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Sep 20, 2022 · Star Trek: The Motion Picture's transporter accident scene is horrifying and apparently, a vital part of the film's success with the director's edition.
Apr 6, 2013 · Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Transporter Accident. Two Enterprise crewmen, including Science Officer Commander Sonak as well as a female officer, were killed in a transporter malfunction...
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"A cranky transporter's a mighty finicky piece of machinery to be gambling your life on, sir."
– Montgomery Scott, 2267 ("The Doomsday Machine")
"Reg, how many transporter accidents have there been in the last ten years? Two? Three? There are millions of people who transport safely every day without a problem."
– Geordi La Forge, 2369 ("Realm Of Fear")
A transporter accident or transporter malfunction was an often unintentional occurrence caused by the malfunctioning of a transporter, however, some transporter accidents came as a result of intentional causes, such as murder or assassination.
As with all technology, along with the unknown risks associated with matter-energy conversion, transporter accidents were often an unexpected reality of the 22nd, 23rd and 24th centuries. Though transporters were a relatively safe way to maneuver from one point to another, there were nonetheless multiple cases of transporter accidents.
Death
In 2139, the pattern of Quinn Erickson, son of the inventor of the matter transporter Emory Erickson, was lost during testing of new sub-quantum transporter technology. However, the pattern was preserved in a subspace phenomenon known as "The Barrens". Fluctuations in subspace allowed Erickson's pattern to reform periodically, taking the form of a ghostly figure. When Erickson was finally rematerialized in 2154, the pattern had deteriorated, and Erickson died seconds after materialization. (ENT: "Daedalus") According to Montgomery Scott, as of 2269, if a transporter had insufficient power, then there was the real possibility that transportees would "come aboard [as] a mass of dying flesh." (TOS: "The Savage Curtain") In the 2270s, two USS Enterprise crewmen, including Science Officer Commander Sonak as well as a female officer, were killed in a transporter malfunction while beaming to the Enterprise, which had recently been refitted. Sonak was coming aboard to initiate his duties as the ship's senior science officer. During the transport sequence, a malfunction caused a corruption of the buffer pattern for the commander and the crewperson. As they began to re-materialize, the transporter systems couldn't cope with the data loss and their physical form became "deformed"; the female crewperson screamed out in agony. The transportation failed, returning the deformed bodies back to Earth. The transport chief planet-side reported back, shaken, "Enterprise. What we got back didn't live long... fortunately." (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) Star Trek: The Motion Picture The Bajoran Trentin Fala was killed in a transporter malfunction aboard one of Deep Space 9's runabouts that was caused by a remat detonator. The detonator caused a power surge in the pattern buffer, and interfered with the integration matrix. Lieutenant Commanders Worf and Jadzia Dax, who were conducting the transport, attempted to transfer Fala's pattern to the secondary buffer while boosting the gain to the energizing coils, but the settings were maxed out, and the transporter beam was scrambled as she rematerialized, leaving a smoking skeleton wearing tattered clothing on the transporter pad. Though the transporter security system typically scans for such devices, the culprit responsible for planting the detonator on Fala had a sophisticated understanding of Starfleet security protocols. (DS9: "The Darkness and the Light") They both look with horror at the transporter stage as it FLASHES wildly with uncontrolled energy. Finally, Fala MATERIALIZES on the pad -- but she's been horribly burned and scorched. She crumples to the deck, dead. Dax and Worf react with a mixture of revulsion and grief at the sight... In early 2375, Weyoun 5 was killed in a transporter accident. Damar was to have been with him but "had been called away," casting suspicion on him for possibly "arranging" the incident. (DS9: "Treachery, Faith and the Great River")
Reverse aging
In 2369, Jean-Luc Picard, Ro Laren, Guinan and Keiko O'Brien were physically reverted to twelve-year olds after the transporter deleted rybo-viroxic-nucleic sequences from their genes. This presented some difficulties, notably with Picard's ability to command and the O'Briens' marital relationship. There were two options: do nothing or attempt to recreate them using their last fully-formed patterns to replace the missing sequences. Beverly Crusher was hesitant to send them through the transporter again, until they could figure out what had caused the malfunction, fearing they would lose even more and become younger. Later, it was discovered that a molecular reversion field had penetrated the hull of the shuttle, causing the transporter to register only part of their patterns. Following the upload of their adult patterns, Miles O'Brien successfully re-aged Picard and the others. (TNG: "Rascals") A similar process was also used to restore Doctor Katherine Pulaski to her original age in 2365. (TNG: "Unnatural Selection")
