Is it possible to beam someone against their will?

Question

In Star Trek (any series) it would seem the transporter would make a great defensive weapon against your ship being boarded - simply start beaming the intruders into a holding cell (or if you're feeling particularly cruel, into space or just delete their patterns from the buffer altogether)

But my question is, is it possible to beam someone against their will? If not, then this would explain why this is never done.

I know we have seen "surprise" transportations - Data in TNG: The Most Toys, Kirk and McCoy in The Undiscovered Country. But I can't think of any where someone has not wanted to be transported or has tried to physically resist it.

Answer 1

Yes, you can beam people against their will in Star Trek.

We've seen several examples of Starfleet officers being kidnapped via alien transporters.

For example, in Ménage à Troi, Riker, Deanna, and Lwaxana Troi were forcibly beamed off of the planet Betazed by Ferengi transporters.

And in The Mind's Eye, La Forge was forcibly beamed off of a shuttlecraft by Romulan transporters.

Even if you discount examples such as those, on the basis that they involved alien transport tech, there are multiple examples of Starfleet transporters being used to beam people against their will.

For example, in Datalore, Lore was thrown (by Data) onto a transporter pad and beamed into space.

And in A Matter Of Honor, Captain Kargan was forcibly beamed off of his ship and onto the bridge of the Enterprise-D.

We've also seen instances where characters in Star Trek knew an attempt might be made to beam them somewhere against their will, and used technological means to prevent it.

For example, in Power Play, Troi, Data, and O'Brien were possessed by alien entities, and were holding people hostage in Ten Forward. An attempt was made to get a transporter lock on the possessed officers, but O'Brien took the transporters offline in order to prevent that.

RIKER: Transporter room three, can you get a pattern lock on Commander Data, Counselor Troi and Chief O'Brien in Ten Forward?

CREWMAN: Attempting to lock on, sir.

O'BRIEN: You were correct. They're attempting to engage their transporters. But I know how to shut them down.

DATA: Do it.

CREWMAN: Bridge, the entire transporter array has been taken off line and placed into diagnostic mode.

_{Star Trek: TNG "Power Play" script}

And in Star Trek: Insurrection, Data used a transport inhibitor to prevent himself from being beamed off of a scoutship after the shields had been briefly disabled.

The very existence of transport inhibitors is strong evidence that desire alone is not enough to prevent oneself from being transported (at least, not for non-augments).

Answer 2

Under normal circumstances, yes, it is possible to beam someone against their will.

In Star Trek: Insurrection, transport inhibitors are used to prevent the Son'a transporting the Ba'ku en masse. Later, the Son'a use darts with isolinear tags to overcome the jamming. If it was possible for the Ba'ku to simply resist the transporter beam, this would all have been unnecessary.

Also, as a sort of exception that proves the rule, there's the supersoldier Roga Danar in the TNG episode "The Hunted". He resists a transporter beam thanks to his genetic/chemical enhancements and doing so causes a small explosion. You can see it about 20 seconds into the episode trailer.

Danar was known to be dangerous and a flight risk but everyone still expected the transporter to work on him, suggesting that overcoming a transporter is something they hadn't seen before and that ordinary people can't do.

Answer 3

this would explain why this is never done

So would lots of other things. How often do we see ships being boarded in Star Trek when they haven't already suffered enough damage to take down their shields, and possibly take down their transporters too?

In situation like that, the crew has enough things to cope with other than trying to lock on to hostile individuals within their own ship, who are probably moving around, and don't have handy Starfleet com-badges to focus on.