Have you noticed that all sorts of mayhem breaks out in Star Trek: OS because Scotty or whomever just decided to leave the transporter room (and by the way, that very fact is occasionally thrown into the script, as in “Hey, Lt. Kyle, you had better not leave the transporter room!”). Just some examples: In “The Enemy Within” the transporter beams up the “evil Kirk” just after “good Kirk” and Scotty leave the room (with nobody else there). OK, it wasn’t their fault that Bad Kirk breaks loose, but they would have known about it a lot earlier if they just followed their own protocol! In “Let this be Your Last Battlefield” Beale and Loki seem to fairly easily get back to the planet surface (where everybody else from their society is dead). OK, no loss there…they were pretty annoying.

Granted, sometimes some evil doer gives the transporter technician one of those across the back hammer chops so characteristic of Star Trek, but then why not just add a couple of beefy security guys? These redshirts seem sort of expendable anyway, so why not put them to use?

Well, I was just wondering…..

If you want to read more about teleportation, just get hold of my book, The Physics and Astronomy of Science Fiction (by me, Steve Bloom) through any electronic book seller or from the publisher, McFarland. Thanks!