Transwarp Beaming

[FaxModem1]

It completely defies belief that Scotty would simply abandon the most tactically important theory, probably in the AQ, when he was on the verge of completing and perfecting it for some 30 odd years, because... of no reason. Or that no one else could come up with the solution for what... 80 plus year until Scott was found on the Dyson sphere, given how close he was, while he was in the academy.

On top of that it was obviously something Starfleet was able to counter immediately or else why wouldn't Khan just beam to where ever he needed to be to free his people, the big giant evil ship or whatever instead of all the way to Kronos.

Also the reason he figured out the formula in the prime time line had nothing to do with advanced tech, but just him coming at the equation from a different perspective, so I don't think the time change to TNG would have had anything to do with it if it even took that long, which I don't agree it did.

Possibilities:

1. Transporter technology had to catch up with theory, and it wasn't until 24th century advances changed it.
2. Some experience or inspiration Scotty experienced in the 24th century made him finally connect the dots, such as studying the Dominion transporters that they used on the Jem Hadar, his experiment with keeping himself in transporter stasis for 80 years, Riker's accidental doubling, the Mirror Universe's refinement of transporter technology, etc.
3. Scotty was focused more on the engines of the Enterprise and keeping her in tip-top shape and didn't have time for such luxuries as writing out equations, and only in retirement did he have the time to figure it out.
4. The equation was that difficult, and is like Fermat's Last Theorem, and took generations before someone could figure it out.

[Oskuro]

As I said in that other thread I started because I'm an idiot who can't read, it is possible there are limitations that have simply not been explored in the movie. Some ideas off the top of my head:

1) Unacceptable lack of accuracy: As in "scotty teleported into the water treatment system". It could stand to reason that, due to the distances involved, it is impossible to "aim" the teleporter (no sensor feedback) so it would be extremely risky to use. It could be inferred that Khan went to Khronos beforehand to either plant a beacon of some sort or to find a spot to aim to and do some pre-calculations.
This limitation wouldn't preclude a kind of "stargate" system with fixed transporter emplacements for interplanetary travels, but would make it difficult to use tactically (In the first movie the enterprise was moving along a known path at a constant velocity, while a ship in a combat situation could have a more erratic movement pattern).

2) Prohibitive Cost: The first instance of the transwarp beaming is performed with "off the shelf" teleporters, but we are never made aware of the effect this use has on them. It could be entirely possible that the strain actually burns the involved circuits thus making them a "one use" tech, which would drive up costs considerably. Or maybe the energy requirements are simply prohibitive for constant use. Combine that with the aforementioned lack of precision, and it could quickly drive up the cost/benefit ratio.

The equation was that difficult, and is like Fermat's Last Theorem, and took generations before someone could figure it out.

Considering Spock prime had figured it out enough to implement it on technology not designed for it, I think it is a fair assumption that Scotty's Prime formula was not only widely known, but widely tested.

[Tribble]

I think most Trekkies picture Fed ships transwarp beaming armed photon torpedoes onto the bridge or engine room of every Imperial ship, from light years away, as an instant "I win" button.

Even if we were to assume that they could do that despite shielding, armour etc and if we were to assume that they could do it while the Empire's ships were in hyperspace, the Empire will still curb-stomp the Federation. The Feds may have a couple of thousand ships at most. The Empire has over 10,000 Imperial Class Star Destroyers alone, not to mention who knows how many smaller capital ships, frigates, star fighters etc. Again, they could lose ships and planets at a 100:1 ratio and still win. Easily. That's not even taking into account super weapons like the Death Star, Eclipse, Sun crusher, galaxy gun etc. The Federation simply does not have the industrial capacity of manpower to match the Empire.

Now, if the entire Star Trek Galaxy (including the Dominion and the Borg) combined and shared their resources and technology to fight the Empire, then perhaps transwarp beaming + red matter might be enough to tip the scales in their favour...

