Starfleet Jedi

On my Ground Combat page, I had once said:

"Shipboard transporters have also been used on multiple occasions to beam entire vehicles into the shuttlebays. This was actually seen in Nemesis with a Reman Scorpion, and has also been referred to as occurring in with a Ferengi shuttlepod in "False Profits"[VOY3] and a Type-9 'speedboat' shuttlecraft in "Real Life"[VOY3] . . . an impressive maneuver given that the latter is a warp-four-capable vessel. (Picard also planned to do so with the much larger Type-7 shuttle in "Deja Q"[TNG3], but his efforts were thwarted by a member of the Q continuum.)"

Somehow I apparently missed the end of "Once Upon a Time"[VOY5]. This features the use of pattern enhancers to pull the entire Delta Flyer (minus some left-behind debris along its long course from a surface slide to its resting point three kilometers down in solid rock) and the rescue team nearby from deep below a planet surface. Oh, and they did so in the middle of an ion storm.

That is some hellacious transporting. Voyager has been seen to beam 200 Klingons before, which is impressive . . . maybe twenty tonnes depending on gear weight, and perhaps 20 cubic meters of flesh and bone . . . but this is a whole different ballgame. A Type-7 shuttle is pretty big . . . 8.5 meters long, 61 cubic meters, and probably around 70 tonnes. But the Flyer is 21m, 336 cubic, and up to five times heavier.

Or maybe I am just being silly. After all, in tonnage, Star Trek IV is still a significant beaming event. Scotty identifies the transport as 400 tons, noting he has never done a transport of that tonnage before. And that was with a ratty old Bird of Prey. Even in US short tons, that is likely a match for the Delta Flyer. (This actually supports my little side-hypothesis that Klingons actually had superior technology even into the TMP era. After all, it isn't like the Enterprise recovered the whole shuttle via transporter in "The Galileo Seven".)

I conclude that there is a limit and that said limit has increased over time for Federation transporters, but I am not clear on what decides the limit or if the Delta Flyer is even representative of what the limit is.

I may as well get my first post out of the way and add something here.

I will start by adding another example to the list you posted.

VOY S3E10 “Warlord”

[Bridge]
KIM: There's a transport in progress.
CHAKOTAY: Block it.
KIM: I'm locked out. Commander, it's one of the shuttlecraft. Someone is beaming it into space.

I will also add to the side of improving transporter technology and the improving capacity over time, note both of these

TNG S6E24 “Second Chances”

DATA: No, sir. Using the Potemkin's transport logs from the original evacuation, Commander La Forge and I were able to modify the transporters.
RIKER: So we can beam through a higher distortion field.
DATA: The transporters are considerably more efficient than those used on the Potemkin eight years ago.

and

ST VII “Generations”

NAVIGATOR: Sir! Their hull's collapsing!
KIRK (OC): Beam them out of there, Scotty!
SCOTT: Transport complete. ...I got forty-seven ...out of one hundred fifty.

There are always the examples of transporter mugging. It may not be Starfleet examples, but it does show the usage of the technology, and in "The Void" example Voyager does mug them back later on in the episode.

VOY S4E11 “Concerning Flight”

TORRES: Er, Torres to the bridge.
JANEWAY [OC]: Go ahead.
TORRES: We just lost the warp diagnostic assembly.
JANEWAY [OC]: What do you mean, lost?
TORRES: It disappeared.
[Bridge]
KIM: I'm picking up demterialisations on decks four through twelve.
JANEWAY: Evasive manoeuvres.
PARIS: They're matching our course changes.
(A biobed dematerialises..)
CHAKOTAY: It's definitely some kind of transporter beam.
JANEWAY: Fire at will.
TUVOK: I have the will, but not the means, Captain. Targeting control is down.
JANEWAY: Why?
KIM: Captain, the main computer processor is gone. We've lost weapons, navigation and propulsion.
CHAKOTAY: Backup systems are coming online.

VOY S7E15 “The Void”

TUVOK: They've penetrated our aft shields.
JANEWAY: Reroute power to the auxiliary emitters and return fire.
(Containers disappear from a cargo bay, plants from Airponics, a console and tool box from Engineering.)
CHAKOTAY: They've transported material off decks five, seven and eight.
[LATER…]
JANEWAY: I want a full damage report and an inventory of everything that was taken off this ship. And I want to know where we are.
CHAKOTAY: They got more than ninety percent of our food stores, including almost everything in the Airponics bay. They also got a computer console from Engineering and they emptied three of our deuterium tanks.

I will post more if I find them.

Impressive opening post.

The "Warlord" example is good. Per Trekcore caps it appears to have been a Type-8 (the modified Type-6 which they often swapped in stock footage). That is about 26 cubic meters and around 30 tonnes.

Also, given these warp-capable craft being beamed about, and in this case demonstrably with warp drive functional thereafter, it seems clear there is a high capacity . . . or no restriction at all . . . on beaming antimatter. I will have to refresh my memory as to whether there is any canon to back that TNG TM speculation.

ST:Gen is sorta iffy since the ship rudely exploded in the middle of transport. I imagine this is a good example but there could be variables for which we cannot account, such as containment fields of lesser durability, other radiation anomalies in the area requiring more effort than normal, et cetera. After all, the Klingon generational ship captain clearly expected beamout of the 200 crew before self-destruct, despite their antiquated knowledge of Federation tech.