Foreign object contamination
In 2151, Crewman Ethan Novakovich was beamed back from the face of a planet later known as Archer IV by the still-experimental transporter system aboard Enterprise NX-01. The emergency transport was attempted during a fierce windstorm. Upon arrival, he was unconscious and had rocks, leaves, and other debris from the planet's surface embedded in his skin, due to a malfunction in the phase discriminator. However, due to the fact that "Human skin is a resilient organ," Phlox was able to remove the debris and repair the rather extensive damage, and Novakovich was expected to recover fully. (ENT: "Strange New World")
The "Yin Yang" effect
On stardate 1672.1, in 2266, a strange ore altered the function of the transporter, causing a transporter accident in which Captain James T. Kirk was split into two separate entities. One man embodied all of Kirk's so-called "positive" qualities and the other embodied all of his "evil" qualities. It was some time before the mishap was discovered, and the malignant version of Kirk roamed the ship, stealing brandy, assaulting crewmen, and even attempting to rape Yeoman Janice Rand. When he was cornered and finally captured in the engine room, the transporter was further damaged by an errant phaser shot he fired. Scott and Spock isolated and repaired the damage. Their repairs were confirmed when a test animal, which had previously been split in a similar manner to Kirk, was sent through the transporter in an attempt to reintegrate the two creatures. Upon reintegrating, it rematerialized dead, but McCoy speculated that this was the result of the animal not understanding what was happening to it and dying of fright, whereas the sentient and rational Kirk would be able to understand what was being done to him and thus be able to cope with it. Though he was crippled with indecision, Kirk was able to make the trip (albeit barely), and his two halves were reintegrated once again. (TOS: "The Enemy Within") The Next Generation In the TOS novel Foul Deeds Will Rise
Split one entity into two identical entities
In 2361, another transporter accident resulted in William T. Riker being divided into two separate Rikers. (TNG: "Second Chances") Unlike the two Kirks created in 2266, both Rikers were functionally identical to the original man. (TOS: "The Enemy Within"; TNG: "Second Chances") The incident occurred on Nervala IV, while the USS Potemkin was conducting an evacuation of a science outpost on the planet. At the time, William T. Riker was serving as a lieutenant in Starfleet and was part of an away team. An unusual distortion field meant the Potemkin had difficulty beaming him up. A second confinement beam was initiated to overcome these difficulties, with the intent of reintegrating the two beams in the transporter buffer. This was unnecessary, as only one beam was successful at transporting Riker; the modulation of the distortion caused the second beam to be reflected back down to the surface, materializing the two Rikers, one on the ship, and one on the planet's surface. The Potemkin left orbit, unknowingly abandoning the duplicate Riker. After eight years, this accident was discovered by the Enterprise-D which revisited the planet, found the second Riker and brought him back to the ship. (TNG: "Second Chances") Twenty years later, in 2381, history repeated itself when Lieutenant junior grade Brad Boimler, on a convert mission to Karzill IV, found himself duplicated. While he and his away team were besieged by Pakleds, Boimler used his knowledge of Riker’s splitting, to take down the distortion field keeping them from being beamed back up to the USS Titan. However, the field came back up before Boimler could be beamed up and a second containment field was used to strengthen the beam. This resulted in a clone being created, which was confirmed when the other Boimler returned to the Titan soon after via shuttlecraft.(LD: "Kayshon, His Eyes Open")
Two entities merged into one (aka "splicing")
