star trek transporter accident gif

Why Star Trek: The Motion Picture's Horrifying Transporter Accident May Be The Director's Edition's Most Important Scene

Producer David Fein explained its significance to CinemaBlend.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director’s Edition changed a lot about the original film. And for many, it vastly improved upon that original project, which was rushed to theaters in an incomplete state (and we have it pretty low on our Trek movies ranking list ). Many of the improvements remove “bad laughs” and update the visual effects. One of them, however, turned an already upsetting transporter accident into straight-up nightmare fuel by making a horrifying tweak to the sound. Ironically, it also may be the most important scene of the Director’s Edition , and the reason for that may not be so clear to viewers right away.

CinemaBlend had the pleasure of speaking with producer David C. Fein about the latest 4K edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director’s Edition , and I, of course, needed some answers about the changes made to the transporter scene. Fein noted that during his discussions with director Robert Wise, it was decided that the scene needed to be more powerful but also have another purpose. The producer explained that it was part of sending a message to the audience that the director’s cut was a different movie from the original: 

We wanted to also tell people this was a better film and a different film, a mature film. And we realized that the G rating that they gave, time had changed from a G just being something that wasn’t as harsh for audiences, to G [means a] kids film. And we knew that if I was able to send the film back in for re-rating, it would and it could get a PG. And that would spark people’s interest in the film and [they'd be] like, ‘What could possibly have been done to that film at the time to gain a PG rating.’

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a lot of things, but few would accuse it of being a movie that’s full of frightening moments and scares that raise a rating (it did almost feature a fist fight between Captain Kirk and Jesus , though). Of course, the one scene that features the gruesome and unimaginable death, thanks to a malfunction in a refitted transporter, goes a long way.

For those who don’t remember, Science Officer Commander Sonak and a female officer became stuck midway through and are briefly seen in a deformed state. Viewers don’t see much else but hear a frightening and almost otherworldly guttural gasp. David Fein talked about instructing the updated scream for the Director’s Cut, and what it needed to sound in order for the rating to be changed:

I’ll tell you exactly what I told my sound department… ’It should definitely be a nails on a chalkboard level of tension,’ but I also said, ‘Imagine if you were in the most horrible pain of your life and you needed to scream just to get it out, but you had no way, no orifice, to even scream. What would it sound like if, finally, you could make some sound, what would that sound be?' It’s funny, I talk about it, and the hairs on the back of my neck still stand up… So I said to the sound department, ‘We’re not G. You really want to make people nervous from this, and you need to scare them to the point of really making it the realistic fear of what was happening. Because it really is one of the most horrible deaths in the history of Star Trek, but it also got us a PG rating.

When it comes down to it, the transporter accident might truly be the most important scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director’s Cut . Had it not been for the rating change, some of the franchise's fans might not have even given the movie a second look and assumed they had their fill of Trek villain V’Ger . Now, we’re blessed with a finished and re-edited version of the movie that elevates it to the level of respect it should’ve had if Robert Wise (who is the force behind amazing films like haunted house movie The Haunting ) was able to properly do everything he needed the first time around. 

Of course, all of the work on the transporter accident would’ve gone to waste had the director’s cut not removed Captain Kirk’s reaction to it. In the original cut, Kirk responded to the accident with a shocked face and said, “Oh my god,” which became a “bad laugh” with audiences and completely killed the tension of the accident. Kirk’s reaction was edited to appear more solemn in regard to what he'd just witnessed, a move that definitely helps the scene more than it hurts it. It’s a great show of one of the many changes made and helps to exemplify why this director’s cut so important to the Star Trek franchise. 

The 4K remaster of Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director’s Edition is now available non Blu-ray and can be streamed if you have a Paramount+ subscription . Watch it now for the horrific transporter accident, or check out The Next Generation to see some of the WTF moments that keep us up at night.

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Mick Joest is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend with his hand in an eclectic mix of television goodness. Star Trek is his main jam, but he also regularly reports on happenings in the world of Star Trek, WWE, Doctor Who, 90 Day Fiancé, Quantum Leap, and Big Brother. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Radio and Television. He's great at hosting panels and appearing on podcasts if given the chance as well.

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The Most Surreal And Horrifying Transporter Accidents On Star Trek

Gene Roddenberry and the other ingenious minds behind Star Trek have come up with some brilliant technology for the Star Trek universe: warp drive, food replicators, the Holodeck, and one of the most fantastical of all:  Star Trek transporters.

Imagine a world where commuting to work doesn't exist; you just beam yourself over. A world where you never have to worry about being late to a movie or business meeting. Where you can travel great distances in a matter of seconds. Sounds great, right? Well, maybe you'll reconsider when you think about all the things that can go wrong. Transporter malfunctions happen, and they're not pretty. Below, you'll find a veritable cornucopia of horrifying Star Trek transporter accidents. Vote up the ones that will make you rethink ever wanting to step on a transporter pad.

75 Years in Stasis

• CBS Television Distribution
• Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Episode: Season 6, Episode 4, "Relics"

The Enterprise receives a distress call from the USS Jenolan, a ship that has been missing for seventy-five years. After investigating, the crew finds no survivors, but LaForge notices that the transporters had been reconfigured in a strange manner. Amazingly, a pattern is still in the system's buffer and had suffered no degradation. He rematerializes the stored pattern, beaming Original Series character Montgomery "Scotty" Scott onto the transporter pad.

Mirror Universe

• Series: Star Trek: The Original Series
• Episode: Season 2, Episode 4, "Mirror, Mirror"

In "Mirror, Mirror," Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, and Scotty are sent to a mirror universe after a transporter accident during an ion storm. In this alternate reality, the Enterprise is a warship for the malevolent Terran Empire. The only way Kirk and crew can return back home is by impersonating their mirror-universe duplicates and outsmarting an evil, goatee-sporting Spock.

LaForge and Ro in Limbo

• Episode: Season 5, Episode 24, "The Next Phase"

A faulty generator causes a transporter failure, leaving the crew of the Enterprise to believe Lt. Comm. LaForge and Ensign Ro were killed. But Geordi and Ro survived; they just beamed into a different phase than everyone else, free to wander the ship, but unseen and unheard by the rest of the crew. They observe their own funeral preparations before purposely causing a disruptor overload, which tips Data off to their whereabouts, allowing him to re-cloak them.

Thomas Riker

• Episode: Season 6, Episode 24, "Second Chances"

On an away mission, Commander William Riker came face to face with... himself! As it turns out, eight years ago, while serving on the USS Potemkin, a transporter malfunction caused the creation of a duplicate Riker (dubbed Lt. Thomas Riker). Thomas was brought aboard the ship, butted heads with William, and rekindled his relationship with Deanna Troi before ultimately being reassigned to the USS Gandhi where he could continue his Starfleet career.

• Film: Star Trek: The Motion Picture

A transporter malfunction results in the horrific deaths of two crew members. Science officer Sonak and another crew member arrive on the transporter platform with their internal organs outside their bodies. The fleshy, disfigured masses didn't survive long.

Traveling Back in Time

• Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Episode: Season 3, Episode 11 & 12, "Past Tense" 

Sisko, Bashir, and Dax are sent back in time to 2024 San Francisco after a transporter accident. They inadvertently change history by allowing Gabriel Bell, a key figure and activist during a period of rioting, to be killed. It's on them to restore history before they can travel back home.

