Whereas the transporters’ matter-conversion course of won’t routinely kill the transportee, the expertise remains to be pretty unnerving. In actual fact, a number of characters discover these machines extraordinarily creepy. The in-universe time period “transporter phobia” is used to explain people who find themselves terrified of transporter machines, and notable characters like Medical doctors Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and Katherine Pulaski (Diana Muldaur) have been very cautious of utilizing them.
They’ve good purpose to be involved, too. Irrespective of how safe they’re, transporters are nonetheless strategies of transportation, which implies there’s going to be an occasional mishap … and when this form of expertise causes issues, stated issues may be extraordinarily critical. The lengthy listing of transporter accidents numerous “Star Trek” characters might encounter consists of arriving within the unsuitable place, time, and even universe. The machine might additionally de-age the transportees, malfunction in a approach that leaves international objects embedded of their our bodies, or, in an instance of a time “Star Trek” went too far, even fatally mangle the poor customers. Transporters have additionally been recognized to separate folks into two people and merge two completely different folks into one. Early fashions may even induce a situation often known as transporter psychosis – an unlimited array of untreatable bodily and psychological points attributable to the injury that transporting causes over time.
Sure, each mode of transport has its risks. Nonetheless, your automobile is unlikely to depart you randomly stranded in an evil Mirror Universe, which is what occurs within the “Star Trek: The Unique Collection” Season 2 episode “Mirror, Mirror.” Even with out the laundry listing of different potential issues that may go unsuitable with transporters, that alone is greater than sufficient to make the expertise a dependable supply of legitimately horrifying “Star Trek” tales.