[Prometheus Unbound]

Now, if the entire Star Trek Galaxy (including the Dominion and the Borg) combined and shared their resources and technology to fight the Empire, then perhaps transwarp beaming + red matter might be enough to tip the scales in their favour...

But then you'd need to combine everything in the Star Wars galaxy, else it's just stacking the deck and giving one side an unrealistic advantage they wouldn't ordinarily have.

[Lord Revan]

the thing is that you don't have to destroy every single imperial warship win here, just enough that the cost of fighting outweighs the gains you'd get from winning.

Also bare in mind that "destroy" doesn't have to mean "vaporized", it could also mean wrecked and you don't have to even destroy the enemy ships to take them out of combat just damage them enough.

You got to remember that wars aren't thought over kill scores but strategic assets be they planets, military forces or so on, if the Galactic Empire has to spend more resources then the UFP is worth to win in a war against them, the Empire wouldn't do it.

That said nothing I've seen so far suggests that Transwarp beaming could used as a "silver bullet" to bring easy resolution to the war.

[biostem]

I think most Trekkies picture Fed ships transwarp beaming armed photon torpedoes onto the bridge or engine room of every Imperial ship, from light years away, as an instant "I win" button.

Even if we were to assume that they could do that despite shielding, armour etc and if we were to assume that they could do it while the Empire's ships were in hyperspace, the Empire will still curb-stomp the Federation. The Feds may have a couple of thousand ships at most. The Empire has over 10,000 Imperial Class Star Destroyers alone, not to mention who knows how many smaller capital ships, frigates, star fighters etc. Again, they could lose ships and planets at a 100:1 ratio and still win. Easily. That's not even taking into account super weapons like the Death Star, Eclipse, Sun crusher, galaxy gun etc. The Federation simply does not have the industrial capacity of manpower to match the Empire.

Now, if the entire Star Trek Galaxy (including the Dominion and the Borg) combined and shared their resources and technology to fight the Empire, then perhaps transwarp beaming + red matter might be enough to tip the scales in their favour...

Please don't misunderstand - I wholeheartedly am on the SW side of the debate - I was just playing devil's advocate for the ST side...

[Tribble]

I thought this was one of those "Death Battle" scenarios, where both sides go full out regardless of any political/social/economic situation. Otherwise, I find it highly unlikely that a war would be started by either side in the first place. The Federation wouldn't want to provoke a war against a galaxy-wide civilization unless they had absolutely no choice, while the Empire would likely leave them alone because they have bigger fish to fry.

And IMO in a war where Palpatine/Vader/Tarkin are in charge of the operations, they would happily sacrifice whatever it took to bring down the Federation.

At any rate, seeing as virtually all the evidence with regular transporter use demonstrate that Federation transporters do not go through enemy force's shielding, and there is no evidence to suggest that transwarp beaming would be any different, on the balance of probabilities transwarp beaming will not work through Star Wars shielding. In which case, while it might let the Feds launch the occasional surprise attack on unsuspecting targets it certainly isn't a game changer.

EDIT: No worries, I'm also on the Star Wars side of the debate - Tribbles like to stick with the winning side

[Batman]

You got to remember that wars aren't thought over kill scores but strategic assets be they planets, military forces or so on, if the Galactic Empire has to spend more resources then the UFP is worth to win in a war against them, the Empire wouldn't do it.

Which is why the Empire totally didn't blow up Alderaan, a rather important Core World likely worth several times the AQ's GDP, just to make a point Oh wait.

The Imps are perfectly willing to do things that are economically unwise if they (i.e. Palpy) feel like it and given the resource and tech discrepancy between the AQ and the Empire, the resources spent to dominate and/or eradicate the AQ would probably appear a considerable distance to the right side of the decimal point.

[Lord Revan]

You got to remember that wars aren't thought over kill scores but strategic assets be they planets, military forces or so on, if the Galactic Empire has to spend more resources then the UFP is worth to win in a war against them, the Empire wouldn't do it.

Which is why the Empire totally didn't blow up Alderaan, a rather important Core World likely worth several times the AQ's GDP, just to make a point Oh wait.

