Throughout the many yearsStar Trekhas graced screens, a lot of this time has been spent expanding the enormous universe Gene Roddenberry first created over 50 years ago. The franchise is filled with a vast array of alien races, andsocial-political atmospheresthat are highly complex for a fictional universe. At the heart ofStar Trekhowever, like many science fiction programs, is an intricate and highly advanced array of technology, fromwarp drivesto universal translators.
The technology is so great that it has managed to even influence the real world, with a surprisingly large amount oftechnological advancements taken from the showpropelling modern day humans into the future. The TV shows and movies present all these great gadgets and gizmos with little sense of negative implications of their prolonged use. However, this is not the case with the medical condition named transporter psychosis.
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The condition is named, aptly, after the main suspected cause: the transporters. These wonderful devices were first created in a whirlwind panic from the writers ofThe Original Series.They were unable to land the main Enterprise ship on each and every planet the crew visited due to budget restraints, and when they decided to use shuttles instead, the prop model was not ready. They had to come up with a last minute alternative, and so transporters were born. Because of this fairly rushed introduction,the way in which they actually workhas been a bit turbulent over the years, with varying explanations over multiple programs. The main principle, though, is that they break down a person to an atomic level, then send their ‘pattern’ to the target location, and basically rebuild them there.
There have been various accidents over the years from what is understandably a highly complex and scary machine. There have been cases where a person is cloned, where transporter victims have de-aged, (technically discovering immortality at the same time) as well as the memorable, yet rather horrific merging of two living organisms. These, while distressing at the time, were often things that could be resolved, such as splitting the combined organism (with large ethical consequences). But with transporter psychosis, there was no traceable cause or cure, making it one of the most terrifying aspects of this supposedly perfect futuristic technology.
The trigger for the condition was the breaking down of the body’s neurochemicals during transport, but it was not necessarily caused by prolonged use of the transporters. It seemed to affect people at random points, and although it had been happening since the mid 22nd century, there was no official medical diagnosis until 2209. It took a further 100 years to create a more complex pattern buffer, which seemed to phase out the issue. However, nobody was entirely clear as to why exactly it was happening, or what specifically caused it. While cases were being reported up until the new buffers were installed, that is not to say it was common, thankfully only affecting a very tiny percentage of transported organisms. Still, there was enough evidence of it happening that a fair few refused to use the transporter. Many believe they are better safe than sorry when messing with a highly complex technology that causes a surprising amount of accidents over the years.
The symptoms of the psychosis included an array of paranoid delusions, often taking the form of hallucinations both tactile, and visual. They would also mirror the symptoms of dementia, as well as psychogenic hysteria. The condition often affects the victims' ability to sleep, giving them an accelerated heart rate, reduced vision, dehydration, and occasional painful spasms throughout the body. The results were almost as bad as some of theworst diseases found inStar Trek.The breakdown of neurochemicals greatly affected the body’s autonomic systems, as well as motor functions and the higher reasoning parts of the brain. This was not a great combination of symptoms, and with no known cure, the best doctors could do was simply manage them.
The majority of information about this affliction comes from theTNGepisode “Realm of Fear” which centered around the hypochondriac Lieutenant Reginald Barclay and his acute fear of transportation, who believed he was suffering from transporter psychosis. It turns out, however that he was just infected by microbes which produced similar side effects. When looking at Barclay throughout the episode, it’s very easy to get annoyed, as many of his crew mates do, with his terrified behavior and seemingly irrational fear of a whole host of things.
Transporters have been used ever since the golden days ofThe Original Seriesand have thus become a staple of not justStar Trek,but a whole host of other space-faring science fiction shows and films, and so it might be easy for the audience to forget how absolutely terrifying they are. They practically dissolve an organism, and then reassemble them on the other side — brain functions, memories, and all. This is without the added fear of the plethora of problems that can go wrong, and have done on multiple occasions, of which Transporter Psychosis is potentially the most scary. When looking at all of this, Barclay’s behavior makes sense. Perhaps more of the crew should consider boldly going, but with a bit more caution, where nobody has gone before.
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