Oct 8, 2026, 6:59 PMwhen starfleet ships detect an unauthorized transport onto the ship (which is clearly possible for various types of transport tech), why doesn't the ship just automatically initiate a site to site transport to put them in a holding cell and deactivate/remove any weapons they're carrying?
Oct 8, 2026, 7:27 PMeverybody in this thread read @scalzi's Redshirts
Oct 8, 2026, 7:03 PM@lina Teleporters are vastly underutilized as a security measure in Trek. As you say, in non-combat situations unauthorized transport should just get you automatically beamed into a holding cell, naked.
During combat? Automatically transport boarders into space. Like this is something the computer should be able to do automatically without human intervention.
Oct 8, 2026, 7:12 PM@reflex
we do know that transports are relatively costly, which is why they don't do site to site transports all day. so for combat situations it could be that transporters get overwhelmed by a bunch of people getting transported to many locations through the ship. but there's plenty of times where only 1-5 people transport onto the bridge with weapons.
Oct 8, 2026, 7:14 PM@reflex
but yeah, even for combat it's like "as long as you can get a lock on them, just keep transporting them off the ship until you run out"
You could energize someone and then not actually reassemble them.
And then use the resulting energy to power ship systems instead…
The existence of the transporter has some rather gnarly implications. There is, for example, a species in Star Control 2 that routinely throws crew members into the reactor to use as fuel, and Star Trek transporters could in theory do the same thing.
Oct 8, 2026, 7:23 PMthere's energy generation at some stage of transport? i'd think it's all energy draining... scanning/disassembling? hella energy drain. maintaining coherence in the pattern buffer? def energy drain. reassembling? ton o' energy
Oct 8, 2026, 7:41 PMhmm, that sounds fishy for some reason. transporters were a mistake fr
Oct 8, 2026, 7:31 PM@argv_minus_one @lina This honestly feels like a war crime to me, just removing someone from existence entirely.
Oct 8, 2026, 7:33 PM@argv_minus_one @lina Sure, but presumably the Federation does...
Oct 8, 2026, 7:43 PMsisko killed that planet the maquis were on 😭
@argv_minus_one @lina @reflex they just don't need to, because they have enough other ways to produce explosions
Oct 8, 2026, 7:52 PM@ireneista @argv_minus_one @lina Yeah, like theoretically conservation is still a factor, adding an unnecessary conversion loses energy, just use energy directly for the task.
Per the TNG Technical Manual via Memory Alpha https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Photon_torpedo a photon torpedo contains 1.5kg antimatter, resulting in a yield of roughly Tsar Bomba. An energized boulder would make a much bigger boom than that.
Conservation of energy doesn't preclude there being a way to convert matter to energy efficiently. We currently don't have any known way to do it, but that doesn't mean there isn't one, nor would it violate the laws of thermodynamics.
The energy is, in fact, conserved. It is merely changed into a different form.
Such a discovery would, however, make it easy to blow up entire planets. It would be to nukes what nukes are to candles.
@argv_minus_one @reflex @lina DS9 demonstrated that any of these ships had the ability to sterilize planets, all along, trivially, without even drawing on any resource they bother to count. they were just showing great restraint by never talking about the possibility.
blowing up a planet is overkill, only necessary if you're trying to institute a Vader-esque reign of terror. sterilizing them is enough for all practical purposes.
Oct 8, 2026, 7:18 PM@reflex
maybe it's standard practice for boarding parties to use transport scramblers that get turned on as soon as the boarding transport is complete. starfleet security sucks, I'm sure it's super easy to find starfleet transporter specs and design wide-bandwidth scramblers.
Oct 8, 2026, 7:21 PM@lina because plot.
I know you're looking for a Watsonian reason but I can't come up with one. There was one episode where bridge officers kept getting pulled into subspace where aliens rearranged their organs and the computer didn't do anything about it.
@lina I literally just finished this two nights ago. It was funny and light-hearted — which I expected — but I was impressed by how touching it was at the end. The first of Scalzi’s books I’ve read but I’ll come back to him soon!
Oct 8, 2026, 10:58 PM@mycorrhiza
nice! we did the audiobook (narrated by Wil Wheaton!) on a roadtrip last year and had the best time. haven't gotten to his other books yet though... I don't make enough time for fiction outside of roadtrips and whatnot unfortunately. definitely planning to read more of his work eventually tho!