The Imps are perfectly willing to do things that are economically unwise if they (i.e. Palpy) feel like it and given the resource and tech discrepancy between the AQ and the Empire, the resources spent to dominate and/or eradicate the AQ would probably appear a considerable distance to the right side of the decimal point.

you know for supposedly the "world's greatest detective" you can be bloody dense when it comes to the matter of military, destruction of Alderaan was to secure even more important asset aka rest of the Empire, just because they failed at it doesn't change their motives.

If you had used your brains and read my comment in context you'd know it was to response to the notion that the Empire would just throw ship after ship at the problem regardless of the cost.

Yes the Empire is willing sacrifice rather large assets but not without reason (even if we don't agree with those reasons) and that's the main point here, the empire would throw ships at the AQ unless they thought, THERE WAS ENOUGH TO GAIN THERE TO JUSTIFY THE COST OF DOING SO, it's not bloody rocket science use your brains and don't just comment cause you can.

[Batman]

And I was quantifying the likely cost of doing so, i.e. an Empire that blew up a fucking Core World just to make a point and scare the rest of the Empire into sitting down and be good can probably throw ships at the AQ until the heat death of the universe without it being a noticeable leave alone serious drain on their resources.

[Lord Revan]

the question was never can they, but rather will they be willing to do so. It all boils down to the gains or more specifically does the empire think taking over UFP is worth the cost, after all the empire didn't just go out and occupy every single non-republic world in the unknown regions, why, hmm may it's cause the empire didn't consider it worth the cost.

[Batman]

I just realized my point is completely irrelevant anyway, because I was basing it on oldTrek data. NuTrek data is too thin to tell any which way, for all we know those guys can laugh at anything the Empire can throw their way.

[Havok]

It completely defies belief that Scotty would simply abandon the most tactically important theory, probably in the AQ, when he was on the verge of completing and perfecting it for some 30 odd years, because... of no reason. Or that no one else could come up with the solution for what... 80 plus year until Scott was found on the Dyson sphere, given how close he was, while he was in the academy.

On top of that it was obviously something Starfleet was able to counter immediately or else why wouldn't Khan just beam to where ever he needed to be to free his people, the big giant evil ship or whatever instead of all the way to Kronos.

Also the reason he figured out the formula in the prime time line had nothing to do with advanced tech, but just him coming at the equation from a different perspective, so I don't think the time change to TNG would have had anything to do with it if it even took that long, which I don't agree it did.

Possibilities:

1. Transporter technology had to catch up with theory, and it wasn't until 24th century advances changed it.

As I stated, Scotty already performed the act so the theory and technology were there in nuTrek and as there is no reason to think that the tech was that far off, it would probably be there in OldTrek, and was probably just a software issue.

2. Some experience or inspiration Scotty experienced in the 24th century made him finally connect the dots, such as studying the Dominion transporters that they used on the Jem Hadar, his experiment with keeping himself in transporter stasis for 80 years, Riker's accidental doubling, the Mirror Universe's refinement of transporter technology, etc.

Again, I don't think it would take Scotty 80 years to think as space as what was moving. It wasn't some grand theory that needed to be solved, it was literally just a different perspective.

3. Scotty was focused more on the engines of the Enterprise and keeping her in tip-top shape and didn't have time for such luxuries as writing out equations, and only in retirement did he have the time to figure it out.

Uh, they were on a 5 year mission to explore deep space. As we know from TOS, TOS:Movies and TNG, a lot of "deep space exploration" is cataloging gaseous anomalies and the like. Scotty would have had all the time in the world to work on his papers and equations, and IIRC he did.

4. The equation was that difficult, and is like Fermat's Last Theorem, and took generations before someone could figure it out.

As I covered answering #2, it wasn't. Scotty saw and recognized the correct equation after Spock entered a few key strokes. It was again, just a matter of perspective.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It was a matter of different perspective after he had the completed equation in front of him. It's easy to see what's "obvious" after the fact.