Star Trek: Kids!

• Episode: Season 6, Episode 7, "Rascals"

Captain Picard, Ensign Ro Laren, Guinan, and Keiko O'Brien are returning from a botanical and archaeological expedition when their shuttlecraft is enveloped by an energy anomaly. An emergency transport to the Enterprise yields unusual results: Picard, Ro, Guinan, and Keiko reemerge on the transport pad as 12-year-old children!

Two Captain Kirks

• Episode: Season 1, Episode 5, "The Enemy Within"

The crew of Star Trek: the Original Series learned the hard way - don't have magnetic dust on your suit when beaming back up to the ship. The result? Two separate Captain Kirks, one good but incompetent, the other... pure evil.

Trapped in the Holodeck

• Episode: Season 4, Episode 10, "Our Man Bashir"

An explosion prevents Captain Sisko, Worf, Kira, Dax, and O'Brien from materializing on the transport pad. To save them, the transporter chief is forced to download their physical forms to the holodeck... right in the middle of Dr. Bashir's James Bond -inspired holodeck program. To further complicate things, the crew doesn't have their own memories and believe themselves to be the characters from the program. It's up to Bashir to keep his fellow crewmen alive in the game, because if he can't, they'll die in real life.

• Series: Star Trek: Voyager
• Episode: Season 2, Episode 24, "Tuvix"

Tuvok and Neelix beam back aboard after an excursion to an alien planet to retrieve some plant samples. Unfortunately, one of the orchids they brought back with them is the cause of a disturbing transporter accident that ultimately merges Tuvok and Neelix into one being - Tuvix. The crew accepts Tuvix for what he is (after all, they are on a journey to seek out new life forms), but things get complicated when the Doctor finds a way to reverse the process. By Captain Janeway's orders, Tuvok and Neelix are both restored, but Janeway has to live with the moral consequences of destroying the being known as Tuvix.

• Series: S tar Trek: The Next Generation
• Episode: Season 6, Episode 2, "Realm of Fear"

Reginald Barclay faces his fear of transporters only to find his phobia is more than warranted. During transport, Barclay sees a worm-like creature swimming around in the matter stream and touching his arm. He steps off the transporter pad more paranoid than ever, diagnosing himself with transporter psychosis. He suffers from debilitating pain and blue flashes randomly light up throughout his body. After some tests, the crew discovers quasi-energy microbes infiltrated Barclay's system during transport, which is the cause of all his issues. He's ultimately cured of his ailments, but his phobia of transporters is only worsened.

The Borg Drone

• Series: Star Trek: Voyager
• Episode: Season 5, Episode 6, "Drone"

A transporter mishap when Seven-of-Nine and the Doctor are beamed aboard led to the creation of a Borg drone! Seven's nanoprobes interacted with the Doctor's mobile emitter to bring this being to life, but the drone (given the designation "One") proves more powerful than anyone expected, accidentally alerting Borg forces to the location of the Voyager ship.

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Published Apr 12, 2023

Star Trek’s Most Bizarre Transporter Accidents

From the Mirror Universe to Tuvix!

StarTrek.com

“Crazy way to travel, spreading a man's molecules all over the universe.” – Dr. Leonard McCoy, “ Obsession ”

“Reg, how many transporter accidents have there been in the last ten years? Two? Three? There are millions of people who transport safely every day without a problem.” – Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge, “ Realm of Fear ”

The transporter may be a staple of Star Trek technology, but Dr. McCoy and his fellow transporter-phobes — Dr. Pulaski, Ensign Sato, Captain Archer, and Lt. Barclay — all had good reasons to be skittish about it.

Transporter accidents could be caused by anything — spilled ore, storms, even orchids! And while the results sometimes defied logic, they still gave us great stories, sometimes an entirely new perspective.

“ The Enemy Within ” ( Star Trek : The Original Series)

Star Trek: The Original Series — Kirk is Split into Two

In this Season One episode, written by renowned sci-fi/ horror writer Richard Matheson, some yellow ore gets on the transporter and Kirk experiences the first transporter malfunction in Star Trek ’s televised history. He’s split into two Kirks; a “good” version and an “evil” one. The negative side gives him his command strength and ability to make decisions, while the positive side gives him compassion and intelligence.

“I've seen a part of myself no man should ever see,” Kirk says, once he’s whole again.

“ Second Chances ” ( Star Trek: The Next Generation )

Star Trek: The Next Generation — Two Rikers Come Face to Face

Whereas Kirk was split into two, Riker got doubled. Back when he was just a little lieutenant on the U.S.S. Potemkin , Riker was returning from an away mission when the transporter was affected by an energy distortion field. He beamed back up to the ship just fine, but another Riker, identical in all ways, ALSO materialized down on the planet.

Believing they’d rescued their crew, the Potemkin left, stranding Riker’s clone for eight long and lonely years. When the Enterprise showed up, the two Rikers came face-to-face with each other for the first time. The episode had a sort of happy ending, sending “Thomas” Riker off to his new life, until he was ready to make a second appearance on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . But that’s another story entirely.

“ Tuvix ” ( Star Trek: Voyager )

Neelix and Tuvok Become Tuvix - Star Trek: Voyager

A “minor glitch in the molecular imaging scanners” plus an alien plant somehow turns Tuvok and Neelix into Tuvix, a fusion of both men (and orchid).

Tuvix is the result of a molecular merge, creating a being comprised of Neelix’s compassion and Tuvok’s logic. This incident goes on to become one of the most debated moral dilemmas in all of Star Trek . Did Janeway owe loyalty to her two crew members or to this new creation? She decided in favor of the former, but the internet debates rage on about whether she had the right to kill Tuvix, especially in light of the Doctor’s statement that he couldn’t do it because a physician must do no harm.

TRANSFORMED

“ rascals ” ( star trek: the next generation ).

Star Trek: The Next Generation — The Enterprise Crew Rematerialize as Children

Not all transporter accidents have to be so serious. An encounter with an energy anomaly created a new kind of transporter accident resulting in Picard, Ro Laren, Guinan, and Keiko rematerializing aboard the Enterprise as children.

This much-rewritten script wasn’t a favorite of the writers, but it’s a highly entertaining episode and does exactly what Star Trek is supposed to do — make characters (and viewers) think about their lives in a different way. And in the meantime, the kids thwart a Ferengi takeover on the ship with toys and tricks. Highlight of the episode is a young Jean-Luc telling Riker, “You’re my number one dad!”

“ Much Ado About Boimler ” ( Star Trek: Lower Decks )

Star Trek: Lower Decks - Boimler Rematerialized Out of Phase

And then there’s poor Boimler, who just wanted to help Rutherford out with his transporter work in the hope of impressing the captain. The process got “a bit sticky” and Boimler rematerialized out of phase — slightly transparent, glowing, and emitting a loud and unpleasant noise. The noise didn’t last but the glow did, making Boimler fret that “nobody wants a sparkly captain.” (Yes, the effect eventually wore off, but only after a harrowing journey where his fellow passengers on a transport ship tried to kill him.)

