Sharing of Technology

[Teaos]

I dont think they ever claimed that one bit would allow them to transport but that maybe it was the key componant and they could build the rest up around it.

[Mikey]

A transporter seems like an awfully big undertaking to reverse engineer.

[Teaos]

Did they say exactly what the piece they took did?

It could be like taking the hard drive out of a computer. It really does nothing by its self but it contains information that could help you on your way to building a computer. And while the Kazon were not as advanced as the Feds they werent useless and did have engineers of their own and that Cardassian traitor to help them.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

The whole plot of the episode was about keeping the tech out of the hands of the Kazon. If they were already 95% of the way there before they took the module, it would certainly render the whole episode kind of pointless!

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Did they say exactly what the piece they took did?

It could be like taking the hard drive out of a computer. It really does nothing by its self but it contains information that could help you on your way to building a computer. And while the Kazon were not as advanced as the Feds they werent useless and did have engineers of their own and that Cardassian traitor to help them.

They took the transporter control module.

[Teaos]

Not really. You can have all of my car, the wheels, body, interior everything but the engine and you are still a long long way away from having a working car.

Also I said that unit could give them the information or at least the start of the information to build the rest of it around.

[Mikey]

CPH makes a good point. If the Kazon were only that one piece away from creating their own transporter, what would the big deal have been? Even if Voyager got its part back, anyone who could create the entire other 90% of transporter would have come up with the control module on their own anyway.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Not really. You can have all of my car, the wheels, body, interior everything but the engine and you are still a long long way away from having a working car.

Also I said that unit could give them the information or at least the start of the information to build the rest of it around.

The unit couldn't have merely been information, since they were able to transport the moment they plugged it into their ship. Either they already had all of the required tech installed, or that one unit WAS all they needed.

A simple transporter control computer isn't analogous to the engines of a car; the machinery of the transporter pads (pattern buffers, heisenberg compensators, etc) plus the emitters on the hull are much more critical components of the system than that one small block of circuitry!

[Blackstar the Chakat]

CPH makes a good point. If the Kazon were only that one piece away from creating their own transporter, what would the big deal have been? Even if Voyager got its part back, anyone who could create the entire other 90% of transporter would have come up with the control module on their own anyway.

The command module may have been the final piece of the puzzle. You can't drive a car without a steering wheel, or use a computer without an operating system can you? At least not without reinventing the wheel. Creating the system is one thing, but a method to control it is far more difficult.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

CPH makes a good point. If the Kazon were only that one piece away from creating their own transporter, what would the big deal have been? Even if Voyager got its part back, anyone who could create the entire other 90% of transporter would have come up with the control module on their own anyway.

The command module may have been the final piece of the puzzle. You can't drive a car without a steering wheel, or use a computer without an operating system can you? At least not without reinventing the wheel. Creating the system is one thing, but a method to control it is far more difficult.

Nevertheless, if all that's left is programming the control system, then it's inevitable that they WILL have transporters in the foreseeable future, rendering the episode moot. Creating the transporter hardware is no small feat of engineering itself - especially if it was done in the time between the first encounter with the Kazon and season 2! Remember that that Neelix and the Kazon hadn't heard of anything like the Transporter before Voyager showed up. This implies that the Kazon have some VERY smart people working for them. If the Kazon HAD been developing the tech since before Voyager showed up, and were this close, then acquiring the tech from Voyager wouldn't be as high a priority as it was shown to be, and it wouldn't be as high a priority for Voyager to keep it from the Kazon if they were closing in on it as a course of their "natural development."

[Mikey]

The command module may have been the final piece of the puzzle. You can't drive a car without a steering wheel, or use a computer without an operating system can you? At least not without reinventing the wheel. Creating the system is one thing, but a method to control it is far more difficult.

Yes, but we'd be talking about how ridiculous it would be if someone "invented" a mode of transport without a steering system. When mankind first invented the oxcart, it included a steering mechanism. Mankind invented the PC, and the OS with which to use it. The patently incongruous part is that we are supposed to believe that teh Kazon could figure out every bit of a transporter EXCEPT that one little box. Nuts to that - if they could build the rest, they could build the module.

"A method to control it" is NOT far more difficult - rather, it is integral to the process of creating a thing itself.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

CPH makes a good point. If the Kazon were only that one piece away from creating their own transporter, what would the big deal have been? Even if Voyager got its part back, anyone who could create the entire other 90% of transporter would have come up with the control module on their own anyway.

The command module may have been the final piece of the puzzle. You can't drive a car without a steering wheel, or use a computer without an operating system can you? At least not without reinventing the wheel. Creating the system is one thing, but a method to control it is far more difficult.

Nevertheless, if all that's left is programming the control system, then it's inevitable that they WILL have transporters in the foreseeable future, rendering the episode moot. Creating the transporter hardware is no small feat of engineering itself - especially if it was done in the time between the first encounter with the Kazon and season 2! Remember that that Neelix and the Kazon hadn't heard of anything like the Transporter before Voyager showed up. This implies that the Kazon have some VERY smart people working for them. If the Kazon HAD been developing the tech since before Voyager showed up, and were this close, then acquiring the tech from Voyager wouldn't be as high a priority as it was shown to be, and it wouldn't be as high a priority for Voyager to keep it from the Kazon if they were closing in on it as a course of their "natural development."

I'd assume Seska was helping them build key components, but Kazon computer technology may not have been advanced enough for Seska to build a module from scratch.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

It's rather hard to believe that the Kazon could be advanced enough to build a transporter from scratch in less than two years, never having conceived the technology before, yet be so backward in another area of technology.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Keep in mind that since transporter technology existed in some form since the days of Enterprise (never mind it SHOULDN'T have existed back then), that the absolute minimum level of computer tech needed to run a transporter is well short of the Voyager standard.

[Teaos]

Their is no reason to assume the other bits would be that hard to make. The Kazon could have the basics of transporter tech from the Cardassian or from just picking it up randomly but they just dont have the computing power to make it function. That is what they needed. Infact if I remember clearly the Kazon specifically said that federation computers and replicators are the two things they really wanted.