高级笔译训练：科幻小说中的五大鸡肋发明（三）

2.Teleporters
第二名：远程传送
As seen in:
Star Trek, The Fly, countless video games.
曾经出现在：
《星际迷航》，《变蝇人》，还有数不清的电子游戏里。

Why we thought we wanted it:
Here's a technology that'd make the flying car and the jetpack both look like that retarded Flintstones car you drive with your feet. We're talking instant transport to anywhere, any time. You can live on the beach in Hawaii and live in New York. Sit there in the morning and sip coffee until about five seconds before the meeting is set to start, then step into your transport and there you are, in the conference room.
我们想要它的原因：
有一种技术，能让飞车和飞行背包都看起来像呆呆的《摩登原始人》里，你用脚开的那种车一样傻。这儿说的是瞬间传送东西到任何时间、任何地点的技术。你可以住在夏威夷的海滩上，也可以住在纽约。在开会前五秒钟，你还可以坐在早晨的海滩上品着咖啡，然后你起身走进你的传送机——你就到会议室了。

Why we were wrong:
Many later science fiction writers have declared that a device that can disassemble and reassemble a human molecule-by-molecule would be patently unsafe (the most famous and grotesque portrayal of a teleporter accident came, of course, in the film Spaceballs). But, even if they get the bugs worked out (what method of transportation is perfectly safe, after all?) there is a much larger and much weirder issue.
我们是笨笨：
后来的许多科幻小说家都声明说，那种可以一个分子一个分子地拆分、组合人体的设备，很明显是不安全的（史上最著名和怪异的失败的传送，出现在电影《太空炮弹》里）。但是，尽管他们补上了漏洞（终究哪种传送方式会是完全安全的？），还是有一个更大的、更离奇的问题。

A teleporter wouldn't actually break down your atoms and then shoot those same atoms thousands of miles through the air; even if it were possible, there'd be no reason to do it. It would instead just grab Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms from out of the air and assemble you out of those (one Hydrogen atom is the same as another, after all).
一台传送机不会真的拆分你到原子然后把那些原子发射到几千里外；即使这是可能的，也没有理由去那样做。取而代之的是，只要在空气里抓一把氢和氧的原子，然后把它们组装起来，就是你了（毕竟氢原子们总是一模一样的）。

In other words, teleporters would work more like fax machines than mail. It transmits a signal and the machine on the other end spits out a copy. Only instead of a copy of a letter, it's a copy of a person, right down to all their thoughts and memories and here the original is destroyed. This was demonstrated in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Episode 250 ("Second Chances", aired May 24, 1993, Stardate 46915.2) where they failed to destroy the original Will Riker and were left with two of him.
换句话说，传送机工作起来与其说像发信，还不如说像是在发传真。传送信号，另一头的机器就打出来一个复印件。唯一的不同，就是一封信的复印件和一个人的替身的区别。这个替身从思想到记忆都和本人一样，但是在那边的本人已经消失了。《星际迷航：下一代》里就是这么说的：在第250集《第二次机会》（1993年 5月24号——星际时间46915.2——播出的）里，他们没有能把Will Riker搞消失，于是就有两个他。

Are you grasping the weirdness of this? The original is destroyed. That means when you step into a teleporter, you die. But, the rest of the world won't know you died, because a copy of you will step out of the other end of the machine. It won't be you, though, it'll be another you that happens to share your memories. To the outside observer the thing will always work fine, and the thing that steps out of the receiving end will think it worked fine. The one person who knows it didn't worked fine, can't tell anyone because they  died via total atomization the moment they stepped into the machine.
你是不是因为这个诡异的事情而倒吸了口凉气？本人消失了，意思是你走进传送机的那一刻，你死了。但是，世界上别的人不知道你死了，因为你的替身会从另一头的机器里走出来。虽然那个不是你自己，但是那个替身“不巧”拥有你的记忆。在外人看来，永远不会有什么问题，从接收端走出来的那个也不会认为有什么问题。那些明知道不是没问题的人却不能把真相告诉任何人，因为他们在走进传送机的时候，已经在完全的原子化的过程中死了。
So, the first time Captain Kirk used the teleportation device to beam down to an alien planet, he was basically resigning himself to an immediate death and hoping that his twin would carry out the mission for him.
所以当Kirk船长第一次用传送机发送自己到一个外星球的时候，他基本上是在宣告他的立即死亡，希望他的胞弟能替他执行任务。