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We've seen the Transporter beam things to sites without transporter equipment, and we've seen Transporter's retrieve things from sites without Transporter equipment.

Say Scotty wanted to beam something from point A on a planet to point C, is it demonstrated somewhere in Star Trek canon that the item from point A must be routed through point B, the Transporter room, or can the item be beamed from A to C and and skip materializing it at point B?

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  • Best question of the day.
    – Athena Widget
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 23:03
  • Seeing that the transporter first converts the object to a matter stream then stores it in the pattern buffer. I'd say no off the top but I'll have to verify that assertion.
    – Athena Widget
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 23:06
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    memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Site-to-site_transport - Your energy has to visit the transporter room, even if you don't get materialised there.
    – Valorum
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 23:35
  • Just curious, why did the user delete his answer? Does anyone know?
    – RedCaio
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 23:39
  • @RedCaio - Dunno. Perhaps because it was wrong
    – Valorum
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 0:19

2 Answers 2

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There's no need to use Transporter Room. In Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Justice (S01E08), Picard saw an urgency to get a woman out of the ship, so he put his badge on the woman and ordered transporter room to beam her down to the planet. And, transporter room successfully beamed her down to the planet despite she wasn't in transporter room. And, she didn't get materialize in the transporter room (yes, her particles would have gone through transporter room, but it's irrelevant to the question).

There are several examples as pointed out by @Richard in comment: Site-to-site Transport

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    Good point, the question did ask if you could "skip materializing" in the transporter room, not whether the matter stream passed through the transporter room.
    – Hypnosifl
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 4:48
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    Efficiency; a site-to-site transport effectively requires beaming twice, once "up and over" or "over and down". Beaming twice means twice the time, twice the energy (in broad strokes). If you're moving things in bulk, perhaps during an evacuation, you line them up outside the transporter room (or around, as may "cargo bays" have large transporter pads, making the ersatz "transporter rooms", too).
    – T.J.L.
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 5:15
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No
The transporter converts the object at point A to a matter stream then into a pattern buffer (inside the transporter mechanism point B). Only then can it be transmitted again from the buffer to point C. There would be no need to first re-materialize the object at point B.

The matter stream consisted of the stream of sub-atomic particles that resulted from the dematerialization of a transport subject. The stream was relocated from the original site of the subject, passed through the pattern buffer, transferred as an energy beam, and rematerialized into its original form again at its destination (often a transporter platform)°.
°Source

The pattern buffer was a key component of transporter systems. The buffer was used to temporarily store the matter stream following dematerialization, but prior to sending the stream to its target. This was done because of the relative motion of transporter and target. By temporarily storing the matter stream, the Doppler compensators had enough time to adjust the targeting scanners¹.
¹Source

From the Star Trek Encyclopedia:

See the section on Direct Beaming.

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  • "No" what? The "Direct beaming" part of your indicates that the transporter does have to be part of the trip, and the person gets beamed twice.
    – user31178
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 3:35
  • Read it again. 'First to the transporter then to the destination '.
    – Athena Widget
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 4:20
  • I don't understand what you mean. It's saying the transporter has to be part of the trip, even if you're going from a source and destination that aren't the transporter room.
    – user31178
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 4:21
  • What are you talking about? The transporter is located on the ship etc. The beam is just a stream of data.
    – Athena Widget
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 4:23
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    I think you could just clarify your "No" sentence saying "No, they don't have to materialize in the transporter room." I just think it's unclear. i also think the title of the question and the body question are slightly different, which adds to the confusion. (The title question mentions nothing of materializing, but beaming only.)
    – user31178
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 5:03

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