Teleportation in fiction

Teleportation is the theoretical transfer of matter and/or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. It is a common subject in science fiction and fantasy literature, film, video games, and television. In some situations, teleporting is presented as time traveling across space.

The use of matter transmitters in science fiction originated at least as early as the 19th century.[1] An early example of scientific teleportation (as opposed to magical or spiritual teleportation) is found in the 1897 novel To Venus in Five Seconds by Fred T. Jane. Jane's protagonist is transported from a strange-machinery-containing gazebo on Earth to planet Venus.

Overview

The notion of a teleporter is useful in fiction as it avoids the necessity to depict lengthy transportation sequences by rocket or other means. Usually for story purposes the transmission between source and destination is considered to be faster than the speed of light.

The mechanics of teleportation vary depending on the scientific theories available to the author. For example, in Edgar Rice Burroughs's series of Mars novels, the protagonist arrives at Mars by wishing. Other modalities of teleportation include electricity, radio, nuclear explosions, black holes, quantum entanglement, and the temporary conversion of matter to energy. The authors of such stories nearly always disregard the practicalities of handing the exajoules of energy that would result from the conversion of a 55 kg protagonist to immaterial form. The matter transmitter system may require elaborate machinery at the sending end, the receiving end, or both. Sending a receiver to a destination may require slower-than-light travel, but subsequent transmissions may then be instantaneous. In later installments of the Star Trek films, the rationale for interstellar spaceships was undermined by the introduction of a small portable transporter device capable of sending a person over interstellar distances.

The teleportation process is usually considered to make an exact duplicate of the original, but some stories use the process as a way to alter the duplicate in some way. For example, in Larry Niven's novel World out of Time, the widely used transporters of the story have a variant that is used to enhance longevity, theoretically by removing accumulated debris from cells. Sometimes the alterations are inadvertent and destructive; for example, in the film The Fly, a teleporter accident results in the fusion of a human being with a fly.

Often a story will describe the consequences of the use of a teleporter, especially on human beings. Where the teleporter essentially creates a remote duplicate of the transmitted person, the story may analyze the consequences of an interruption or communication failure on the original person. There may be an investigation of the morality of destroying the original so that the remote duplicate retains the identity of the individual. An example is the novelette Think Like a Dinosaur where the protagonist is compelled to destroy a woman who was inadvertently revived following a communication error with the receiving station. Occasionally remote duplication is used as a method to allow characters to remotely explore environments too dangerous to otherwise investigate. Sometimes the story postulates some form of mental telepathy "link" between the duplicate and the original, facilitating communication of observations from the hazardous environment. One example of this approach is in the Algis Budrys short story "Rogue Moon".

In fictional settings where teleportation is common, the action is often referred to be another term, such as: beam (Star Trek), jaunte (The Stars My Destination, The Tomorrow People), jump (Jumper), blink or shimmer (Charmed), spring (Thousand Cultures), or transmat (Doctor Who).

Interstellar transporters

An interstellar teleporter is a hypothetical technology appearing in science fiction, typically in soft science fiction, which teleports people or objects over interstellar distances instantaneously.

• The Door in Lloyd Biggle Jr.'s short story The Rule of the Door and the transmitters in his Jan Darzek series.
• Gate in Ken Macleod's Newton's Wake: A Space Opera. Macleod's gates are entrances to the wormhole skein, a network of Visser-Kar wormholes, referred to as Carlyle's Drift.
• An intergalactic teleporter made a brief appearance in the John Carpenter horror film They Live.
• The Supreme Commander Saga where space explorers travel through Interstellar Teleporters.
• Wormholes feature in Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga, connecting over 600 worlds.
• Land-based wormhole gates in Robert Charles Wilson's novel Spin.
• The Rowan series by Anne McCaffrey features psionic, rather than technological, means of interstellar teleportation.
• The star window (Sternenfenster) in cycle 32 of the Perry Rhodan series can teleport a fleet of starships across intergalactic distances.
• In the Doctor Who serial The Daleks Master Plan, set in the year 4000, the First Doctor, Steven and Sara Kingdom accidentally get caught up in a transmat experiment that sends them to the Planet Mira, which is 'many light years' from Earth.

