Beam me up, Scotty!

Writers have long faced the obstacles of time and space in telling their stories. Fast horses and sailing vessels were the best the realistic writer had to offer, and that posed a problem--how to get a character or characters to travel long distances, which took a long time, without aging them too much or without frittering away the problem's urgency.

Writers of myths had a much easier time: winged shoes or winged horses or dolphins or even magic boats could get their characters a long way off in a relatively short time. Centuries later, we get reports of bilocation, or the possibility of being in two places at the same time. "Several Christian saints and monks are said to have exhibited bilocation. In one instance, in 1774, St. Alphonsus Liguori is said to have gone into a trance while preparing for Mass. When he came out of the trance he reported that he had visited the bedside of the dying Pope Clement XIV." (quoted from Wikipedia article on bilocation).

It wasn't until the 19th century that science began to help writers who set their stories in the everyday world. The train, the steamboat, and the car finally began to cut down travel time and also allow the characters to go long distances with a minimum of difficulty. Of course, the telegraph and the telephone cut down dramatically communication time, so that one could communicate instantly with another person hundreds or thousands of mile away, without having to wait days or weeks for a letter to arrive.

Then, at the beginning of the 20th century, aircraft arrived, and the world became much smaller, distances shrank, and a week's or a month's travel in the past now became a matter of hours or perhaps a day or so.

For some writers, however, this really didn't help. Their concern was not distances of hundreds or thousands of miles, but millions and billions of miles, of places that were light years apart. Space travel had arrived. Realistically speaking it would take us decades or even century or two, depending upon the speeds we could muster, to get to the nearest star, which is less than 5 light years away.

Rising to the challenge, writers created the faster-than-light (FTL) drive. Most postulated some sort of hyperdrive which took advantage of certain laws of the universe that weren't discovered until after Einstein had long since discovered whether or not God played dice with the universe. Going into another dimension was a favorite escape or more recently, taking advantage of wormholes which somehow cut across space (above? below?), thereby shortening the distance and therefore the travel time between two points.

Other writers came up with different solutions. The more technologically inclined writers employed matter transmission. The person or object enters a device which scans the item to be transmitted, breaks it down into its atomic or subatomic or electronic structure and sends the pattern to a distant point, whereupon the receiver reassembles the item into its original condition, either organic or non-organic. The transporter in the "Star Trek" series is probably the matter transmitter most familiar today. There are variations of course in size, reliability, type energy needed, and cost, but for the most part, matter transmitters are much alike.

On the other hand, some writers prefer to explore the powers of the mind, and these prefer to move their characters about by mental ability alone--teleportation. No machine is necessary, the adepts, who were either born with the power or learned how to teleport themselves, simply thought about going to another place and they were there.

If the story involved issues of human evolution, then only certain people would be born with this power--mutants--they were the next stage in the development of the human race. Other writers, more egalitarian in philosophy or simply in this story, would have it that all or most humans have this power but have never been trained to use it. A classic example of this type of story is Alfred Bester's _The Stars My Destination_, in which jaunting (named after its discoverer) or teleportation is something most people can learn, though they differ in their ability to teleport, much as is true of any human ability.

Regardless of whether it was by machine or by mind, the process seemed to involve three basic principles which hold true for all examples of teleportation, or at least all that I've read and remember.

1. The time to travel any given distance is null; it appears to be instantaneous for neither human nor animal nor object appear to be any older than when they began the trip.

2. The process had to have a predetermined destination. If it was matter transmission, then the destination was another matter transmission device. The pattern of the object had to be sent to a receiver. If it was by teleportation, then the destination had to be in the character's mind. I can't remember any story in which the character teleported at random and survived.

3. The original object moves from one place to another. It starts at Point A, is scanned, and then is transmitted to Point B. The object is no longer at Point A.

These, then, are the three major principles for either matter transmission or teleportation.


However, writers, being what they are, like to experiment. I have just finished reading a novel by Fred Pohl and Jack Williamson: _Farthest Star_, in which they vary the 3rd principle. A person, let's call him Ben, walks up to the matter transmitter, steps inside, is scanned, and the pattern (Ben2) is sent off to its destination. Ben then leaves the device, having lost only a few seconds or so while standing there and goes on to do whatever it was he wants to do. He undergoes no change whatsoever. It's the same as stepping into a photo booth and having a photo taken and then walking off. There are now two Bens in the universe, and the universe doesn't seem to mind.

Pohl and Williamson, unfortunately, do not explore this issue as it would occur in an ordinary situation--X has two appointments, one on Earth and one on Mars. X goes to a matter transmitter and X2 is sent to Mars to keep that appointment, and X on Earth keeps that appointment. After the appointments are over, what then? Does X2 stay on Mars, or does it return to Earth. If it returns to Earth, what is its status? Pohl and Williamson don't address that issue.

In the novels, the transmitter sends humans to places that will eventually kill the individual in a few months or possibly instantly in some cases or to places almost impossible to arrange a return. The "copies" in the story are used to explore this extremely dangerous environment, and in one case, three or four "copies" of one person have already died. Therefore, the issue of the real Ben does not become a real problem.

Keep in mind that the ones sent out are identical to the one who stays at Point A. Pohl and Williamson put us in the minds of several of the ones who were transmitted, and they are unhappy, for they feel they were the ones who lost the lottery.

