A story idea from Badger on Breaking Bad

[Atreyu69 (imported)]

Well sort of. There was an episode of Breaking Bad where Jesses Pinkman's stoner friend Badger explained that every time Capt. Kirk steeps on to the transporter he dies, his body is obliterated and what comes out the other side is a perfect 3-D xerox copy identical to the original in every way. So Kirk has died like 130 times over the course of the series.

This is only science fiction and I hope the question won't offend anyone. But what if such Star Trek Transporter technology actually existed and what if you didn't have to kill the person to copy his data. What it you didn't have to make the copy immediately or even at all. What if you could make the copy a year later? What if you could keep a complete set of data, both body and sole, of a person on a computer CD as a contingency agents accidental death.

Consider it this way. On your son's 9th birthday you have a scan made, not a copy and this in no way harms the boy, it's just having a complete set of data recorded for him. If during the following 12 months your son should (God forbid) be hit by a car and killed you could have a perfect copy produced. Then on his 10th birthday you have his data scanned once again. That way you'd never have to worry about losing your boy to death.

But if that technology actually existed would your son still be as special to you? Would you still love him just as much? If three weeks after his 9th birthday he was involved in a horrible accident that left him permanently disabled or disfigured would you consider having that boy euthanized and a copy made from his 9th birthday to begin the year fresh?

Also would you be willing to let him be castrated if he asked for it knowing that if things didn't work out as planned you could start fresh? It's an interesting question and their might be a story in it.

[fhunter]

I have first seen very similar concept in "Line of Delirium" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Delirium), device was called "aTan". But it had some differences.

Oh, and if you are able to copy memories between scans - such device brings immortality in this world.

As for the last question - your described implementation does not save memories after scan. So... the kid gets castrated, does not like it, and with euthanasia reverts back. But he does not remember anything of what happened.

[Paolo]

Since I am something of a Trek geek...

The transporter has been used in other ways in Star Trek, (other than just moving someone) some of which have certainly riled the fans.

Mr Scott suspended himself in a transporter beam for 75 years, reappearing in the TNG episode Relics. This one was considered all right, if not warm and fuzzy. Who didn't love Scotty making a comeback?

In Unnatural Selection, the transporter was reprogrammed to not copy Dr Pulaski, but to rebuild her from the DNA up, based on a scan of her older DNA, while obviously leaving her neural patterns current. This plot device caused an uproar with fans, citing that the key to immortality had just been found. Getting old? Just haul out that old DNA strand from stasis and become 21 again!

Rascals, another rotten tomato of a TNG epi, turned Picard and his friends into children when their RVN sequences were removed from the DNA by a rogue energy field during transport.

Our Man Bashir, DS9, saw the command staff being used as holodeck characters when the buffer blew out and Odo sought to store their patterns for later reintegration.

And of course, Kirk being split into Evil-Kirk and Good-Kirk...the episode which must not be named, it was so bad. Never mind the alien foo-foo cuddle dog thing...

One plot you could use for a story might be the energy field/RVN effect, in that as the man remains a boy for a long period, his adult memories begin to fade.

I'd go into it more, but it's time to go to work!

.

[martineasy (imported)]

This concept is one of the big revelations in one of my favorite space operas- The Hyperion Cantos, a four book series by Dan Simmons. You literally died every time you teleported or utilized hypertravel in a space craft; in the latter, the body was reduced to jelly then reassembled lol

[Atreyu69 (imported)]

I'm surprised no one's posted this link yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mspnqBFq76s

I suppose the transporter could also be used to castrate a person at a distance.

[Hopeful1 (imported)]

Of course being transgender, the first thought in my mind was, if the transporter can put you back together just like you were when it disassembled you, why couldn't a few computer adjustments put you back they way you wanted to be. Beam me up Scotty wearing that adorable little short blue uniform, black pantyhose and boots that Yeoman Rand wore.

H1