Talk: Portable transporter

Remote or an actual device

Was the Non Sequitor reference an actual transporter, or merely the remote control for one?--31dot 07:13, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Well it was of similar size and weight as the device seen in "Concerning Flight". And looking at how small a transporter can go in Nemesis, I would say it was a transporter and not a remote. Also the dialogue suggests this, as Paris pulls out the cellphone-size apparatus he introduces it to Harry by saying "Site-to-site transporter. With friends like mine, you never know when it'll come in handy." and he is looking at the device itself. --Pseudohuman 11:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed that the article's just now been changed to state that the transporter in "Concerning Flight" was a small handheld device; is there proof of this? When I watched the episode not too terribly long ago it sure seemed like the big clunky device Janeway set the tricorder on was the transporter, which would fit quite well with Odo's earlier statements about their bulk. See here; the little rods on top of the bulky thing (which, AFAIR, Janeway had to snap onto the bulky thing before using it) don't really seem like they could even possibly be a transporter in and of themselves, and besides the tricorder, there's no other handheld-sized device in the immediate vicinity. It would seem that the rods are a component of the portable transporter, and that they had been separated from the main device and needed to be reconnected before it was usable. That would definitely support that the big thing was the transporter. -Mdettweiler 13:28, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

If i remember correctly she didn't snap the rod-cluster device onto anything, just took it out to a surface where it could be left with a tricorder. I believe the rods were the transporter device. The size is similar to the Non Sequitor device. And would support the evolution of the portable transporter technology to what we saw in Nemesis. --Pseudohuman 14:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Well, one thing I was thinking, though: the DS9 episode where Odo said that a portable transporter was rather bulky was not much earlier than "Concerning Flight", chronologically. Especially since Voyager was out of touch with Federation technological developments since 2371, it would seem rather likely that they'd have on board the big bulky thing, which given Odo's statement was current at the time. My impression from "Non Sequitur" was that Tom Paris's device was somewhat of a new, "prototype-ish" gadget at the time, that he'd managed to get a hold of through his contacts--not necessarily standard Starfleet issue. (If they had 'em on Voyager, Harry would likely not have been as unfamiliar with it as he seemed in "Non Sequitur".) Besides, how would anyone be able to pack a transporter's circuitry into those little rods? I know they got it even tinier in Nemesis, but keep in mind that most of the size of those rods is just open-air space between the rods themselves. I would think it's more like the emitter array for a bulkier portable transporter, since I'm quite sure that it was actually snapped on in the episode (having watched it somewhat recently).

Anyone here seen "Concerning Flight" recently enough to have a reasonably vivid memory of how that went? :-) -Mdettweiler 01:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Or, perhaps Odo was referring to a standard-issue Klingon portable transporter that might be bulkier, possibly due to a larger power source, because they are propably normally used on a battlefield to transport massive ammounts of troops and artillery simultaneously, who knows. It's all unnecessary rationalization. --Pseudohuman 19:48, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

At any rate, though, there is a large amount of ambiguity regarding this. Should the article be changed to say that which device was the actual transporter is unknown? -Mdettweiler 23:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Either way, it was never called a "Portable transporter" in "Concerning Flight" or "Non Sequitur" - it was a "Site-to-Site Transporter", which could be a different beast all together... — Morder (talk) 23:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, we should probably remove those two references.--31dot 00:06, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Moved to Site-to-site transporter. — Morder (talk) 00:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, agreed--it goes better there. I also changed the reference now over at Site-to-site transporter to refer to the device in "Concerning Flight" as a site-to-site transporter rather than a handheld portable one, since it was never referred to as either of the latter in the episode. We don't even known that it was portable; for that matter, Voyager's computer core was also there with the rest of the stolen goods, and that was anything but portable. The one seen may well have been a non-portable, site-to-site transporter designed for use in a shuttlecraft or other such situation where a transporter pad was not used. It could have been that, like the computer core, it was hooked up to a power source (or maybe had its own built-in backup power) by Tau for demonstration to potential customers. At any rate, all that we know is that it was a site-to-site transporter, which is how it's displayed now.

The handheld device seen in "Non Sequitur" is a beast of a completely different nature, however. While it was only stated in the episode to be a "site-to-site transporter", it was obviously being carried around by Paris, which makes it quite portable. Should it be listed on both articles? There doesn't seem to be any ambiguity about this one that it's both portable and site-to-site. -Mdettweiler 03:29, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

This seems to be the best solution. There are similar cases with transwarp beaming and subspace transporter that are essentially the same thing but might not be because they were called by different names. --Pseudohuman 11:52, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Uh...were you meaning to refer to my question about whether to put Paris's transporter on both pages, or just about putting the "Concerning Flight" transporter only on the site-to-site transporter page? -Mdettweiler 16:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Since no objections seem to have been raised regarding listing Paris's transporter (which was definitely quite portable) on both site-to-site transporter and portable transporter, I've added it to this article. -Mdettweiler 13:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)