One of the most overlooked technologies of the franchise, however, is the Turbolifts. These always-present, but surprisingly mysterious elevators are found within space stations and ships. How exactly do they work?
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The answer might seem fairly obvious, but there is actually an incredible amount of futuristic technology at play here. What sets a turbo lift apart from a normal (non jump scare) elevator is primarily the fact that they are able to move around horizontally as well as vertically. They glide not only up and down through space, but sideways and diagonally as well. This allows travel via a turbo lift from the bridge diagonally all the way down to the warp nacelles, without having to zig zag down and walk along corridors as one would with typical elevators.
The next biggest difference is that they are also able to travel far faster. This makes the surprisingly large spaceships far more accessible for crew and passengers, allowing them to move between two floors that would normally take hours to walk between. Such speed would normally reduce whoever is using the lift to be turned to mush, so each one has their own inertial demanding fields. These make the ride smooth and seamless despite the speed.
While these two facts are commonly known by Star Trek fans, as well as fairly obvious to viewers, there is another important element to the functionality of these lifts that is often overlooked. The lifts must work fairly independently. They cannot be restricted by set shafts like a normal elevator; rather, they run through a maze of multiple pathways. These pathways can be traversed to allow travel between any and all combinations of locations. Bridge to Dr. Crusher in the Med-bay; Ten Forward to the bathroom on floor 3; they must accommodate any foreseeable combination. Their pathways, due to their random nature, would have to be riddled across the ship like veins across the human body. To make sure they do not take up unnecessary space between floors or walls, they are required to travel in various different orientations. Each lift is fitted with their own independent gravity generations, allowing for the lifts to travel sideways, upside down, or any other orientation needed to get from point A to B.
They are also surprisingly safe, for what is basically a bullet full of people being fired around the ship. They are not only fitted with life form detectors and med kits for those who might be trapped during a ship emergency, they also contain their own independent life support. In a real-world disaster, elevators are potentially the worst place to find shelter — but in the world of Star Trek, they give occupants a far better chance of survival. The lift support systems provide occupants with oxygen recycling, temperature and humidity regulation, and most importantly, they are hermetically sealed. This means that those inseide would be able to survive for a decent period of time if the ship were destroyed (which nearly happens surprisingly often for a ship full of children). If the ship failed and the pods were cast out into the vacuum of space, they could act as makeshift escape pods for the creatively-minded survivors among the ship.
What remains a mystery is how many of these individual lift pods there are per ship. In the shows, there always seems to be one immediately available, no matter how soon after another individual has used one. There has to be at least one pod for each room standing by for when someone needs it, and multiples in rooms with more than one lift entrance, like the bridge. There must also be a backup one, able to take its place while the first one is in use, making for a far more efficient system than the one shaft elevators of today.
Such a complex system would require a highly advanced computer to organize. Not only would each floor need the correct number of pods, but it would also be essential to ensure they didn’t crash into one another. The seemingly endless number of travel path combinations would make for a seriously intricate pathfinder program, which would have to withstand hundreds of turbolifts traveling at once without hitting each other. Additionally, the computer must account for priority passengers, making sure an injured crew member aboard one gets to sickbay faster than another who’s just trying to visit their friend on another floor. It would also have to account for damage done to the ship, constantly trying to find alternate paths. All this makes for some of the most surprisingly complex technology within the franchise, hiding under the unassuming facade of a space elevator.
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