“ Realm of Fear ” ( Star Trek: The Next Generation )

Star Trek: The Next Generation — Transporters are Completely Safe

Due to a slightly botched effort to reprogram the biofilter, the crew of the Yosemite are trapped inside the transporter’s pattern buffer. The Enterprise would never have found them without Lt. Barclay, whose fear of the transporter leaves his judgy crewmates assuming that he’s hallucinated a creature inside the beam.

Luckily for the four Yosemite crewmembers, Barclay persisted in finding out what he’d seen in there, even though (a) his own colleagues made fun of him behind his back for it and (b) the crew looked like giant mouths trying to bite him when they were still trapped in the beam.

“ Mirror, Mirror ” ( Star Trek : The Original Series)

Star Trek: The Original Series — Switched for Mirror Universe Counterparts

The most famous detour of all time — one that would go on to spark numerous episodes throughout the years — began on TOS when an ion storm messed with the transporter and swapped Kirk, Uhura, McCoy, and Scotty for their Mirror Universe counterparts.

Those left on the Prime Enterprise caught on pretty quickly, but those on the Mirror Enterprise took a little longer to get hip to what had happened. Our heroes were better at behaving like savages than their counterparts were at acting civilized, as Spock aptly pointed out. “They were brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous,” he says, describing them as a “splendid example of homo sapiens.”

“ Past Tense ” ( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine )

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — Temporal Surge

A temporal surge sends Sisko, Bashir, and Dax to the right planet (Earth), but in the wrong time period — 2024. The writers wanted a way to comment on the apathy people had for unhoused Americans and created a powerful two-parter that dug into economic disparity, injustice, racism, and the need for both compassion and change. If you haven’t seen it in a while, you’re overdue for a rewatch.

“ I have to confess, given a choice, I'd much rather use a good old-fashioned shuttlepod. ”– Captain Jonathan Archer, “ Daedalus ”

This article was originally published on February 8, 2021.

Laurie Ulster (she/her) is a freelance writer and a TV producer who somehow survived her very confusing adolescence as the lone female Star Trek fan in middle school. She's a writer/editor and was the Supervising Producer on After Trek.

Star Trek: Lower Decks streams exclusively in the United States and Latin America on Paramount+, on Amazon Prime Video in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Japan, India and more, and in Canada on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave. The series will also be available to stream on Paramount+ in the UK, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and South Korea later this year.

Stay tuned to StarTrek.com for more details! And be sure to follow @StarTrek on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram .

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Scenes Cut from Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Several scenes shot for Star Trek: The Motion Picture never made it into the theatrical release of the film.

Uhura’s loyalty

After Kirk leaves the bridge for his confrontation with Decker, there is a brief scene involving Uhura, Sulu and an alien ensign played by Billy Van Zandt. When Van Zandt’s character questions Kirk’s takeover, Uhura says, “Our chances of coming back from this mission in one piece may have just doubled.”

The scene is restored in the Special Longer Version from 1983 (not to be confused with the 2001 Director’s Edition ).

Scenes with Ilia

When Uhura first hears that Lieutenant Ilia is Deltan, she expresses surprise, leading Kirk to respond that the Deltans are so good at their job that “there are no finer navigators in Starfleet, commander.”

Ilia was the source of other comments, some of which are included in the Special Longer Version .

Sulu, upon being told by Decker to “take Lieutenant Ilia in hand,” acts like a schoolboy attempting to show Ilia the navigation console (with which she is quite familiar). This was meant to demonstrate the effect Deltan women have on human men.

When Decker questions his Deltan friend, she responds by assuring him that she “would never take advantage of a sexually immature species.” This exchange is present in the 1983 version.

McCoy beams aboard

Restored in The Director’s Edition is McCoy’s full entrance, including an unnamed yeoman’s observation that “he insisted we go first, sir. Said something about first seeing how it scrambled our molecules.”

The original plan was to beam McCoy up while carrying a riding crop, indicating that he had been snatched by some Federation transporter without a moment’s notice.

Just after McCoy’s line about how engineers love to change things, in an unrestored cut, Kirk gazes after the retreating doctor, goes to the wall intercom and announces, “All decks, this is the captain. Prepare for immediate departure.” Had this scene remained as it was, it would have reduced the risk of McCoy’s line being cut, as it accidentally was in many prints of the film.

Also present in the longer version is Ilia’s concern after Kirk summons Decker to his cabin. As Sulu introduces new figures into his console, he must gently remind Ilia to listen to him. After he finishes speaking, Ilia again stares at the door, which leads neatly into the scene in Kirk’s quarters.

McCoy-Spock tension

Some cuts were made to improve McCoy’s disposition. For example, after Spock comes aboard the Enterprise and is welcomed by Kirk, McCoy observes, “Never look a gift Vulcan in the ears, Jim.”

Spock must have known what attitude to expect from his old friend because, before the exchange in the officers’ lounge, he asks Kirk, “Sir, I would appreciate Dr McCoy absenting himself from this interview.” Remaining at the conversation, McCoy causes Spock to show a certain irritation, at which point McCoy seriously observes, “If you achieve perfect logic, Spock, you’ll pay a price. It’s given your planet ten thousand years of peace but no poetry’s been written since then, no music.” This comment causes Spock to turn menacingly toward McCoy, until Kirk calls a halt to the situation.

V’Ger’s probe

We learn more about Ilia in a sequence restored in The Director’s Edition .

After Chekov is injured by V’Ger’s energy blast, Ilia is able to provide instant relief by touching him. Arriving on the scene with a medical technician, Dr Chapel and Ilia exchange friendly glances.

Another casuality of V’Ger’s invading energy probes was not so lucky. When the blinding light probe materializes on the bridge, two security men advance on it with phasers drawn. Before Chekov can warn them not to fire, the first man does. In retaliation, the probe envelopes him in a purple glow. The man vanishes, causing the second guard to holster his weapon. This sequence has never been revealed.

After Spock’s spacewalk, the Vulcan describes what he has learned, calling V’Ger “a human machine.” McCoy comments, “We’re living machines too: protein mechanisms,” and when Kirk observes that V’Ger is trying to find its creator, McCoy asks, “Isn’t that what we’re all trying to do? All us machines?”

The comparison between man and machine would lead to a scene in engineering, where Decker is taking the Ilia probe on a tour. They listen to a message from Kirk:

This is the captain speaking. It appears that the alien ship, V’Ger, is not a manned vessel. It is a living entity, a machine life form. We are attempting to ascertain its intentions. All personnel will maintain yellow alert status.

Scotty is hostile to “Ilia” throughout this sequence, at one point saying, “Lassie, if I were functioning logically right not, I’d be showing you the inside of our metal scrape compactor.”

Self-destruct

In a scene that was restored in both the 1983 and 2001 version, Kirk orders Scotty to implement a “self-destruct”.

In a discussion with a female engineer, Scotty reveals that a matter/antimatter explosion would destroy V’Ger along with the Enterprise .

In a sequence partially restored to the longer version, Spock sheds tears for V’Ger. Still missing, though, is Spock’s regret that although he has found part of what he was looking for, V’Ger “has not… and now, because of what we are planning, will not.” It is this statement that causes Kirk to cancel the self-destruct, telling Scotty, “We’re holding off. There may be a chance” (to save Earth, V’Ger and the Enteprise ).

