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} }) </script> </div> </form> </fieldset> <article class="entryArticle content STeditorial"> <header class="entryHeader icon-theme"> <h1 class="entryTitle">Teleportation </h1> </header><p class='tagLine'>Entry updated 22 November 2015. Tagged: Theme.</p><div class="browsingBtns"> <span> <input class="button PNI previous" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?id=p&entry=teleportation'" value="Prev" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI next" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?&entry=teleportation'" value="Next" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI incoming" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/incoming.php?entry=teleportation'" value="About This Entry" title="What links to the entry; contributor initials explained; how to cite; other information" /> </span> </div> <p>Although a common item of sf <a href="/entry/terminology">Terminology</a>, this word is (or has been) used in three different ways.</p> <p><b>1.</b> Charles <a href="/entry/fort_charles">Fort</a> used it in <i>Wild Talents</i> (<b>1932</b>) as a synonym for "psychokinesis" or, later, <a href="/entry/telekinesis">Telekinesis</a>; i.e., the ability to move objects by the power of the mind alone. This seems to be the first appearance of the term in print, as is Fort's use of "teleport" as a verb in <i>Lo!</i> (<b>1931</b>). Eric Frank <a href="/entry/russell_eric_frank">Russell</a>, a staunch Fortean, offers the variant form "teleportate" in <i>Dreadful Sanctuary</i> (June-August 1948 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>; rev <b>1951</b>; rev <b>1963</b>; further rev <b>1967</b>).</p> <p><b>2.</b> In sf of the 1950s and 1960s there was a growing tendency to use "teleportation" as an extreme case of <a href="/entry/telekinesis">Telekinesis</a>, meaning the ability to move (most usually) oneself from one place to another by the power of the mind alone (see <a href="/entry/psi_powers">Psi Powers</a>), not flying or floating but shifting more or less instantaneously from starting point to destination as in <a href="/entry/matter_transmission">Matter Transmission</a>. This has become the commonest usage and is the sense in which "teleportation" is normally employed in this encyclopedia.</p> <p>In the Campbellian psi-boom years (see <a href="/entry/psi_powers">Psi Powers</a>) teleportation featured most prominently in Alfred <a href="/entry/bester_alfred">Bester</a>'s <i>Tiger! Tiger!</i> (October 1956-January 1957 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a> as "The Stars My Destination"; <b>1956</b>; rev vt <i>The Stars My Destination</i> <b>1957</b>; rev <b>1996</b>), which exuberantly develops the complications arising from a future Earth society's adaptation to the development of teleporting or "jaunting", and also in such works as Gordon R <a href="/entry/dickson_gordon_r">Dickson</a>'s <i>Time to Teleport</i> (September 1955 <a href="/entry/science_fiction_stories">Science Fiction Stories</a> as "No More Barriers"; <b>1960</b>) and <i>Necromancer</i> (<b>1962</b>; vt <i>No Room for Man</i> <b>1963</b>). Teleportation by <a href="/entry/aliens">Alien</a> creatures is a significant plot element in Anne <a href="/entry/mccaffrey_anne">McCaffrey</a>'s <b>Pern</b> series (whose dragons have been developed from alien reptiloids by <a href="/entry/genetic_engineering">Genetic Engineering</a>), and comes into sharper focus in Vernor <a href="/entry/vinge_vernor">Vinge</a>'s <i>The Witling</i> (<b>1976</b>) and Walter Jon <a href="/entry/williams_walter_jon">Williams</a>'s <i>Knight Moves</i> (<b>1985</b>). A teleporting caste or clan, as in <i>The Witling</i>, features in Phyllis <a href="/entry/eisenstein_phyllis">Eisenstein</a>'s <i>Born to Exile</i> (stories August 1971-February 1975 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a>; coll of linked stories <b>1978</b>). Variations on the theme include teleporting animals such as the "mind hound" of James H <a href="/entry/schmitz_james_h">Schmitz</a>'s <i>The Lion Game</i> (fixup <b>1973</b>), which tracks its prey by <a href="/entry/telepathy">Telepathy</a> and teleports through walls or other defences to attack.