U.S.S. Voyager :
TEST CYLINDER
screenshots are from [#7 Eye of the Needle] unless otherwise stated
U.S.S. Voyager :
TEST CYLINDER
screenshots are from [#7 Eye of the Needle] unless otherwise stated
The test cylinder, seen in [#7 Eye of the Needle], is a standard Starfleet mechanism of a varietal molecular matrix. It simulates most known organic and non-organic compounds. It is not classified technology. It can be used to test the viability of, say, a transporter beam or placed into potentially dangerous conditions in order to assess the risk on an object that is not indispensable object, as opposed, say, to a living being.
In 2366, stardate 43807.4, in [TNG: Hollow Pursuits], the object is called a transporter test object (called a transporter test article by Encyclopaedia). The device is a cylinder of duranium about one metre tall and 25 centimetres in diameter, and was used in transporter room 3 aboard the Galaxy-class starship USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D to test transporter performance by beaming the article away and then back to a transporter pad then to another transporter pad. On that occasion, on the second and final materialisation the test object was seen to have broken into several smoking pieces. A systems analysis did not, by stardate 43808.2, reveal the cause.
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Behind-the-scenes: The transporter test article prop was made from a Navy sonobuoy casing. The same shape was used for quite a number of props in [Star Trek: The Next Generation] and in the Star Trek films.
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Since 2366 the transporter test article has been updated. In early 2371 USS Voyager uses the device, now called a test cylinder (possibly a shortened term for transporter test article), to test a transporter beam that Lieutenant Torres piggy-backed onto a visual beam sent between USS Voyager in the Delta Quadrant and the Romulan science vessel, the Talvath, in Sector 1385 in the Alpha Quadrant. The hope is that, assuming the test is successful, the Voyager crew can be transported to the Alpha Quadrant. During the first test-run, the cylinder dematerialises but only only partly materialises on the Talvath as the pattern buffer has trouble accepting the matter stream. Power is increased to the phase transition coils of the transporter, with the coils being adjusted to 37 megajoules. The transport is successful. On the main viewscreen of Voyager's bridge they can see that the test cylinder fully materialises on the console top by the Talvath captain (whose name they learn later is Dr Telek R'Mor of the Romulan Astrophysics Academy). |
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Transport of the test cylinder proves successful. Subsequently more than twenty transports of the test cylinder are made and although there is trouble with a phase variance, every one of the test transports is successful. Accordingly Telek R'Mor transports to USS Voyager, as he is unwilling to have any of Voyager's crew transport to his vessel. Ultimately, however, the reason for the phase variance is discovered, which is that the wormhole through which the visual beam and then the transporter beam had been sent showed signs of temporal displacement - R'Mor's time is 2351 - and therefore the plan for Voyager's crew to transport home via his ship is scuppered. |
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