Three endings

Kirk’s original statement at the end, when reporting the “missing status” of Decker and Ilia, included mention of “Security Officer Phillips,” who was vaporized in the sequence discussed earlier.

There were three versions of the movie’s ending. First, the one that’s in the film. Second, one in which Spock has the final line: “A most logical choice, captain,” responding to Kirk’s course heading “Out there… that way.” Third is a take in which Spock jokes about his need to remain on the Enterprise in order to protect the ship from its erratic, human crew.

15 comments

Interesting read, and more proof positive that when films were released theatrically back in the day, there were numerous edits floating around (intentionally or not). For example, the version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture I saw in the theater contained the scene with Uhuru remarking about their chances doubling, as well as the scene with the security officer being zapped into V’Ger’s data banks. I don’t recall seeing any of the other scenes you describe, however.

I once saw the cut with the security guard being killed and the destruct sequence scene on TV in the early 80s as a young child. I’d always thought I’d imagined it, the scenes were missing from subsequent versions. It was always a cold, clinical movie with hostile interpersonal exchanges throughout – these edited scenes provided a warm respite and it was a shame they were edited out.

Sorry, but you didn’t see the security guard scene. I was never assembled into any cut.

I clearly remember seeing the guard being zapped by V’Ger when I saw The Motion Picture at the theater back in 1979

I don’t. I made seven trips to theaters to see The Motion Picture , from its first day of release to the last, and I never saw any of the scenes discussed above in any of the prints I saw.

I saw it about ten times during its initial ’79 release, at various theaters. It didn’t have this footage.

It would be great to see this footage restored in some future DVD release. I remembering reading that the Director’s Cut likely did not include additional unseen footage, because that inclusion would entail additional payment to actors. Hard to believe somebody saw the security guard scene, but that’s entirely possible considering the last-minute rush to get 800+ plus prints out to theaters in 1979. Great site!

I remember seeing the guard scene at the movies back in ’79.

The special effects of the guard being digitized by V’Ger’s first probe were never completed, so the scene was never part of the assembled movie. However, the scene is definitely in the novelization and the comic book adaptation, and was described by Walter Koenig in his paperback book, Chekov’s Enterprise . Similarly, the scene with the alien ensign being reprimanded by Uhura was not seen by viewers until the ABC TV premiere of The Motion Picture . That additional footage was also in the Special Longer Version home vide release and was retained for the Director’s Edition DVD.

I saw it in theaters during original run, and I seem to remember the transporter accident lasting longer, and being far more terrible and agonizing.

The transporter accident has always been the same. The novelization has a much more graphic description of the scene.

Anyone who posts that they “remember” the security guard vaporization scene from the ’79 theatrical run is either trolling, lying, or just has a bad memory. That scene was not completed in post-production and was never included in any release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture , theatrical or subsequent.

I watched the VHS version as a kid, and I swear I remember something about Ilia making a comment about other species being less sexually mature or something like that. I watched the Paramount+ version last night and it appears that section was cut, thus it leaves the viewer to read between the lines a bit more to understand the Deltan mystique.

Your recollection is correct. It’s part of what I’ve labeled “Scenes with Ilia”. I don’t have Paramount+, but the deleted scenes are included in the iTunes Extras of the Apple TV version.

Yes, that segment is part of the Special Longer Version (ABC’s original TV broadcast and then to home video – i.e., VHS and video disc). The SLV has never made it to DVD, but all the trims from that are in Bonus Features of the 2001 Director’s Edition DVD. The DE is currently undergoing work to recreate the DE in 4K for Paramount+ for premiere in 2022.

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Is the Star Trek Transporter Killing Someone Each Time They Use It?

For over 50 years, from the original Star Trek  to the current Star Trek: Picard, the fantastical future articulated by Gene Roddenberry has allowed us to imagine going not just where but how  no man has gone before.

Forget the morning commute: being stuck in traffic or in a mechanical delivery tube full of the bacteria and odors of a hundred fellow drones. Step right here, onto the obliteration pad! Feel yourself embraced by a beam of energy that completely immobilizes you, penetrates your skin and, over several seconds, disintegrates every molecule in your body into subatomic dust. Don’t worry, the manufacturer assures that you’ll probably be fine! We can even filter out that nasty cough while we’re at it. In a few seconds, “you” will find yourself standing in your office, or in central Paris; definitely not irretrievably scattered across space and time.

Convenient, right? So why are you sweating?

Not everyone in the  Star Trek  universe is completely comfortable with “beaming up”, but is transporter phobia really justified? Do they technically die during transport? Are they rematerialized as the same person they always were, or are they somehow fundamentally changed? These are some of the oldest ongoing Trekkie debates; wrestled with for decades across the fan forums of yore without clear or satisfactory conclusions. So today, we’re taking a laser drill to this Gordian knot.

Transporter Phobia

Phobia or general mistrust of transporter technology has plagued officers through every generation of Starfleet — from Captain Archer to Doctor McCoy and Lt. Barclay . Originally employed for exclusively non-biological cargo, once Transporters began to see more extensive use on living subjects in the late 22nd century, problems did materialize. Transporter Psychosis was one such incurable condition caused by neurochemicals being broken down and improperly reconstructed; leading to paranoid delusions, hallucinations, hysteria and no small amount of pain. Transporter efficiency and failsafes have improved over the centuries since its inception, to the point whereby the mid-24th century accidents were almost unheard of.

“Reg, how many transporter accidents have there been in the last ten years? Two? Three? There are millions of people who transport safely every day without a problem.” – Geordi La Forge , 2369 (“ Realm of Fear “)

This is some pretty serious dissonance, though. Despite guarantees to their efficacy, transporter malfunction (and sabotage) serves as one of the most common narrative fulcrums in any given Star Trek series. Maybe Geordi hadn’t been paying attention, but O’Brien could likely list two or three Transporter accidents in an average week — fatalities , reverse-aging , split and merged individuals, time-travel , even interdimensional breaches .

Let’s put these concerns aside for now and embrace La Forge’s optimism. In uncharted space, many strange and unknown phenomena can interfere with ship functions — transportation in more typical, predictable environments is probably as safe as he claims.

Still; even in the best-case scenario, users are literally being obliterated — and then what? Reconstructed? Copied? They must feel some pretty serious existential and ontological concerns.

Are they the same person after transport, or just a copy? Does the transporter not destroy them, then recreate their bodies out of newly collected matter at the destination? Or is their original matter directly transmitted across space? Is there more to man or woman than matter, something that can’t be contained and quantified, something that will inevitably be lost?

To resolve this quandary without needless speculation, we really need to understand how exactly the transporter works. Easier said than done.

Energy, or Matter?

When we blow past the smokescreen of technobabble to the inner workings of Star Trek ’s physics, often we find that the actual explanations offered seem a little scrappy. The Transporter is no exception.

Diegetically, transporter technology is usually described as involving matter/energy scrambling or conversion. Characters across every series and generation describe the beaming process in this way. Commander Data explains that the body’s molecules are converted into energy and then reverted at the destination. Picard, too, tells a holographic Moriarty that by the 24th century, mankind has discovered energy and matter to be interchangeable.