In the brief discussion of the various forms of transportation, I could not see any moral issues being raised about any of those brought up. This, however, is not true, I believe, for the variation brought devised by Pohl and Williamson.

Is it moral to send someone off involuntarily to one's certain or almost certain death? One might argue that Ben agreed to the procedure, therefore he voluntarily placed himself in that situation--he volunteered. But, Ben also knew that "he" would walk away safely and go about his day. Did B2 have the same opportunity to make that decision?

Interesting question--but of no practical value I suppose. Yet, within the past year or so, I have read about experiments that suggest, at the quantum level anyway, that matter transmission is possible. Of course, in the same article, a scientist commented that while this may be possible at the quantum level, this certainly is impossible at our level. And this reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke's First Law:

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
-- Arthur C. Clarke--

Alfred Bester, a brief look at two novels

Alfred Bester, is probably best known for two novels, The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination.

While many SF writers are able to come up with ideas or concepts or technology that equal those of Bester, his strength, which is shared by very few, is his ability to take that idea and make it an integral part of the culture that it is embedded in and also an integral part of the story. Removing that SF element from a novel by Bester results in a culture with inexplicable elements and a story that makes little or no sense at all. Many stories that claim to be SF, yet, upon close examination are stories that could be set anywhere, anytime, anyplace. That's not to say that these are bad stories; it's just that they aren't true SF tales at their core but simply stories with a few SF trappings.


In Bester's stories, we find just the opposite. Many writers have employed telepathy or other ESP powers in tales, but for the most part, the telepathy/ESP aspects could be removed with little difficulty, and the tale would remain the same. However, in Bester's The Demolished Man, the telepathy is such an integral part of the work, that removing it leaves little that makes much sense.

A man plans the death of a business rival. Rather than risk blackmail, he decides to do it himself. In this culture, the potential murderer must not only take into consideration the usual problems of committing the crime at a time and place so that there are no witnesses nor leave any evidence that he was at the scene, but he must also come to grips with the situation that the police employ telepaths who would quickly be able to detect his guilt simply by reading his mind. Lacking any psychic powers of his own, he can not prevent this. Since most people have secrets they would not want to become general knowledge, those who are rich will hire their own telepaths to warn them when other telepaths are approaching and therefore take steps to protect themselves. Consequently, in addition to the police, the murderer now has to contend with the problem that other telepaths will be around who would be able to quickly detect his intentions even before he committed the murder. Much of the novel depicts his activities prior to the crime as he works to counter the problems caused by telepathy. The reader also is confronted by a variety of cultural responses to the awareness that now even one's thoughts are no longer safe.


In The Stars My Destination Bester plays again with ESP, but this time with the ability to teleport oneself from one place to another. Teleportation is simply the power to move oneself by power of mind itself. One does not have to get in a car to go across town; one simply imagines ones' destination and one is there. Considering the high price of gas today, this means of transportation looks better every time I think about it.

This is not a story in which teleportation or jaunting, as it is called, is simply tacked onto the society in which it was developed. Bester has gone to considerable lengths to work out the possible effects that this power, which can be taught and is possessed by the majority of people in that society, might have upon that society. One of the most significant effects of this power is the threat to privacy, anywhere and everywhere.

Fortunately juanting has its limitations. One of most significant is that one must be familiar with and be able form a picture of the destination that one wishes to jaunt to. This means that people can jaunt only to places that they have already visited. As the narrator points out, this gives new meaning to the Grand Tour. Moreover, those with superior ability to form an image of a destination can go more places and also farther at one jump than those with a lesser ability to form a mental image of their destination.

Because of jaunting's threat to privacy, the rich and powerful and famous take extraordinary precautions to protect their homes. Each mansion or estate now has a central core that no one but family members are able to enter. Women's bedrooms have no doors or windows; one must jaunt to enter and one can jaunt only to places one has been and therefore can visualize. Bodyguards are selected for their jaunting abilities as well as their ability to react quickly to immediate threats. Speed and flexibility are now all important: the strong but dumb bodyguard is gone.

As with any human ability, jaunting develops its own hierarchy At some levels of society, one's skill level can raise or lower one's status. However, at the upper levels of society, the reverse becomes true; it becomes a reverse status symbol. Prestign of Prestign, one of the wealthiest men on earth, if not the wealthiest, looks down with scorn on jaunting to such an extent that he hasn't jaunted in years. He hires people who jaunt for him.

Cultures have effects upon the elements which are a part of it, and those elements also influence the culture it is embedded within. The automobile in the US is a classic example of the interrelationship between a culture and the elements within that culture. What would our culture be like without the auto, and how has our culture, which believes in that bigger is better, that speed is all important, and that competition is a major part of life, influenced the auto? More recent examples would be the computer and probably today one would have to consider the mobile phone (cell phone). Ask yourself, as you read this text on the Internet, whether life would be different today without the computer or that little phone. Bester's novels show an awareness of this, and this awareness makes his novels what they are--some of the best SF novels ever written.

The next time you are reading an SF novel, ask yourself the following question: is the gizmo or the gadget or whatever the SF component consists of really embedded in the story and the culture so as to be an integral part of it, or is it simply a post-it note that's there temporarily and won't be missed if it is removed.