Well if antimatter beaming is a concern, there is an example from Enterprise when the Osaarian attacked the NX-01 and stole the whole antimatter supply by beaming it out.

ENT S3E2 “Anomaly”

(Several humanoid aliens with ponytails beam on board and start transporting equipment away from Engineering and a Cargo bay. Reed, Archer and two MACOs put up a bit of a gunfight.)
[LATER…]
HOSHI: They're trying to download our database.
T'POL: Lock them out.
(In Engineering, Trip knocks one alien out with a piece of piping, then as the others start shooting at him, he makes the engines arc to keep the others away. Just as Reed gets there and starts shooting, they beam away and Trip turns off the engine again. Archer and Hawkins burst into an completely empty Cargo bay. The alien ship leaves.)
[LATER…]
ARCHER: How bad is it?
TUCKER: They made off with three photonic torpedoes, a case of plasma rifles, two dozen stun grenades, Chef says they cleaned out half of the food stores, Cargo Bay two's been stripped to the bulkheads, but that's not the worst of it. They took every one of our antimatter storage pods. All we've got left is what's in the main reactor.

I hope the quote is clear, there isn't a ton of information in the dialog and Trekcore seems to be down right now. The Enterprise crew recover most of their supplies later, beaming most of their stuff back to the ship, but I can't guarantee they beam the antimatter pods back from dialog alone.

Hope this helps

edit: Trekcore seems to be working again

System says you posted at 13:41 but I cannot see it.

Sorry, still new enough here that my post require approval before they appear. Looks like I joined in the middle of a bot swarm or board invasion. Yesterday the member count was over 900, now it's 285.

Still trying to find any more references revolving around mass beaming.

Best I have been able to find is the (near) complete evacuation of the ENT-D in "11001001" in under 4 minutes

TNG S1E15 “11001001”

COMPUTER: (male voice) Estimate release of antimatter in four minutes eighteen seconds. Seventeen seconds. Sixteen seconds.
DATA: Engineering to Bridge.
[Bridge]
WESLEY: This is the bridge.
[Engineering]
DATA: Alert starbase. Inform them we are abandoning the ship. Tell them why. Initiate automated sequence for departure. Set course and speed course and speed to put maximum distance between the Enterprise and any inhabited planets.
[LATER...]
COMPUTER: Decks two through four to cargo transporters. Decks five through ten, proceed to transporters one, two, three and four. Decks six through sixteen, proceed to transporters five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten.
[Transporter room]
(the queue is back into the corridor and Wesley and a couple of children and parents beam out)
CHIEF: Hold your positions please. Prepare to energise. And energise.
COMPUTER: Decks seventeen through twenty eight proceed to transporters eleven, twelve, thirteen and fourteen.
[Airlock]
COMPUTER: Decks twenty nine through forty two, proceed to transporters fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen and twenty. This is not a drill. This is not a drill.

The abduction of the Ba'ku in Insurrection, but that doesn't have a time frame attached.

2046 wrote:Also, given these warp-capable craft being beamed about, and in this case demonstrably with warp drive functional thereafter, it seems clear there is a high capacity . . . or no restriction at all . . . on beaming antimatter. I will have to refresh my memory as to whether there is any canon to back that TNG TM speculation.

Well, and forgive me if I misunderstood what you were saying, in "Peak Performance" Wesley transported an experiment involving "high energy plasma" and "anti-matter" without any apparent issues or risks. Enough to power the Hathaway for two second warp burst.

sonofccn wrote:

2046 wrote:Also, given these warp-capable craft being beamed about, and in this case demonstrably with warp drive functional thereafter, it seems clear there is a high capacity . . . or no restriction at all . . . on beaming antimatter. I will have to refresh my memory as to whether there is any canon to back that TNG TM speculation.

Well, and forgive me if I misunderstood what you were saying, in "Peak Performance" Wesley transported an experiment involving "high energy plasma" and "anti-matter" without any apparent issues or risks. Enough to power the Hathaway for two second warp burst.

Yes and that was always so crazy that I think it's perhaps a good thing to consider the UFP did develop a very efficient way to neutralize antimatter into a stable, non hazardous way.
After all, they've known this to be possible since the encounter with the Space Pot Joint in TOS.

I rather think neutralized antimatter would be a different phenomenon.

As for "Peak Performance", the TNG TM explained that small amounts of antimatter could be transported, referencing that specifically. However, that was a very small amount . . . the blue part was fist-sized, IIRC.

The blue softball-sized chunk of antimatter:



Yeah, another TNG TM fail.
-Mike

Fist-ish, then. Still, I would expect the Delta Flyer to carry rather more.

2046 wrote:I rather think neutralized antimatter would be a different phenomenon.

As for "Peak Performance", the TNG TM explained that small amounts of antimatter could be transported, referencing that specifically. However, that was a very small amount . . . the blue part was fist-sized, IIRC.

Out of curiosity, having never read it, did the TM explain why transporting anti-matter was dangerous/ill advised?

I don't have it handy, but the basic premise as I recall it is that you have a matter stream so having antimatter in it seems like a bad plan.