List of fiction containing teleportation

Myths

• The founding legend of the Kingdom of Champa (in present-day Vietnam) refers to Lady Po Nagar and her children who magically disappeared from China and reappeared at Nha Trang.
• In The Arabian Nights, djinns are depicted as capable of instantaneously transporting themselves from China to Morocco and back, taking with them as much as a royal palace and its contents.
• The concept of Kefitzat Haderech (Hebrew: קְפִיצַת הַדֶּרֶךְ, Qəfiẓat haDéreḫ, lit. "contracting the path") refers to a miraculous travel between two distant places, and is present in Jewish culture from the Talmud up to the writings of Shmuel Yosef Agnon.
• Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen features the Tarnhelm, a magic helmet which confers, among other things, the power of teleportation. Siegfried makes use of this possibility in Götterdämmerung, Act II, Scene 2.
• Sadasiva Brahmendra, a Hindu scholar, is said to have twice performed teleportation. He transported some children 100 miles to an annual festival,[2] and when another youth disbelieved him, he was transported too.[3]
• The book Magic and Mystery in Tibet by French explorer Alexandra David-Néel mentions the Tibetan cultural concept of Lung-gom-pa, a special skill of moving nearly instantaneously from point to point.

Live performance

William Shakespeare considers the notion of teleportation in The Tempest (1610–1611).[4]

Teleportation illusions have featured in live performances throughout history, often under the fiction of miracles, psychic phenomenon, or magic. The cups and balls trick has been performed since 3 BC[5] and can involve balls vanishing, reappearing, teleporting and transposing (objects in two locations interchanging places). A common trick of close-up magic is the apparent teleportation of a small object, such as a marked playing card, which can involve sleight-of-hand, misdirection, and pickpocketing. Magic shows were popular entertainments at fairs in the 18th century and moved into permanent theatres in the mid-19th century.[6] Theatres provided greater control of the environment and viewing angles for more elaborate illusions, and teleportation tricks grew in scale and ambition. To increase audience excitement, the teleportation illusion could be conducted under the theme of a predicament escape. Magic shows achieved widespread success during the Golden Age of Magic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[7]

