transported to a mirror version of their universe.

[XaviusNight]

One thing to note about being stuck in the pattern buffer - it's entirely possible that you CAN'T get stressed or experience normal psychological degradation from it, and can only experience them when you're out (which is why someone can develop a phobia about it, but someone else can get stuck there without overstressing about it) because in that state, they can perceive, but have no hardware on which to produce the chemical stress responses - the information is encoded as part of the transfer process, but they only experience the negative effects post-transport. Thus, if they don't have a problem with being transported (like Scotty), then they unlikely to come out stressed because they literally can't feel bored or stressed or angry or anything else at all. There's no physiological component to it because there's no physiology to happen in.

[johnkarakash]

I'm surprised you didn't mention how much Dr. McKoy fought against using the transporter in the ST:TOS movie. it even had an example of a very, very bad transporter accident!

[Democlis]

There is one thing about the trasnporters that i have never seen being fully utilized. Its amazing medical possibilities. You could store a backup of someones patern in a long term storage instead of just a buffer and if ANYTHING, from injury to death to desease, affects the crewmember just pass him through the teleporter, comparing archived to current data, and fixing what must be fixed.

[bookshelfpassageway]

Surprised he never pointed out that "Beam me up, Scotty" was never actually said in that exact way on the show, much like "Elementary, my dear Watson". If there's a tradition time honored by both MatPat and Trekkies, it's being pedantic

[ukiyasenpai]

There is a reason that the NX-01 crew only used the transporters for emergencies and supplies. Then Season 4 happened, and they got used to it.

[bpdmf]

There is an episode where Barclay finds creatures inside the transporter beam. There's another where Troi days "for a moment I thought we were inside that wall" and somebody answers "for a moment you were." This goes to show that conscious thought is kept inside the transport beam, which means you are still you when you arrive where you are. There is no death and then reassemble, but instead you are aware the whole time.

[NamelessGamer]

Fun fact: Not once is the phrase, “Beam me up, Scotty” exclaimed in the original series. It’s one of the most famous Mandela effects in fiction.

[FutureSoap]

I like the video, and I'm not the kind of fan who gatekeeps, so two things,
1. Scotty wasn't trapped mid-transport. He was stored in the shuttles pattern buffer, which stores the transport pattern before rematerialising.
2. Dr. M'benga also stored his sick daughter in a transport buffer until a cure was found.

[sentienttoast]

Matpat didn't even have to theorize much, the show explored almost every possibility lol

[cybus]

I'm surprised that Mat didn't mention the Next Generation episode 'Rascals', where the transporter was used to age or de-age people. They essentially unlocked immortality via the transporter, but it was never addressed again.

[ryanthompson]

Us oldies have suffered through what feels like hundreds of Fnaf theories to come out the other side and be blessed with a Trek episode. Thankyou for this gift MattPatt

[christiancowles]

I also noticed in one episode that they retain the data from each teleportation in an archive, which they used to fix some medical problem WITHOUT resetting the person's memories. So whenever a person dies, they could just load up that person's last teleportation data to revive them with just a bit of memory loss. When people get old, injured, or sick they could just merge the memories of their old body into a young body to reset their youth and health. People could duplicate armies of scientists, soldiers, etc. to accelerate technological progression or win wars. It was frustrating that the writers were too dumb to utilize obvious implications from the technology they presented in previous episodes.

[Owlzindabarn]

I don't know if the "they remain conscious" theory remains intact after Strange New Worlds. Because the doctor's daughter was constantly in the transporter and she didn't seem to notice any time had passed.

[illuminocalypse]

I remember having a debate with my cousin once about using transporter technology as a means of humane execution - I'm actually kind of surprised the shows' writers never tackled an idea like this (at least, not as far as I can remember - does anyone here recall an episode about this?). Anyway, my cousin was using the TNG episode with Barclay in his argument that being in the transporter doesn't necessarily mean you lose consciousness. One thing MatPat neglected to mention about that episode was that the bizarre, giant wormlike lifeforms Barclay sees during transport are revealed to actually be humans that had somehow been STUCK in transport for god knows how long... which is an extremely disturbing concept in itself, frankly - one that I'm disappointed wasn't touched on a little more! It's a reveal made at the end of the episode and is just handwaved away!
But yeah, if you're still conscious during transport and aware of your pattern degrading, that could be a truly horrific way to die.

[Ky-kxhd]

Wasn't there an episode where a bunch of people were trapped mid-transport, but nobody knew until one of the crew started hearing screams while getting transported? That one always freaked me out!
Wait, wasn't that the same episode where they discuss transporter psychosis?
It's been a while, lol

[somebodykares]

Lets also not forget that the transporters are also able to de-age and age crew members aswell, there have been episodes where the crew has come back accidentally younger to then just be put back through and restored to normal age, so technically if someone wanted they could rig a transporter to turn themselves young again by using an older pattern of themselves from when they were young and pretty much live forever.

[bobingabout]

15:14 In theory he'd experience a few seconds of being broken down, and a few seconds of being put back together, but while he is completely broken down and stored in the pattern buffer, he's data, and at that point, is basically just a file on the computer, and doesn't experience time.
They touch on this in an episode of Strange New Worlds season 2. They put somebody wounded in the pattern buffer so they can heal them later. Unfortunately, they have to delete him to get the transporter working again later in the episode.