Strangely, this kind of dialogue seems to contradict canon established by internal production material — specifically the  TNG Season 4 Writers’ Technical Manual . This manual and its externally-published progeny offer a consistent and detailed outline of the transportation process. Prior to dematerialization, the subject’s molecular structure and neural patterns are scanned and stored in the computer’s active memory. Next, the subject is reduced to a cloud of subatomic particles known as a “matter stream” and transferred to a cylindrical tank or “pattern buffer”. The matter stream, neural energy and coded instructions for reassembly are then directed through various subsystems to the emitter array and transmitted to the destination, where they are reconfigured. So in truth, both matter and energy are transferred in packets together.

We shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the Writers’ Technical Manual was not actually required reading for the TNG writing staff. As a reference material, it was supposed to ensure consistency where technical explanations became necessary; but evidently it was in most cases given only the most cursory skim. Is it a sad consequence that the ostensibly best and brightest Starfleet officers aboard the Federation flagship also failed to study their technical manuals? Or is there some way we can reconcile the inconsistencies?

Like Picard says, energy and matter are interchangeable. Special relativity demonstrates that they’re two sides of the same coin — it must be that at the subatomic scale to which a transporter reduces a person’s atoms, there is no distinction between energy and matter. Some will say “matter stream”, others will say “energy beam”; it’s all the same.

In any case, it’s clear the stuff we were made of at the beginning of our trip is basically the same stuff in the same places at the other end; the post-transport self is not just a copy. If your arms and legs are removed from your torso to better package your body for transport and then successfully reattached, none of the “self” is really lost, right? Being broken down into infinitesimally smaller pieces than this shouldn’t make any difference, assuming (for now) that we didn’t accidentally leave anything behind.

Being alive at the end of the process, however, doesn’t mean we didn’t die somewhere along the way.

What Kind of Death?

Curiously, we humans don’t consider death to be a black-and-white affair. Death occurs in a matter of degrees; you can be “dead” and you can be dead . If your respiration and circulation have ceased, you are clinically dead. When brain activity ceases, you are biologically dead, or “brain dead”. Even when these states are reversed and the patient revived, we still consider some approximation of death to have occurred. Good luck finding a heartbeat or neocortical activity in a cloud of atoms suspended in a transporter’s pattern buffer.

There is a window of approximately six minutes under most conditions following clinical death before brain death begins to occur — a six-minute window where without an EEG, no life-signs can be found but within which declaring the true death of a self would be spurious.

In a transporter cycle, the pattern buffer can hold someone’s matter in suspension for eight minutes until it starts to degrade and soon becomes irreparable; is this not basically the same? In either case, we have a short window during which no life-signs can be confirmed with instruments on hand, during which the subject is kinda-but-not-really dead before we can say for sure one way or the other.

The diagnosis of biological or brain death, in particular, is centered on the belief that electrical activity in the brain constitutes the substance of consciousness — once it is permanently lost (or has departed from the substance and phenomena of the body, depending on your beliefs), so lost is the patient’s life. Yet the body of a brain dead patient on life-support can still continue many biological functions, including carrying a successful pregnancy to term. Furthermore, there is a myriad of what we consider life which exhibits no signs of consciousness whatsoever. Starfleet is even more liberal on what constitutes a life-form.

Consciousness

Consciousness is nevertheless the key. Even if not all life is conscious, the presence of consciousness must be demonstrative of a living mind. To put it simply: not all life is conscious, but all consciousness is alive. Perhaps the one tenet closest to incontrovertible in all of western philosophy is that consciousness affirms the existence of self , of being and of a mind.

Having a conscious person materialise at the conclusion of transport doesn’t preclude the possibility that they have died and been revived, if their consciousness is broken at any point. More disturbing is the thought that their mind or soul is composed of some noumenal substance beyond the “neural activity” which the transporter can’t observe or capture (assuming we believe in souls). If there is a break in consciousness, perhaps a new soul has been created or inhabited this same body. Perhaps this person is made of the same matter but ultimately a copy all the same, with memories reconstructed from the data accompanying the matter stream. Perhaps successful transportees have no soul whatsoever.

How can we be sure?

We can agree by now that consciousness is both the essence of self and the most certain contradiction of death. If a subject maintains consciousness throughout the transport cycle and if that consciousness remains tethered to the constituent matter of the body (i.e. the mind hasn’t been left behind or scattered across space), we should agree that neither a cessation of self nor a non-semantic, actual death could have occurred. Simple, right?

So are we conscious during transport?

Yes! Well, sometimes.

“That original transporter took a full minute and a half to cycle through. Felt like a year. You could actually feel yourself being taken apart and put back together”. – Emory Erickson , 2154  (“ Daedelus ”)

Many characters have been able to recount the conscious experience of transportation. Sure, this doesn’t preclude the possibility that this is some kind of false memory or other psychological compensation for a lapse (or annihilation) of consciousness; but there is one case in which we can be quite certain. An episode from season 6 of TNG offers us a rare, real-time first-person perspective of a disassembled Lt. Barclay in the matter stream. Incredibly, he is not only fully conscious but able to exercise will and somehow “grab” another dematerialized person, allowing him to rematerialize with and subsequently rescue a crewmember from the USS Yosemite whom had been trapped in the transporter.

In cases like this, we can say with reasonable certainty that consciousness is not broken at any point of the cycle — the subject has not been killed. That’s reassuring, but we can’t say for sure whether this is a typical transport cycle, or something more extraordinary. All we have demonstrated is that it is at least possible to cycle the entire self intact.

That is the best-case scenario, but we mentioned earlier the apparent incongruence between reported transport accidents and the actual disasters we see in basically every other episode. Ignoring the more pedestrian deaths from incorrect or incomplete rematerialization, coordinate calculation errors or signal loss resulting in one’s atoms being scattered across space; there are some uniquely ontological risks involved in transportation. Sometimes the person that steps off the transport pad is definitely not the same one who first entered the buffer.

Critical Error

An ion storm once caused crewmembers from the Enterprise  to switch places with their parallel universe-selves. An Enterprise D transporter  suffered a malfunction which caused the deletion of DNA sequences from the patterns of Captain Picard and several of his colleagues. They rematerialized as children and had to be restored with backup data from their previously-scanned patterns.

Members of the Defiant  were even transported back in time where Captain Sisko caused the accidental death of a significant historical figure, forced to claim his identity and instigate a revolution in order to preserve the timeline.

In 2266 , a transporter accident split Captain Kirk into two distinct bodies possessing different parts of the original’s personality in a kind of physical manifestation of Dissociative Identity Disorder. After their successful reintegration, you could at least argue that no discrete person had been created or destroyed.

In 2361 , a similar accident befell then-Lieutenant William Riker  whilst attempting to evacuate from a planet’s surface. In this case, however, the subject was not split, but copied. It seems here that the transporter’s computer falsely reported an incomplete cycle — in which case the data packet of Riker’s neural and molecular blueprint was transmitted a second time. This second transmission was reflected back to the planet by the same phenomenon which caused the initial false reading. Ultimately, one Riker successfully boarded the USS Potemkin ; another identical man was left behind. Each shared the same memories, personality and physical attributes, unaware of the other’s existence.