"There's never been an accident like this recorded in the entire history of transporter technology. I'm not willing to accept it as a random malfunction." – Kathryn Janeway, 2372 ("Tuvix") Franklin Lysosomal enzymes of an alien orchid were the cause of such an accident in 2372. Tuvok, Neelix, and the orchid were temporarily merged into one being during transport; as the orchid aided microscopic entities in breeding by allowing them to combine with each other, it accidentally caused Tuvok and Neelix to combine when they were broken down into atoms during transport. "Tuvix", as he named himself (or "themselves"), was a complete mixture of the talents of both crew members. After discovering how to separate the two patterns and retrieve both Tuvok and Neelix, Tuvix protested that such a procedure would be equivalent to murdering him, but the procedure was undertaken anyway, and Tuvok and Neelix were restored. (VOY: "Tuvix") In 2381, the same orchid would bring trouble to the Voyager and the USS Cerritos when a petal from the orchid landed on the Voyager's transporter when Lieutenant Andy Billups and Dr. T'Ana used it, combining themselves into "T'illups". Looking up Janeway's logs to figure out how to save the two officers, Captain Carol Freeman was horrified to learn of Tuvix's fate and resolved to send T'illups to Starfleet to find an alternative. However, T'illups learned of their fate and vowed to stay alive by forcing the rest of the Cerritos crew to be "Tuvixed". This plan was accidentally ruined by Ensign D'Vana Tendi and provisional officer T'Lyn when the latter took control of the transporters to send them to the brig, only for all the infected officers to be fused into a barely-sentient mass of flesh, muscle and clothing. Thanks to a modified tricorder, the two officers were able to separate and restore the officers to normal. (LD: "Twovix")
Incorrect coordinates
In the 2270s, the programming of the Enterprise's transporter by Ari bn Bem caused Kirk and Spock to re-materialize just next to a cliff overlooking a water party, the rest materializing safely on the cliff. Once materialized, the captain and first officer proceeded to fall into the water. (TAS: "Bem")
Mirror universe
In 2267, an ion storm near the Halkan homeworld resulted in a power surge in the USS Enterprise's transporter, causing momentary interdimensional contact with a parallel universe. Captain Kirk, Doctor McCoy, Commander Scott, and Lieutenant Uhura, who were beaming up to the Enterprise at the time, materialized in the other universe, transposing with their counterparts from that universe, who experienced an identical accident at the same time. Later, after reviewing the events which led up to the accident, the Enterprise crew members were able to recreate the power surge using energy tapped from the ship's engines, and return to their own universe. (TOS: "Mirror, Mirror") According to Intendant Kira, all transporters in the parallel universe were subsequently redesigned in order to prevent a recurrence of such an event. Despite this, Terran rebels in that universe were able to develop a multidimensional transporter device capable of reconfiguring transporters for use in beaming from one universe to the other. (DS9: "Crossover", "Through the Looking Glass", "Resurrection")
Time travel
In 2371, Benjamin Sisko, Julian Bashir, and Jadzia Dax were accidentally transported to the year 2024 when the chronitons generated by the Defiant's cloaking device were contaminated and enhanced by an explosion in a microscopic singularity, while it was passing through the solar system at the time of the beam-out. Fortunately, Miles O'Brien was able to devise a way to use the residual chronitons to send Kira Nerys and himself to different periods of Earth's history to try and find out where the away team was sent, and then bring them back home. However, while in the 21st century, Sisko accidentally caused the death of Gabriel Bell, forcing him to assume the identity of this historical figure. (DS9: "Past Tense, Part I") As a result, Sisko is actually in all the historical photos of Bell. (DS9: "Little Green Men") Star Trek: Deep Space Nine chose the transporter as a form of time travel which hadn't been employed before and wouldn't require much exposition. "We had never used the transporters to beam people back in time, which I thought would be kind of a neat way to do it," stated Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who co-wrote the story for "Past Tense, Part I" and co-wrote the episode's teleplay. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion
Mar 29, 2017 · In the scene where Kirk goes to see Decker in Engineering, Decker and the engineers are working on the transporter systems. Decker: I knew it. The transporter sensor was not activated.
Transporter Accident in TMP. Was anyone else a little traumatized by this scene as a kid? The way they are shrieking while trapped in the transporter beam and you can kind of see what’s happening to them. Followed by the gruesome “What we got back... didn’t live long” being the final nightmare fuel.
Commander Sonak and accompanying Ensign meet an unfortunate end in the most disturbing scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) The Scene in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro_QpDJX-Sk. Archived post.
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The Motion Picture is based on and stars the cast of the 1966–1969 television series Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry, who serves as producer. In the film, set in the 2270s, a mysterious and powerful alien cloud known as V'Ger approaches Earth, destroying everything in its path.
