The wide and wonderful world of Star Trek is overflowing with great examples of science fiction. It features complex alien races with their own infrastructure, as well as some of the best examples of futuristic technology in the genre. Star Trek brought forth a wave of gadgets and gizmos that even managed to influence real world technology. While warp drives and intergalactic travel often receive the most attention, transporter technology is another which is used constantly throughout the franchise — but not always in the ways audiences might expect. There are a plethora of unusual uses for transporters, some purposeful and some accidental.
Transporters work via the futuristic science of breaking apart whatever is being transported into individual molecules, and then beeping them across distances to be reassembled upon arrival. There’s a lot more complicated fictional science that goes into the process, but that is the main principle. Transporters are used throughout the franchise to transport people traveling from one ship to another, or only various planets for away missions. They're also used to transport people back in emergencies, such as shuttle malfunctions or in conflict. They can transport goods or other non-living things, and are the most efficient way to deliver goods such as medical supplies to planets in need. There are the main, ‘textbook’ uses for this amazing technology. But what are some of the more unusual ones?
The first, which is a bit surprising for an organization such as Starfleet (who claims to not be military), is in warfare. The transporters in Voyager, under the morally ambiguous orders of war criminal Janeway, were used in season 5 to transport a photon torpedo directly into a threatening Borg scout ship. It makes for an effective weapon, as long as the other ship has their shields down. (Transporters are famously unable to penetrate the majority of ships' shields.) The crew of Voyager effectively created a ticking time bomb that was able to materialize out of nowhere, just seconds before detonation, ensuring that the Borg would have no time to disarm it.
Transporters would also be able to teleport these bombs into space, fitted with proximity detection software. This could make for an efficient minefield, which could aggressively protect a particular passage of space, or a wave area. This method was used by Sisko to effectively cork the wormhole with self-replicating mines.
Transporters, by nature, are designed to target a specific thing, and then teleport it away. Their specifics and accuracy are shown to be limited within Starfleet and the Federation itself. They are accurate enough to transport people and goods, but cannot differentiate between specifics within these forms. During Season 1 of Voyager, however (which deserves more credit than it gets), an alien race known as the Vidiians were able to use an advanced transporter to steal the lungs straight out of the ship's much-loved chef, Neelix. This level of accuracy is still miles away for the Federation, but the possibilities here are enormous. To use transporter technology to remove blood clots or damaged organs directly from an injured person would be incredible. This could enable doctors to perform life-saving, emergency surgery on people without even having to open them up.
In the retcon-heavy series Discovery, it is discovered that within the Mirror universe, transporters are often used as a cruel form of execution. Victims are transported directly into the vacuum of space. It's a nasty way to go, but one fitting with the evil mirror universe inhabitants. It establishes the character of this place, that its inhabitants use such a great technology in the most horrible way possible. This method was used, somewhat less horrifically, in the prime timeline as well. Data’s evil twin Lore is transported into space, to mindlessly float around until he is discovered years later.
Transporters have also been used in various different ways as a strange way to achieve a strange form of immortality. However, these moments are always the result of an accident. Transporters have also been known to clone a person, but they have also been used to de-age them, suggesting that with enough research scientists might be able to achieve immortality from these matter transporting devices.
It seems strange that in a fictional universe where weapons of mass destruction exist, that the most effective weapon might just be the humble transporter. This incredible device of destruction hides under the facade of being a tool, used primarily by the peace seeking, moral people of the Federation in a peaceful and moral way. They only use it for violence once every blue moon. Even then, these moments are often in self-defense. It's a testament that, despite having such advanced technology, the good people of the Federation will always choose empathy and love, over war and violence.
