From: tvf@cci632.cci.com (Tom Frauenhofer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.current
Subject: Re: Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Realm of Fear"
Keywords: TNG, Barclay, transporters
Date: 7 Oct 92 14:22:39 GMT
Organization: Northern Telecom, Network Applications Systems, Rochester, NY

In article <Bvo0uv.671@news.cso.uiuc.edu> cap36406@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Carlos A. Pero) writes:
>v115p8d6@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (I have a cunning plan...) writes:
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>>In article <1992Oct5.145916.17919@cci632.cci.com>, tvf@cci632.cci.com (Tom Frauenhofer) writes...
>>>In article <1aldh0INN8lp@gap.caltech.edu> tlynch@cco.caltech.edu (Timothy W. Lynch) writes:
>>>>SPOILER
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>>is this enough room?
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>[stuff deleted]>> 
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>>>The biggest problem I had was that four people went into the
>>>transporter (Riker, Worf, Geordi, and Barclay) and only Barclay was
>>>(1) infected and (2) the only one to notice the "worms".  And if he
>>>claims to have seen something during the beaming why couldn't they
>>>either try beaming someone else to check or build a probe to monitor
>>>what happens during transport?  They still could have had a story,
>>>maybe a better one, that's arguable.
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>>I believe that the only reason Barclay was affected is that he was the
>>only person who went through the transporter when there was that fluctuation
>>in the transporter beam. If you remember, just before one of the other 
>>members of the away team beams over, O'Brian tells him to hold a moment
>>because of a fluctuation. Then he beams him over. The rest of the away
>>team have no problem. 
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>This is true. There was no fluctuation on Barclay's way over to the
>other ship, but there was a fluctuation on the way back to the Big E.
>Here is where he saw the worms and one of them touched him.
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>Later, Barclay asks O'Brien to check the transporter log for fluctuations.
>There was one, and O'Brien is able to re-create it. Here, Barclay sees the
>worms again and warns the senior staff.
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>So you see, no one else saw the worms because there was no fluctuation, nor
>would there be if they put a monitor or someone else through the transporter.

If I had seen something in the transporter, and I could repeat it by
having O'Brien re-create what happened, wouldn't a more logical flow be:

Barclay: I am seeing something in the transporter, Chief.
O'Brien: Let me have a look, sir.  I'll set up the transporter so all
         you have to do is just start it up, send me over, pull me
         back.
Barclay: I-I don't know
O'Brien: (Smiling) Then I'll have it do it automatically, you just
         watch.
(or)

O'Brien: We'll just transport a camcorder to the ship and back and
         videotape the buggers.

My point was that it seemed to me that there were better approaches to
handling the situation than were presented.  Maybe the Barclay
character was paranoid, but he's also a member of the crew, and if
they believed him enough to let him summon all the chief officers of
the crew then they would have also tried to reproduce the experiment.
If not O'Brien, the Geordi or Data would have thought of it, perhaps
in consultation with O'Brien.

And it seems to me that whenever there's a transporter problem all
they do is tear it apart, put it back together, and run computer
diagnostics on it (Car Trek: Adventures of Car Junkies in the 24th
Century!).  I have a friend who used to run his own garage complain
that that's what most of the car dealers do these days.  He'll get an
estimate based on their computer analysis, he'll ask them "Did you
check out if that $150 part is broken?", they'll come back with "The
computer sez..."  ( :-) ) Did Gene Roddenberry think that we'd breed
out greedy businessmen but keep the car mechanics? ( :-) )

>-- 
>______________________________________________________
> \   Carlos A. Pero  -  University of Illinois at U-C  \
>  \   Email to: cap36406@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu               \
>   \_____________________________________________________\

--
Thomas V. Frauenhofer, WA2YYW
tvf@cci.com, ...!uunet!uupsi!cci632!tvf, tvf@cs.rit.edu
Mandlebratwurst: The Meal that Eats Itself!