Sorry about that ridiculous watermark.
The fact that two Rikers existed is all the proof I need to be full Luddite. Save your death machines for the next person, thanks!
And they treat the one on the planet like he’s a copy when he’d logically be the original with the one on the Enterprise being the duplicate.
They are both copies. They explain that the guy operating the transporter was losing him, so he used a second beam to try to compensate. On beam made it through, the other bounced off the st uff in the atmosphere that was causing the problem and rematerialized him on the planet. I’m pretty sure this explanation was in the episode in order to establish that both Rikers are equally real.
Except that that explanation means Tom was made with the original Riker materials and Will was made from matter reserves on the ship using the original Riker as a template.
Ship of Theseus
No, USS Enterprise NCC 1701-D. But I can see why that would be confusing.
Both beams were pulling in genuine Will Riker. Presumably they are both a mix of the original material and additional material formed by the transporter. That or the transporter is violating the law of conservation of energy.
I imagine a decent amount of Riker is spread across the atmosphere any time he beams through a storm cloud. I assume Enterprise D has spare Riker bits stores somewhere to fill in any gaps.
Everyone remembers his irascibility in the film but ignores that, for the three original years, he transported without complaint in nearly every episode. And it was a reliable, proven technology that apparently only got worse and more twitchy a couple of decades later.
And it was a reliable, proven technology that apparently only got worse and more twitchy a couple of decades later.
I assume the subtext was that it was a reliable proven technology being operated, in his option, by an incompetent idiot too young to be trusted.
Which is as good an explanation as any for the other transporter scene…
I think I’ve explained this too many times to do it again, but: teleportation doesn’t have to be “destroy and reconstitute” any more than going through a door necessitates killing you and reconstituting you on the other side of the door. The key is establishing continuity of your mind across the intervening space, which is mostly an engineering problem.
Star Trek transporters are “destroy and reconstitute” though. They are explicitly described as such. The whole Thomas Riker situation even requires it to be the case.
Star Trek just throws all its rules out from one episode to the next. The Star Trek franchise is the McDonalds of sci-fi; you don’t choose it because it’s good, you choose it because it’s available.
This is why I want monsters Inc style linked door-wormholes. It’s less… Reconstituted flesh.
Less room for duplicates, more room for halfsies I guess
I’ll take the small chance of being cut in half over the guaranteed murder box, thanks.
Typical McCoy. Calls turbolifts elevators and transporters teleporters.
“Old man yells at matter stream.”