Given that both Rikers had the same physical mass as the original, it must be the case that one of them was reconstructed from a supplementary reserve of matter (like a replicator) and the molecular and neural scans in the transporter’s physical memory — not the same stuff as the original. One Riker is completely artificial. Someone may or may not have died here, but someone (and quite unbeknownst to them) had just been born.

Then there’s Tuvix — two members of the USS Voyager spliced together by the catalyst of an alien orchid in transport. Although a melding of the patterns and DNA of Tuvok and Neelix, Tuvix considered himself a distinct person and thought of the original crewmen as something akin to his parents. Once a means to reverse the accident was discovered and proposed, Tuvix fought desperately against what was in essence a plan to murder him. Through one transporter malfunction: one creation of an entirely new individual and two temporary deaths reversed only through one fairly unequivocal murder.

The Verdict

Ultimately, you probably won’t die in a Star Trek  transporter. Depending on your standards of death, you might — but with a Starfleet education you’re going to have a pretty broad and flexible definition of what constitutes being alive.

The statistics might show that beaming is safer than driving, but isn’t the irrepressible existential dread of transporter phobia still justified? We’re pretty sure it is. Motor vehicle accidents might be far more common, but they’re relatively predictable. They definitely will not spawn an evil doppelganger to murder your family, leave you forever uncertain that you are not, in fact, a poor simulacrum of your original self, or send you cartwheeling centuries back through time with nothing but your space pajamas.

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Den of Geek

Star Trek Characters Die in the Transporter All the Time. Why Are They Okay With It?

Star Trek's transporters are convenient but deadly, suggesting something surprising about the franchise's take on the human soul.

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“Beam me up, Scotty” is a quote as iconic as Star Trek ‘s once-magical automatic doors ― even if Captain Kirk didn’t actually say it. While Star Trek wasn’t the first sci-fi creation to teleport its characters around, its pleasingly sparkly transport scenes quickly captured fans’ imaginations. However, what is beamed up isn’t necessarily what is beamed down.

Simply put, Star Trek transporters, if they were real, would kill their users along the way . No matter the technicalities over moving versus duplicating the bits that make up a Trek crewman, you cannot blast a person into atoms without ending their brain functions and destroying them. You just can’t. Try it (don’t try it). So depending on how lazy a character is, a commute from a starship bridge to the bathroom could be the last thing they ever do. 

It’s something that’s fascinated and vexed overthinkers in the fandom through the decades, with YouTuber CGP Grey among those warning of the “real” nature of starships’ transporters (and validating The Next Generation ’s Reg Barclay’s fear of them).

Despite this, it’s mostly unremarked upon in the show ― even when Captain Picard, in The Next Generation episode “Lonely Among Us,” basically dies in space, with the transporter used to make him a new body for his untethered “energy” to enter. “What the devil am I doing here?” he asks when he reappears. He’s clearly not quite the same man.

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Picard’s crew might not care who exactly it is that they’ve beamed back to the Enterprise. But the bait-and-switch of the transporter haunts pop culture consciousness, just as countless versions of crewmen might haunt their starships. One example is China Mieville’s fantasy novel Kraken , in which a Trekkie uses magic to make a transporter, only to end up stalked by dozens of iterations of his own ghost. Author Jason Pargin, too, muses over the horrific implications of transportation in This Book is Full of Spiders .

Mieville and Pargin appear to imply that Star Trek characters don’t know transportation kills them. But Trek ‘s crewmen have scientific training and live in a world that encourages philosophical thinking. If Kirk, Picard, and co. all know that transporters are deadly, why are they happy to use them?

You could argue that we all need a sense of being whole and individual beings, experiencing life as one unbroken continuity, for the world to function. For Star Trek characters to live as they do, lives made infinitely easier by utopian tech, perhaps ignoring their many deaths is a bargain that has to be made.

This would make a starship crewman a kind of cloned pretender. That angle has certainly cropped up in episodes over the decades. In The Original Series episode “The Enemy Within,” a transporter accident creates two Captain Kirks (one comically evil, of course ― though unlike Evil Spock he regrettably doesn’t sport a goatee). Both are different men from the original Kirk, so at the end he is not so much brought back as made whole again. And the fact that the transporter can create two Will Rikers from one in TNG episode “Second Chances” also shows some kind of replication is at play.

Another take would be that Star Trek characters aren’t invested in an illusion at all, but are actually pretending less than we are. Freed from constraints of space and time by starships, freed from the production and ownership of objects by replicators, the next thing to go is the permanent self.

Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan wrote that when a human first recognizes their reflection as their self, they enter an imaginary world mediated by language. This abstraction or layer of removal from the self might be how you live if you’re just one in a long line of yous. Philosopher Jean Baudrillard took the idea of reality as a kind of shared dream further, arguing we live in “hyper-reality,” a set of representations more real than the now-dead aspects of the world they reference. Are starship crewmen hyper-real people? Made anew, carrying more thoughts and experiences than the first version of themselves to die?

Perhaps they have decided to ditch the whole game of pretending humans consist of a structurally sound self that remains one thing. After all, our cells are always renewing, our neurons changing. Consciousness is just one of many functions our brains undertake, and we can experience breaks in it, like the breaks transporters would cause. We are not even each one body, with so much of our mass made up of micro-organisms which have no clue that the city they are part of is a sentient being.

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This angle would mean Star Trek characters are living in the aftermath of a huge historical and psychological rupture caused by transport tech. They have a whole different view of what it is to be a person. To them, living a life includes many endings and beginnings, via a multitude of consciousnesses.

A case in point: in Voyager episode “Tuvix,” another transporter accident happens. This time, instead of creating two people, it makes a hybrid of Tuvok and Neelix, with an unsettling combination of Vulcan eyebrows and already-nightmarish Talaxian sideburns. After some conflict over ethics, Tuvix is eventually sacrificed . 

Tuvix is his own person, and Tuvok and Neelix have died by at least some definitions when they merged to create him. But for Voyager ‘s Captain Janeway, Tuvix’s death is seen as necessary so that Tuvok and Neelix’s consciousnesses can continue where they left off. Plus, when the pair of men return, Janeway sees them as the real deal. “It’s good to have you back,” she tells them.

Star Trek characters’ selves, then, are based on carrying memories and a personality, passing it from one body to another, rather than possessing an unbroken consciousness. So what if traveling from point A to point B means a person being consigned to the void, no thoughts assailing them ever again? Their journey through time and space continues anyway, like a relay race. Each body, in Star Trek , is a tiny part of the story of a person. They get to live for a day or a week while building the ambitions that the next them will take forward, and experiencing the memories and personality of their countless ghosts.

Maybe you’d die if you stepped into a Star Trek transporter. But the group project you contributed to, the project called You, would boldly go on ― into experiences no less real for your multitude.

