The News From Poughkeepsie - Day 14

May 5th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

I have issue with teleporters. The people, not the technology.

I mean, if you could teleport anywhere, would you walk? Seriously? Or would you *pop* over to the fridge, then *pop* over to the bathroom, then *pop* back up to bed, then *pop* to work, etc. You would get no exercise.

We’re talking morbid obesity here. Those people who can’t get out of bed, but if they could teleport, they could *pop* wherever they wanted. And they could be some pretty effective crime fighters (or villains) - imagine standing there, leveling a gun at a hero, when suddenly there’s four hundred pounds of crime fighter materializing beside you, knocking you way way off balance.

Or materializing right above your head.

These are the teleporters, people. They’re huge. They’re probably going to die young of a heart attack. But they can get from A to B faster than anyone you know.

The News From Poughkeepsie is a daily blog post featuring an idea for you to take and do with what you will. Read more about it here. This post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You can take this idea, change it, make something new, and even make money off of it. All I ask is if you create something - anything! - that this post inspired you to make, please link back here.

There Are 12 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Blue on 6 May 2008:

    This is cool Mur. You continue to inspire me with new ways to think about things (potentially) superheroic.

  2. Comment by Arkle on 6 May 2008:

    What if they HAVE to be fat in order to teleport because the act of teleporting removes body fat in the process? In other words, an anorexic tries to teleport it’ll kill him/her the first time they try.

    On second thought, nah. It sounds too much like Jumpers meets Lifetime Movie of the Week.

  3. Comment by TAN on 6 May 2008:

    That is an amazing idea. Exploring the consequences of one super power can be better than having a whole bunch sometimes. I had just a bud of thought along these lines when I saw the movie “Jumper” which didn’t address the main character’s weight (That of a healthy hollywood star) at all.

  4. Comment by Dischord on 6 May 2008:

    I’ve had a similar thought about flying. If someone could fly, but moving their mass through the air would burn calories just like climbing stairs or such would. A vertical takeoff would be a huge strain, like climbing a rope, but a gradual takeoff would be like walking up stairs or up a hill. You could get as high as you like, but spread the energy expenditure out. Where does the energy for Superman to fly come from anyway?

  5. Comment by Ascendant on 6 May 2008:

    Actually, if the energy requirement and/or range of teleportation is based on body mass, it would behoove the teleportee to be in pretty good shape. Heck, if the energy required is based off of metabolism, teleportation might actually be better exercise than walking/jogging/whatever. For that matter, you could make it so that teleportation requires so much caloric intake that teleporters have to binge on huge amounts of food before attempting consecutive long-distance jumps. Even if it was that a jump burned as many calories as an equivalent amount of walking, even a 15 mile jump would probably take a lot out of you.

  6. Comment by Arkle on 7 May 2008:

    Did I just accidentally overshadow Mur’s idea?

  7. Comment by Arkle on 7 May 2008:

    Oh dude, I just had a great idea! A Romeo & Juliet story, only instead of Montagues versus Capulets, it’s Teleporters versus Fliers! I’m starting the research as soon as I get back from seeing Iron Man today.

    Oh, maybe it should be more Enemy Mine than Romeo & Juliet. Eh, I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

  8. Comment by TAN on 7 May 2008:

    Actually, I was replying to the original idea. Yours was good too, though, Arkle.

  9. Comment by Merrill on 11 May 2008:

    Personal teleportation appears as an unsolved mystery here http://soxbus837.blogspot.com/2008/05/third-cataract-2.html

  10. Comment by Mark Maris on 13 May 2008:

    This was addressed in a somewhat different way in the Harry Potter series: the just-barely-legal Weasley twins, Fred & George, apparating everywhere when they could walk, or casting spells to move objects when they could just as easily lift the same objects. Kids, being kids. But they apparently didn’t have to deal with the conservation/expenditure of mass/energy; just the social consequences.

    Far older idea: “mana” by Larry Niven (and very probably others). Magic as a natural resource, which could be exhausted by reckless consumption.

  11. Comment by J-P Losier on 27 May 2008:

    I thought that Anne McCaffrey handled this pretty well in her novel, “Pegasus in Space”, Where people with psychic abilities, such as telekinetics and telepaths and teleporters, were shown to burn calories in performing their respective feats (”talents”, in the series), though they were significantly more efficient than manual labor. Lifting 100 pounds of machinery telekinetically may be more efficient because of the lack of overhead of moving a 180-pound person or 2000-pound forklift along with it.

    Regardless of why, her characters showed that the mental work qualified as work. No free ticket to ride, so the teleporters might get heavy, but not necessarily obese, at least in her universe.

  12. Pingback by Super Hero Thoughts « Scribbling Words on 7 June 2008:

    [...] It occured to me that this is essentially what Mur Lafferty wrote about having the power to teleport (if you could teleport everywhere, you’d be out of shape [...]

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