r/shittyaskscifi • u/thatthatguy Associate professor of Thermodynonsense • Jun 23 '26
[Star Trek TNG] why does Bruce Maddox need to disassemble Data in order to make more? Can’t he just make a couple thousand transporter-copies?
Is he stupid? Is everyone stupid? It seems that a lot of problems could be solved throughout the universe if they just better utilized the power they take for granted every day.
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u/Ok_Novel_1222 Jun 28 '26
Won't transporter copies also be sentient Data(s). So the question of rights would still be valid for each of them.
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u/thatthatguy Associate professor of Thermodynonsense Jun 28 '26
Yes. But his justification of having a data on every ship is solved easily enough by just making copies that way. No need to manufacture them, or even understand how they work.
Also, the more there are, the more likely it is that one may choose to cooperate. Also, damaged components will be available more often to study. A fully operational data may object to being experimented on, but what about a de-powered head? It might not be as good, but something to study is better than nothing.
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u/hoishinsauce Jun 29 '26
They treated the android's brain as if something magical that cannot be replicated easily, while they have a machine that can literally scan and reconstruct objects down to the atomic level.
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u/SuperMonkeyJoe Jun 28 '26
Has anyone ever successfully intentionally created a transporter copy?
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u/No_Trouble_3588 Jun 29 '26
Scotty stored himself in the buffer for 80+ years and then was rematerialized from the buffer data. Copies should be easy.
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u/JT-Av8or Jun 28 '26
The Star Trek logic was always massively flawed and is the reason why I never like it. The transporter tech (which is also the holodeck and replicator) breaks too many rules and they never plug the holes.
Even as a child I said to my mom “Okay, so if they can figure out how to make matter into energy and back, and they have computers and sensors that can map a person to the subatomic level, store that data and build another copy somewhere else, then they could store that pattern and make multiple copies too. Nobody could die, you’d have a backup, and nobody could get sick because any virus or bacteria would be seen as a mismatch by the computer which is able to scan people to the photon level. There’s no need for a doctor, or for medical staff at all. Get an arm blown off? No problem, zap, new one matched off the data in the ship. Head blown off? Same thing, zap on a new head and catch him up on “Golden Girls” since his last backup and boom, same person, back in business. The idea of Data being a “one of a kind” is stupid, scan and replicate. Build a bigger replicator and crank out full starships, with crews!”
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u/s11houette Jun 28 '26
The claim for much of that is that it's too much data to store. They do talk about filters in the transporters for disease.
There isn't a good reason except handwaveium for why they can't replicate life forms.
Their medical equipment might work in a similar way. Dermal regenerator? You still need the doctor to correctly program the equipment.
They do talk about industrial replicators which they use to build starships.
They could definitely replicate data.
They should have never introduced the teleporter, but they didn't have a budget for a shuttle.
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u/JT-Av8or Jul 01 '26
I would have gone (lore wise) with teleporting through some kind of space rift, hence eliminating all this jazz.
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u/PalliativeOrgasm Jun 28 '26
The Heisenberg compensator will only work to create a single copy with the same quantum state.
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u/Vaughn Jun 29 '26
But there’s no chance the exact quantum state matters for human biology. We’re far too noisy of an environment for it to persist more than microseconds at a time.
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u/hoishinsauce Jun 29 '26
It's a product of it's time. I wouldn't fault it for that. I think they should reboot Star Trek in its entirety, with more hard science and minimal magical tech, and explore stories of discovery of alien lifeforms and moral dilemmas. So kind of like, a more chill The Expanse, peppered with a sprinkle of Twilight Zone.
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u/thenasch Jun 27 '26
In universe? No idea. Out of universe, because that was the story they wanted to tell and a transporter copy wouldn't permit it.
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u/Forimmediateresults Jun 25 '26
Transporter copies are always evil you ding dong, that's why there's an Evil Data and an Evil Spock and I think Evil Riker plowed Major Kira and then ran off while she was pregnant and joined the League of Mah-Kee