Jen Tombs is a features writer and an avid fan of science fiction and feminist fiction. She lives in the Canadian Rockies because she loves mountains,…

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• USS Titan (NCC-80102) personnel

William Boimler

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Bradward "William" Boimler was a result of a transporter accident in 2381 that created two Brad Boimlers , genetically indistinguishable from each other, with personality and memories identical up to the point of the duplication. One of the duplicates continued to be known as Bradward Boimler and was transferred back to the USS Cerritos . The other chose to use the name "William" and be known as William Boimler and continued to serve aboard the USS Titan . ( LD : " Kayshon, His Eyes Open ")

He was referred to casually as " clone Boimler ". ( LD : " An Embarrassment Of Dooplers ")

• 1 Early life
• 2.1 Starfleet Academy
• 2.2 USS Cerritos
• 2.3 USS Titan and Duplication Incident
• 3 Key dates
• 4.1 Appearances
• 4.2 Background information

Early life [ ]

Boimler was born in Modesto , California on Earth , where he grew up around the raisin vineyards ran by his family. He became a well versed and skilled raisin farmer but found the work unbearably dull, and would have preferred for the family to be doing something different, like making wine instead. He also disliked the flies attracted to the grapes, and how it would take a month to get rid of the smell of raisins from his hair. His dislike for this life was so intense that the fact that numerous comely female co-workers on the farm openly propositioning him was of no interest. ( LD : " Second Contact ", " wej Duj ", " Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus ", " Grounded ")

Prior to Stardate 57436.2 , Boimler had only visited four planets , including Vulcan . ( LD : " Second Contact ")

Starfleet career [ ]

Starfleet academy [ ].

At some point during his life, Boimler enlisted in Starfleet and attended Starfleet Academy , where he received no demerits and failed the Kobayashi Maru scenario seventeen times. He graduated and was commissioned as an officer in 2379 . Upon graduating, he was assigned to the Cerritos , where he bunked in Bunk A12003. ( LD : " Second Contact ", " Temporal Edict ", " Reflections ")

Boimler and Fletcher were close friends at the academy. ( LD : " Terminal Provocations ") While there, he took Ethics of Collecting , and chose to take some studies on the Tamarian language . ( LD : " Kayshon, His Eyes Open ", " wej Duj ") He also took matter synthesis as an elective. ( SNW : " Those Old Scientists ")

USS Cerritos [ ]

Boimler giving a Captain's log

In 2380, during a stop at Douglas Station , Boimler was wounded by fellow ensign Beckett Mariner . Mariner, who was drunk on Romulan whiskey , gave him a hard time for writing his own mock captain's log , then accidentally sliced his leg open with a bat'leth . He was treated and assigned as an orientation liaison to Ensign D'Vana Tendi . Later, while assisting in second contact efforts with the Galardonians , Captain Freeman asked Ensign Boimler to monitor Ensign Mariner's activities. Boimler eventually believed that he had caught her selling Federation weapons, but she had in fact been giving farm implements to local Galardonian farmers. The confrontation intimidated the farmers that Mariner had been assisting, and roused a spider cow from its sleep, which attacked Boimler, though it posed no immediate danger to Boimler's life, due to it being an herbivore . The spider cow ended up coating Boimler with an oral slime , which held a key to neutralizing a rage virus that Commander Jack Ransom had unknowingly brought aboard the ship. Dr. T'Ana synthesized a cure from this slime, which cured the entire ship, but Boimler received no credit in discovering the cure. Boimler also did not inform Freeman of any breaches in protocol from Mariner with the Galardonians. ( LD : " Second Contact ")

Boimler was later selected for a special escort mission , assigned to take Klingon General K'orin to Tulgana IV . It was a mission he took very seriously and prepared immensely for. Boimler was disheartened when Mariner was also assigned the mission and didn't seem to be taking it quite as seriously as he was. The mission was made harder for Boimler when it turned out that K'orin and Mariner shared a history, as they got intoxicated together and were very disruptive for Boimler as he piloted the shuttlecraft. Making an unscheduled stop in Little Qo'noS , K'orin stole the shuttlecraft, and stranded Boimler and Mariner in the Klingon district, forcing them to track down the shuttle. This task was daunting for Boimler, who often found himself in trouble, and bailed out by Mariner. It made him question his place in Starfleet, but his confidence was restored when he successfully thwarted a Ferengi from mugging them. While his confidence was restored, the Ferengi was actually a friend of Mariner, and was acting by Mariner's wishes in a small act of subterfuge. ( LD : " Envoys ")

On Stardate 57501.4, Boimler accidentally revealed the secret of buffer time to Freeman while the Cerritos was en route to Gelrak V . This slip of the tongue resulted in Freeman assigning strict deadlines to each crewmember in their daily tasks. This quickly resulted in disorder and chaos aboard the ship, which eventually hindered the ship's functionality. Boimler was the only crew member who was unaffected by the deadlines, still being able to complete his assignments ahead of schedule and request more work. When the Gelrakians attacked the Cerritos , due to a gesture that was mistaken as an insult on Gelrak V, Boimler was able to convince Freeman that buffer time allowed the crew to finish their tasks comfortably and properly. Freeman brought back buffer time, and the crew successfully fought off the Gelrakians. Freeman thanked Boimler for helping her understand how important buffer time was by instigating a new ship-wide mandate known as the Boimler Effect . Boimler was never fully comfortable with being 'responsible' for this mandate, although he would later openly display the plaque he was given in his quarters. ( LD : " Temporal Edict ", " No Small Parts ")

During a mission in which the Cerritos offered support to the USS Merced , Boimler was incredibly flustered, and upset that Mariner was promoted to lieutenant , despite her disruptive behavior, and constant breaches of protocol. Convinced that this behavior was what convinced the senior staff to promote her, he did his best to break more rules and protocol. When the Cerritos found itself in a crisis, he deliberately spilled hot coffee on Ransom's lap, which just angered Ransom. ( LD : " Moist Vessel ")

About a month prior to Stardate 57601.3, Boimler picked up an alien parasite and began a romantic relationship with Lieutenant Barbara Brinson of the USS Vancouver . When the Cerritos offered support in the controlled implosion of a moon around Mixtus III , Boimler found himself intimidated by the fact that Ensign Jet Manhaver used to be in a relationship with Brinson and was working closely with her for the mission. Boimler attempted to one-up Manhaver in his personality and tried to stay close to Brinson while they worked, but also had to convince Mariner that Brinson was a normal Human, and not an alien in disguise. Boimler eventually believed that Brinson was cheating on him with Manhaver, and thought he caught them in the act of sex but was flustered when this wasn't the case. After he and Brinson reconciled, he went with Brinson to an orbital platform where he intended to have sex with her. Mariner caught him fully naked , and he brushed aside any accusations she made that Brinson was a parasite, despite her having discovered the husk of one. Boimler was knocked unconscious when the moon's implosion began, and when he had come to, Brinson and Mariner discovered the parasite latched on his head. The parasite went on to say that it was the one who had made Boimler get romantic with Brinson, but despite the fact that Brinson said that she fell in love with Boimler, and not the parasite, she broke off their relationship, expressing an interest in further studying the parasite. ( LD : " Cupid's Errant Arrow ")

