Discovery Uses A Classic Star Trek Transporter Trick To Save The Crew

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery Season 4, Episode 6 – “Stormy Weather”.

To save the lives of the USS Discovery’s crew, Star Trek: Discoveryseason 4, episode 6 used a classic transporter trick seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In Star Trek: Discovery season 4, Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the USS Discovery face a galactic menace called the Dark Matter Anomaly AKA the DMA. When the Discovery becomes trapped in a subspace rift the DMA left behind, Burnham resorts to using the pattern buffer to safeguard the crew’s lives.

The pattern buffer is a vital component of a starship and starbase’s transporters, holodeck, and replicator systems. When an individual is being transported, the pattern buffer stores its matter stream during the matter-energy conversion until it rematerializes in its intended target destination. In layman’s terms, the pattern buffer is where a person’s molecules go while he or she is being beamed somewhere. Occasionally, the pattern buffer has been used to save lives during a crisis. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation classic episode, “Relics,” Captain Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) saved himself with the pattern buffer after the USS Jenolan crashed in Dyson Sphere. Scotty was successfully stored in the transporter’s pattern buffer for 75 years until Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) and the USS Enterprise-D rematerialized the Scottish engineer in the 24th century.

In Star Trek: Discovery season 4, episode 6, “Stormy Weather,” Captain Burnham ordered the entire crew to be stored in the pattern buffer during the USS Discovery’s dangerous escape from the subspace rift. To remain aboard the Discovery would be lethal since life support would fail and the ship’s hull could be breached. Although Burnham, as the Captain, stayed behind to help Zora (Anabelle Wallis), Discovery’s artificially intelligent computer, guide the starship out of the rift, every other soul aboard was transported into the pattern buffer. The gambit paid off and everyone within the Discovery survived, including Burnham. It’s the same trick Scotty used to keep himself alive on TNG but done on a massive scale since the USS Discovery’s crew numbers over 100 people comprised of humans and diverse alien species.

Star Trek: Discovery‘s life-saving use of the pattern buffer is even more impressive than one of the most famous ways the transporter’s buffer was used to preserve multiple Star Trek characters. A Runabout explosion nearly killed Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks), Major Kira (Nana Visitor), Worf (Michael Dorn), Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), and Miles O’Brien (Colm Meaney) in the fan-favorite Star Trek: Deep Space Nine James Bond-style episode, “Our Man Bashir,” Quick thinking allowed DS9‘s heroes to be stored in the pattern buffer but the computer couldn’t safely hold all of their data. The only place on Deep Space Nine with enough computing power was Quark’s (Armin Shimerman) holosuite, which meant that Sisko and the others became characters in Dr. Julian Bashir’s (Alexander Siddig) spy adventure until they could be safely rematerialized.

The fact that Captain Burnham instantly ordered her entire crew into the pattern buffer and no one, not even engineers like Commander Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) or Ensign Adira Tal (Blu del Barrio), objected shows how much more powerful Starfleet’s computers are in Star Trek: Discovery‘s 32nd century. On TNG, it was miraculous that Scotty was able to survive for 75 years in the pattern buffer. On DS9, the computing power of the entire space station was required to keep five people alive. Although the USS Discovery’s transporters safely stored over a hundred people in its pattern buffer and everyone came back safely, it’s not a trick Captain Burnham will be rushing to try again anytime soon on Star Trek: Discovery.

Star Trek: Discoverystreams Thursdays on Paramount+.

About The Author