quote:
Transporters are useless against shields, and maybe even useless against EMC.
If you're referring to trek style transporters. Definitely ECM is effective. Even certain common ores can prevent transporters from operating, and you don't have to be buried under it either.
I think the main problem with the transporter is that even if you can't materialize anything at your destination, you've still got one hell of a "High Energy Discharge" Weapon. Remember that E=MC^2, and you've moved six people worth of mass (in the form of energy!) in under six seconds from one point to another.
E = MC^2
= 500KG x (300,000,000 M/S )^2
= 4.5*10^19 J
= 11,000 Megatons TNT
So, 500KG -> 11,000 Megatons of TNT, all dumped into a small room over a five second period...
Who wants to purchase a shuttlecraft capable of cracking a planet?