On Stardate 57663.9, Mariner and Boimler attended the Chu Chu dance held by the Zebulon Sisters . Afterwards, they found that their crewmate, Ensign Fletcher, had accidentally corrupted an isolinear core by plugging it into a device to affect his brainwaves. The core itself went on a brief rampage inside the Cerritos , before Mariner and Boimler were able to eject it into space via an airlock . The core would go on to destroy a Drookmani ship , and Mariner's exaggeration of the events would land Fletcher a promotion, and a brief transfer to the USS Titan , much to Boimler's disappointment, as the Titan was a ship he wanted to serve on. The transfer would not last, as Fletcher was demoted and fired less than a week later for dumping garbage into the ship's warp core . ( LD : " Terminal Provocations ")

On stardate 57752.6, Boimler assisted Sam Rutherford with a transporter experiment which would have made the transporter slightly faster in the beaming process. However, the experiment resulted in failure, as Boimler was materialized out of phase, making him glow brightly, and give off the loud tone of the transporter. While the accident was cosmetic in nature, and offered no threat to his life, it baffled Dr. T'Ana, who contacted Division 14 , and gave Boimler a brief leave of absence to Endicronimas V to recover from the accident at the medical spa there, known as " The Farm ". On his way there, he befriended many other officers who had been the victims of bizarre medical accidents, and they revealed to him that they had reason to believe that the Division 14 ship they were on, the Osler , was in fact the Farm itself, and that they were there not to recover, but so that Starfleet didn't have to worry about curing them. They planned a mutiny, which Boimler revealed to the specialist in charge of the ship. Angry at his betrayal, the other officers attempted to kill Boimler, but stopped when the Osler ended its long journey and arrived at the Farm. Boimler did not end up staying very long at the Farm, due to the fact that, shortly before their arrival, the phasing effect had worn off by itself. ( LD : " Much Ado About Boimler ")

On Stardate 57818.4, the Cerritos was involved in a diplomatic crisis when Captain Freeman accidentally insulted the Clicket ship Tweerk when she was negotiating for a map of the Romulan Neutral Zone . Missing a call for a red alert , Boimler and Mariner were unaware of the details surrounding the crisis, and unsure how to act with the Clickets . Boimler suggested executing evasive maneuvers , dumbfounding the entire bridge crew. Unbeknownst to Boimler and Mariner, the Cerritos was in the middle of a top-secret covert rescue mission of Imperium Magistrate Clar . While the rescue was a success, and Clar had initially intended to honor the crew of the Cerritos for his rescue at a party on K'Tuevon Prime , the secret nature of the mission left Boimler, Mariner, Tendi, and Rutherford in the dark about details surrounding the rescue, and when Clar asked them to testify about the rescue, they got the idea that they were actually in a trial rather than a party. Boimler sternly defended the senior staff of the Cerritos and accused Clar of holding a drumhead trial . This miscommunication ruined Clar's party. ( LD : " Veritas ")

Expressing an interest in advanced diplomacy, Boimler programmed a holodeck scenario, Boimler Seven , and by making use of the entire crew's personal logs , created a near-perfect simulation of the crew of the Cerritos , which he hoped to use as a tool to prepare for an interview with Captain Freeman. However, Mariner altered the program to let out some frustration and anger, making the program much more action-oriented, and giving it a narrative similar to a movie. While she acted as a supervillain named Vindicta in the program, Boimler still attempted to use the program to help prepare for his interview with Freeman. Ironically enough, it was through Mariner's changes to the program that he found out that Mariner was, in fact, Captain Freeman's daughter. This discovery flustered him so much that he was unable to face Freeman in the interview and ran out of the interview in fear. The secret regarding Mariner and Freeman would not remain secret for long as Boimler accidentally let the entire crew of the Cerritos know about the nature of their relationship when he confronted Mariner about it and was unknowingly hailed through his combadge . ( LD : " Crisis Point ", " No Small Parts ")

Mariner and Boimler butted heads in the time following this revelation, and while Boimler was attempting to transfer aboard the USS Sacramento , Mariner competed for the transfer, hoping that a new ship would result in her having a fresh start without the crew giving her special attention. While the two competed, the Cerritos was attacked by a heavily-modified Pakled ship . During the attack, Mariner and Boimler reconciled, and fought off multiple Pakled intruders. The ship was very nearly destroyed but was saved with the arrival of the USS Titan , who had picked up their distress signal.

Afterwards, Commander Ransom informed Captain William T. Riker that Boimler was one of the best officers aboard the Cerritos , and Riker offered Boimler a promotion and transfer to the Titan , which Boimler accepted, much to Mariner's anger. ( LD : " No Small Parts ")

USS Titan and Duplication Incident [ ]

Boimler aboard the Titan

In 2380, Boimler took a position as a flight control officer aboard the USS Titan , as well as a promotion to lieutenant junior grade. ( LD : " No Small Parts ") This promotion lasted for at least three months, at which point Boimler accidentally created a transporter duplicate while saving his away team from Pakleds and escaping a distortion field. Riker praised the now-two Boimlers for their "bravery and ingenuity," but informed them that Starfleet believed having two identical crew members was an undesirable complication for the Titan' s "complex" mission; one would have to go back to the Cerritos as an ensign. By this time, the two Boimlers had become sufficiently differentiated that only one of them volunteered and expressed surprise that the other did not. The volunteer continued to be known as Brad Boimler, while the other took up the name William Boimler . ( LD : " Kayshon, His Eyes Open ")

Boimler's choice to use the name "William" was presumably an effort to ingratiate himself to Riker, as Boimler immediately immersed himself in Riker's interests, such as Romulan ale and jazz . ( LD : " Kayshon, His Eyes Open ")

Later that year, Brad took advantage of his knowledge that the Titan was occupied fighting Pakleds, and posed as William to gain access to the Command Conference afterparty aboard Starbase 25 . When Beckett Mariner first suggested the plan, which would have allowed her to be the "plus one", Brad thought to ask William if it was okay to do beforehand, but Mariner dissuaded him. ( LD : " An Embarrassment Of Dooplers ")

Official record of Boimler's death

In 2381 , Section 31 recruited William into their services, faking his death by a freak neurocine gas leak in his quarters. After Brad was notified by Ransom, he was placed on bereavement leave , but never took the proper time to process it. Although he was jealous of William, for having "his own quarters on a cooler ship", news of such a meaningless death shook Brad terribly, forcing him to question the meaning of life, and sending him into a depression spiral until he was temporarily rendered clinically dead by dehydration before being revived.

Following his apparent death, he was jettisoned into space inside a torpedo casing and eventually rescued and resuscitated by his new employers. After being informed that he was officially considered "a dead man " by Starfleet, he briefly questioned the indiscreet nature Section 31 took in advertising themselves with a "special combadge " and being threatened to be put back to death, he accepted the position and to that end laughed maniacally. ( LD : " Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus ")

Key dates [ ]

• Mid- 24th century : Born in Modesto , California on Earth .
• Graduates from Starfleet Academy
• 2379– 2380 : Assigned to the USS Cerritos as a junior officer
• Transferred to the USS Titan
• Stays on the Titan and assumes the name William after a transporter accident creates duplicates of Boimler, while the other duplicate retains the name Bradward and returns to the Cerritos .
• 2381 : Fakes his death and joins Section 31 .

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ].

• " Kayshon, His Eyes Open "
• " Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus "

Background information [ ]

William Boimler was voiced by actor Jack Quaid , who also portrayed Brad Boimler.

• 1 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Calypso (episode)