</p> <p>Individuals in sf who have the power to teleport include Gilbert Gosseyn in A E <a href="/entry/van_vogt_a_e">van Vogt</a>'s <i>The World of Ā</i> (August-October 1945 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>; rev <b>1948</b>; vt <i>The World of Null-A</i> <b>1953</b> dos; rev with intro <b>1970</b>); the twins forming part of the gestalt entity in Theodore <a href="/entry/sturgeon_theodore">Sturgeon</a>'s <i>More Than Human</i> (fixup <b>1953</b>); youngsters who learn the trick from comprehending the fourth <a href="/entry/dimensions">Dimension</a> in Alan E <a href="/entry/nourse_alan_e">Nourse</a>'s <i>The Universe Between</i> (stories March, September 1951 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>; exp fixup <b>1965</b>) and Mark <a href="/entry/clifton_mark">Clifton</a>'s "Star, Bright" (July 1952 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a>); the Thoth character in Roger <a href="/entry/zelazny_roger">Zelazny</a>'s <i>Creatures of Light and Darkness</i> (<b>1969</b>) – who can teleport to any location he is able to imagine, raising the philosophical question of whether infinity contains all imaginable places or whether acts of creation are involved; and the young protagonist of Steven <a href="/entry/gould_steven">Gould</a>'s <i>Jumper</i> (<b>1992</b>).</p> <p>Many practitioners can also teleport objects other than their own bodies, as in A E <a href="/entry/van_vogt_a_e">van Vogt</a>'s above-cited <i>The World of Ā</i>. Summoning things to oneself in this way is known in the jargon of séances as apportation. Professional teleporters move cargoes across space in K M <a href="/entry/odonnell_kevin_jr">O'Donnell</a>'s series <b>The Journeys of McGill Feighan</b>, opening with <i>Caverns</i> (<b>1981</b>), and in Anne <a href="/entry/mccaffrey_anne">McCaffrey</a>'s <i>Pegasus in Space</i> (<b>2000</b>).</p> <p>Hazards of uncontrolled teleportation are considered in Alfred <a href="/entry/bester_alfred">Bester</a>'s already-cited <i>Tiger! Tiger!</i>, where failure to properly visualize one's destination generally leads to a "Blue Jaunte", arriving within solid matter with a resulting explosion; in James H <a href="/entry/schmitz_james_h">Schmitz</a>'s <i>The Lion Game</i>, also cited above, a pursuing psi-beast is tricked into a similar disastrous jump. Further cautionary stories include Daniel F <a href="/entry/galouye_daniel_f">Galouye</a>'s "The Last Leap" (January 1960 <a href="/entry/if">If</a>), in which to think is to travel and one must avoid thoughts of the <a href="/entry/sun">Sun</a>; and John <a href="/entry/brunner_john">Brunner</a>'s <i>Listen! The Stars!</i> (<b>1963</b> dos US; vt <i>The Stardroppers</i> <b>1972</b>), where the easiest jump from Earth's surface is to a gravitationally equipotential point in empty space, usually with fatal results.</p> <p><b>3.</b> Some writers use "teleportation" for the process of moving people or objects from one place to another by <a href="/entry/matter_transmission">Matter Transmission</a>, using future <a href="/entry/technology">Technology</a> to transmit items – usually in the form of information-carrying waves which at the destination are reconstituted into matter. A particularly implausible version (since there is no transmitting equipment at the far end) is the "Beam me up, Scotty!" transporter in <a href="/entry/star_trek">Star Trek</a>. Alternative pseudoscientific rationales for the transmitter may seem more logical in such cases – for example, the warping of space (see <a href="/entry/space_warp">Space Warp</a>) to bring two locations into physical contiguity. [DRL/PN]</p> <p><b>see also:</b> <a href="/entry/psionics">Psionics</a>.</p> <p><b>previous versions of this entry</b></p> <ul><li><a href='https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/teleportation' target='_blank'>Internet Archive</a></li></ul><br /><br /></article></div> <div class="sideBarsWrapper"> <div class="sideBarsColsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column sideBar12 clearfix"> <div class="columnForm"><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Recently visited entries<span style="background:url(/images/thingSFE2.png) !important"></span></h2><ul style='width: 50%; float: left;'> </ul> <p align=center style="float:right; padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;">ISSN 3049-7612<br /> <a href="/facts.php?id=logo"> <img src="/images/VitMan.gif" width=150 height=150 title="Click for larger version of this SFE logo"></a><br /> <b><a href="/donate.php"><img src="/images/Paypal-Donate.gif" WIDTH="92" HEIGHT="26" BORDER="0" /></a><br /><a href="/">Home/Welcome page</a></b></p><div style="margin-bottom:10px;"></div></div> </aside><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2><i>SFE</i> Special Features<span></span></h2><p style="margin-top: 10px;"><input type="button" value="What’s New" style="width: 150px !important;" class="button primary" onclick="window.location.href='/whatsnew.php'">  Latest entries; 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