[Simon_Jester]

As I said in that other thread I started because I'm an idiot who can't read, it is possible there are limitations that have simply not been explored in the movie. Some ideas off the top of my head:

1) Unacceptable lack of accuracy: As in "scotty teleported into the water treatment system". It could stand to reason that, due to the distances involved, it is impossible to "aim" the teleporter (no sensor feedback) so it would be extremely risky to use. It could be inferred that Khan went to Khronos beforehand to either plant a beacon of some sort or to find a spot to aim to and do some pre-calculations.

Alternatively, he may not have cared where he ended up on the planet. If he shows up half a mile from where he's supposed to, that still serves his purposes. If he shows up in midair, well, maybe he had a parachute or a jetpack or something; he seemed quite well prepared.*

And if the system were so unreliable that you had a serious risk of winding up inside the ground... well, have we ever actually seen people beamed into a solid object in Star Trek? I suspect it's physically impossible, but could be wrong.

Besides, there's the one point of evidence that Spock was confident he could operate the transporter accurately enough to at least get Kirk and Scotty onto the Enterprise in the first place. If it had a known accuracy limit of, say, a hundred meters... well, there'd be a good chance of accidentally beaming them into space outside the ship.

*[Come to think of it, remember that bazooka-like energy weapon he used to shoot down an attacking Bird of Prey? That is the one hand weapon I can remember seeing in any Star Trek related fiction that explicitly operates in the same general range of firepower as the largest typical ground-based Star Wars weapons. I would not want to be in an AT-AT taking fire from a squad armed with those things, though the armor might shrug off the bolts.]

This limitation wouldn't preclude a kind of "stargate" system with fixed transporter emplacements for interplanetary travels, but would make it difficult to use tactically (In the first movie the enterprise was moving along a known path at a constant velocity, while a ship in a combat situation could have a more erratic movement pattern).

It would still be effective for inserting special forces to sabotage key installations (commandos don't care if they materialize half a mile from their infiltration point, assuming the infiltration point was chosen intelligently). It would still be effective for beaming powerful weapons as a form of strategic bombing (transwarping a thermonuclear bomb would still produce a blast of radius much greater than any plausible error in the beaming technology).

2) Prohibitive Cost: The first instance of the transwarp beaming is performed with "off the shelf" teleporters, but we are never made aware of the effect this use has on them. It could be entirely possible that the strain actually burns the involved circuits thus making them a "one use" tech, which would drive up costs considerably. Or maybe the energy requirements are simply prohibitive for constant use. Combine that with the aforementioned lack of precision, and it could quickly drive up the cost/benefit ratio.

True, although if it's being used as a delivery vehicle for a powerful enough strategic weapon, the sheer amount of 'boom' it will cause is enough to justify a lot of expense to deliver it. ICBMs aren't cheap either, but we don't hesitate to use them to deliver nuclear bombs.

At any rate, seeing as virtually all the evidence with regular transporter use demonstrate that Federation transporters do not go through enemy force's shielding, and there is no evidence to suggest that transwarp beaming would be any different, on the balance of probabilities transwarp beaming will not work through Star Wars shielding. In which case, while it might let the Feds launch the occasional surprise attack on unsuspecting targets it certainly isn't a game changer.

When Scott and Kirk first beam to the Enterprise in the movie, are you saying that the Enterprise's shields are down?

And I was quantifying the likely cost of doing so, i.e. an Empire that blew up a fucking Core World just to make a point and scare the rest of the Empire into sitting down and be good can probably throw ships at the AQ until the heat death of the universe without it being a noticeable leave alone serious drain on their resources.

This is the same Empire that, if we are to believe the EU, started ignoring entire polities like the Hapan because the number of ships it was taking to subdue them didn't justify the price.

[StarSword]

And I was quantifying the likely cost of doing so, i.e. an Empire that blew up a fucking Core World just to make a point and scare the rest of the Empire into sitting down and be good can probably throw ships at the AQ until the heat death of the universe without it being a noticeable leave alone serious drain on their resources.

