Transmat

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The Doctor, Harry Sullivan and Sarah Jane Smith on a transmat on Nerva. (DW: The Ark in Space)

Transmat (short for transmission of matter or matter transmitter) is a common technological form of instantaneous transport. It is a subset of methodologies describted as teleportation.

How It Works

Transmats are a transmission-based technology that move a person or object between two points by breaking it down into a data signal; the sheer volume of information involved in this process (including compensating for the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) means it is likely accomplished by some form of quantum-based technology (potentially accessing sub- or hyper-space) and multiply-redundant error checking. Transmats exist in two forms.

Close-Ended

This form of transmat requires a transmission/reception station at either end of the journey. The traveller enters the station where their molecular structure is scanned and stored for transmission, at which point their body is disintegrated into its component atoms (DW: The Mutants onwards). They have typically been seen to function at interplantary distances, but ones powerful enough to cross the gulf between stars at trans-luminal speeds have been seen to exist (NA: Love and War).

While some systems transfer this physical component to the reception station, the complexity involveds mean that in most cases only the structural data recorded prior to disintegration is transmitted, with a new physical form being constructed from a matter source at the other end (BNA: Down). It seems likely that the transmat employed on the game station, intended to give the impression of the transmatted person being killed, was an example of this simple version of the technology (DW: Bad Wolf).

Open-Ended

This represented a significant advancement in transmat technology, as it entails the ability to remotely scan and manipulate the molecular structure of objects. It is typically the product of a higher species.

An open ended transmat may acquire the object to be transferred at either end of the process. It's possible that an open-ended transmat beam is actually a form of wormhole projection, warping space-time to allow the scanning and disassembly/reassembly to take place without having to expend the energy that would be required to make a breach through which an object could physically pass.

We do not know if a transmat beam can travel faster than light, however the ability of Dalek transmats to transport people from Earth to the Dalek Imperial fleet at the edge of the Sol system suggests that some may be able to. (DW: Bad Wolf)

To repopulate the Earth after being freed from suspended animation, the Humans of the Nerva Beacon possessed a transmat that was linked to Earth by a circle of refractors. Commonly, transmats as well as teleports tend to transport, at the most, three people at a time.(DW: The Ark in Space, Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead)

Mawdryn and his people used transmat capsules. (DW: Mawdryn Undead)

The transmat capsules may have transported themselves. This remains unclear.

The Time Lords had the ability to redirect transmat beams to new destinations apparently greatly distant from those actually intended. They could also alter the transmission so a temporal as well as a spatial displacement occurred, as when they redirected a beam intended for Nerva Beacon in the far future to Skaro several thousand years earlier. The Time Lords appeared somewhat dismissive of the technology, claiming they had mastered it at a very early stage in the history of the universe. The Doctor indicated that it would otherwise be extremely dangerous to intercept a transmat beam. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)

It is generally inferred that anyone's first journey on a transmat is particularly uncomfortable, often resulting in vomiting or headaches. (DWM: End Game)

T-Mat

By the mid 21st century, a transmat network named Travel Mat (T-Mat for short) had been established, with T-Mat cubicles used as a reliable and cost-effective means of mass-transporting goods all over [[Earth]; it seems likely that Travel Mat was the name of the corporation or syndicate that established and ran the network.

The development of T-Mat ultimately led to the abandonment of manned space programmes, with the only launch vehicles remaining being those required to place satellites in terrestial orbit. It seemed never to occur to anyone in charge that the transmat link between Earth and the moon might one day catastrophically fail beyond the capacity of the moonbase personnel to repair. The Ice Warriors managed to exploit this weakness when they took over the base as a beach-head for their ill-fated invasion of Earth; a corollary of this compromise of the network was a disasterous collapse of global food distribution.(DW: The Seeds of Death)

In the aftermath of the invasion and the Thousand Day War, the T-Mat network was replaced by the Interstitial Mass Transit System.

See also

• Interstitial Mass Transit System
• Teleport
• Project Indigo