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| Star Trek: Enterprise will reportedly introduce the inventor of the transporter in the tenth episode of season four. Currently entitled "Daedalus", the episode is set to feature a visit by the device's creator, Emory, to the Enterprise NX-01, according to TrekToday sources. A friend and colleague of Jonathan Archer's father, Henry Archer, Emory created history when he successfully transported a single-celled organism using the matter-energy conversion process. The development of the device did not come without significant personal cost to Emory, however. His son, Quinn, was killed in a transporter accident. Emory himself even had parts of his spinal cord fused together when a malfunction in the pattern buffer caused a test to go very wrong. These accidents failed to damper his drive to see the transporter reach its full potential — in fact, they seemed to have spurred him on to achieve even greater things. During his visit to Enterprise, Emory reveals plans for a long-range transporter, as the NX-01's device can only cover distances of twenty-thousand kilometres. He proposes that the transporter signals could be sent through subspace, and even envisions a day when starships will no longer be needed to convey passengers from planet to planet — the transporter could do the job instead. In a recent interview with Science Fiction Weekly, Enterprise executive producer Manny Coto said he was planning an episode that would feature the transporter's creator in a similar manner to Dr. Richard Daystrom, the inventor of duotronics, in "The Ultimate Computer". "One of the ideas that I've had is, we've seen Zefram Cochrane, the originator of the warp drive," he said. "But we've never seen the individual who invented the transporter, which I think is as important an invention as the warp drive, when you really think about it. So I want to do a story about an individual who is kind of a Daystrom, if you remember the old series character, who's invented the transporter, and a story about him." Please note that these plot details have not yet been confirmed by Paramount Pictures, and until such time you should treat this information as you would any other rumour from an unofficial source. This report is based on an early draft of the script and aspects of the episode may change before it goes to air. "Daedalus" will likely air in late 2004. |