This is the same Empire that, if we are to believe the EU, started ignoring entire polities like the Hapan because the number of ships it was taking to subdue them didn't justify the price.

Entire polities that also mostly kept to themselves. The Rebels were a higher priority.

[Batman]

Entire polities that have Wars level tech. We're talking about the Empire taking on the AQ.

[Batman]

And as I already mentioned, that was based on oldTrek information. At least far as I can tell we don't have sufficient data on how nuTrek compares to Wars.

[Simon_Jester]

And I was quantifying the likely cost of doing so, i.e. an Empire that blew up a fucking Core World just to make a point and scare the rest of the Empire into sitting down and be good can probably throw ships at the AQ until the heat death of the universe without it being a noticeable leave alone serious drain on their resources.

This is the same Empire that, if we are to believe the EU, started ignoring entire polities like the Hapan because the number of ships it was taking to subdue them didn't justify the price.

Entire polities that also mostly kept to themselves. The Rebels were a higher priority.

Well then, there's a very solid precedent- if the Alpha Quadrant powers are sitting on the other side of a Great Crossover Wormhole or whatever, and the Empire sends a hundred star destroyers through and (somehow!) those ships are utterly defeated... the Empire may not send another fleet down the rabbit hole.

[This is not an observation about who wins, simply an observation that the Empire has a history of NOT aggressively pursuing the defeat and conquest of remote power blocs that are strong enough to defeat their forces in open battle]

Entire polities that have Wars level tech. We're talking about the Empire taking on the AQ.

Yes. But my real point is that if the Alpha Quadrant (old-Trek or new-Trek) has the power to defeat an Imperial invasion fleet by a gimmick (such as beaming huge bombs onto their ships over interstellar distances), IF that is the case and IF such a temporary victory is won...

...then depending on the exact circumstances of the crossover, there's a good chance that the Empire will simply, sensibly decide to leave the Star Trek universe alone. Despite being a military dictatorship they do not have infinite political will to keep pressing the attack against a remote opponent that is good at defending themselves.

[StarSword]

Well then, there's a very solid precedent- if the Alpha Quadrant powers are sitting on the other side of a Great Crossover Wormhole or whatever, and the Empire sends a hundred star destroyers through and (somehow!) those ships are utterly defeated... the Empire may not send another fleet down the rabbit hole.

[This is not an observation about who wins, simply an observation that the Empire has a history of NOT aggressively pursuing the defeat and conquest of remote power blocs that are strong enough to defeat their forces in open battle]

As big as the Imperial military is, it's spread out across an unimaginably huge expanse of territory (something like half of a 130,000 LY-diameter galaxy) and is constantly having to deal with little brushfire wars and uprisings on top of an ongoing insurgency, normal customs enforcement and anti-piracy/smuggling interdiction duties, and whatever crazy-ass scheme of the week Palpy et al. decide to throw men and money at.

So like any big organization, they prioritize. Educated guess is that the scheme of the week gets first dibs because Palpy et al. kill you in amusing ways if they don't. Rebels are next, then minor uprisings, then routine patrol work. Occupying regional powers with enough of a navy to require a major military campaign is way the hell at the bottom.

It occurred to me as I wrote that that it kind of parallels the attitude of the more pragmatic portions of the IoM (e.g. Lord General Zyvan) towards the Tau. If they wanted to, the Imperium could most certainly bring enough force to bear to smash the Tau, but it'd mean devoting a considerable amount of resources to the problem that are more badly needed elsewhere. And the Tau are pretty benign by 40k standards and provide a useful buffer against other nasties in the Damocles Gulf, so the Imperium tolerates them for the time being and just tries to keep them from expanding into their territory any further than they already have. Similarly, the Hapes Consortium and Corporate Sector Authority basically keep to themselves and are very well-equipped, so taking them out is more trouble than it's worth at the moment. (IIRC the CSA even has a treaty with the Empire granting it autonomy.)