Written fiction

• Edward Page Mitchell's 1877 story The Man Without a Body details the efforts of a scientist who discovers a method to disassemble a cat's atoms, transmit them over a telegraph wire, and then reassemble them. When he tries this on himself, the telegraph's battery dies after only his head has been transmitted.[8]
• The silver shoes in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz function as a magical teleportation device.
• The idea of a matter transmitter was lampooned in the 1897 novel To Venus in Five Seconds.
• Arthur Conan Doyle's 1927 storyThe Disintegration Machine revolves around the idea of teleportation.[8]
• In the Japanese light novel series A Certain Magical Index, some characters have the ability to psychically teleport.
• In Paul Cook's novel The Engines of Dawn, teleportation works by physically compressing matter which is conveyed through a trans-space portal and expanded.
• In George Langelaan's short story "The Fly" (and the 1958 and 1986 films based on it), a scientist successfully teleports himself over a short distance but discovers that he has been merged with a housefly that had entered the telepod with him, becoming disfigured.
• In Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 novel A Wrinkle in Time, teleporting is called tessering, a term derived from the fourth-dimensional geometric shape. The title refers to a vague explanation of how it works given by an extraterrestrial character.
• In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novel series, there are several magical methods of teleportation. Disapparation and apparation allow the wizard to disappear in one location and reappear in another. This is considered dangerous, with a risk of leaving a body part behind, and its practice is licensed. Wizards can also use Floo powder to teleport from one fireplace to another, and enchanted portkeys to teleport themselves and anyone holding them to a predetermined place at a predetermined time.
• In Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, teleportation is described as an unpleasant experience and is generally frowned upon. One popular poem from the book reads, "I teleported home one night with Ron and Sid and Meg, Ron stole Meggie's heart away, and I got Sidney's leg."
• In Hyperion, a novel by Dan Simmons, teleporters known as "Farcasters" are essentially portals through which people and objects can be transported. Some farcasters only transmit between two points, while others can transport individuals to any other farcaster in existence. Farcasters make possible many strange and advanced phenomena, such as the river Tethys (a river spanning hundreds of worlds, linked by farcasters), or buildings with farcaster doors, allowing a perceived building which exists with rooms on different planets. Within the setting, the artificial intelligence TechnoCore parasitizes human brains moving through the farcaster network, and when it is destroyed the civilization dependent on the technology collapses.
• In Stephen King's short story "The Jaunt", teleportation is routine but sentient lifeforms must be asleep during the process. The near-instantaneous transport seems to last forever to a conscious mind, and is tried as an alternative to criminal punishment, apparently driving people insane by the stress of loneliness and isolation.
• In Steven Gould's Jumper series of novels, characters teleport by warping spacetime around themselves, creating a temporary wormhole or gate. Government figures and criminal organizations seek to use the power for their agendas; the ability is later used to launch a private space program.
• In Larry Niven's Ringworld and in other novels from the Known Space universe, people travel instantaneously from point to point in glass "displacement" booths, analogous to phone booths.
• In the 1973 short story Doomship by Frederick Pohl and Jack Williamson, teleportation allows exact duplicates of the subjects to explore the galaxy and to be placed into dangerous and ultimately lethal circumstances, without endangering the original person.[9]
• In John Barnes's Thousand Cultures series of novels (A Million Open Doors, Earth Made of Glass, The Merchants of Souls and The Armies of Memory), affordable transporter technology rapidly spreads across an interstellar civilization. Social, economic and security impacts are examined, with globalization on an interstellar scale.
• In Kir Bulychov's children's novel series Guest from the Future (and its television adaptation), teleportation is used for public transportation. Teleportation hubs are designed to look like buses with exit doors representing different destinations.
• In Christopher Priest's 1995 novel The Prestige, a magician uses a teleporter built by Nikola Tesla in his act.
• In Harry Harrison's collection One Step from Earth, short stories all revolve around a variety of teleportation called "matter transmission", in which objects can be passed between two separated screens which are aligned to share the same part of another dimension. The stories explore the societal and technical implications of the system, such as their use for penal transportation or a man using the technology to work apparent miracles.
• F. M. Busby's 1993 book The Singularity Project uses quantum singularities (artificial black holes) to transpose two masses.
• In Alfred Bester's 1956 novel The Stars My Destination, psionic displacement/teleportation has become commonplace. This story is the origin of the term jaunt in the sense of personal teleportation (spelled "jaunte" in the book, from the surname, "Jaunte", of the first person to do so).[10]
• In James Patrick Kelly's 1996 story Think Like a Dinosaur (and its television adaptation), a copy of a woman is transported to an alien planet but the original is not disintegrated (per protocol) due to a lack of confirmation from the destination. Reception is later confirmed, and the original declines to "balance the equation", creating an ethical quandary and conflict between humans and aliens.
• In Michael Crichton's 2003 novel Timeline, the characters are transported back through time and to another universe by means of quantum teleportation. (In the the 2003 film adaptation a wormhole is used.)
• In Edmund Cooper's 1964 novel Transit, a group of people are teleported to a distant world to do battle with a similarly displaced group of aliens.
• In David Eddings's The Belgariad and The Mallorean series, sorcerers are able to 'translocate' themselves and objects through the power of "The Will and the Word".
• In Sheri S. Tepper's The True Game series of novels, teleportation is a psychic ability.
• In Robert A Heinlein's story Tunnel in the Sky teleportation gates are used to colonize various planets. The characters become stranded during a survival class on a remote planet when the gates cease to function.
• In the Dragon Ball media franchise, Son Goku learns how to teleport using a technique called Shunkan Idō (瞬間移動, lit. "Instant Movement"). The technique is capable of teleporting him from a few meters to interstellar distances and even across dimensions so long as he is able to sense the ki of a lifeform at the destination.
• The Neal Asher novel Gridlinked (and others of the Polity universe) makes frequent reference to teleporters known as "runcibles" which link much of human civilization. They can be used to transport objects or information, and for time travel (with serious implications). Despite their widespread usage they have not replaced faster-than-light space travel in the fictional universe.
• In the Harold Shea Stories by L. Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt, and others, the protagonists use teleportation to project themselves into other universes, and later to extract others. It is an inexact science, and they frequently miss their target.[11]
• Authors of the Golden Age of Science Fiction (1938–1946) used the concept of teleportation extensively. Arthur C. Clarke's "Travel by Wire!" (first published in Amateur Science Stories, December 1937), A. E. van Vogt's The World of Null-A (Astounding Science Fiction, August 1945), Isaac Asimov's "It's Such a Beautiful Day" (Star Science Fiction Stories No. 3, 1954), George Langelaan's "The Fly" (Playboy, June 1957) and Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon (Gold Medal Books, 1960) feature teleportation.
• In the Keys to the Dimensions novel series by Kenneth Bulmer, a number of dimensions can be accessed by creating gates at thin places between the dimensions. A gate can be opened by various means, primarily by psychics called Porteurs.

Television

• In the Fireball XL5 TV series, the 1963 episode "The Forbidden Planet" portrayed aliens from Newtopia possessing teleportation technology. Characters would enter a cylinder enclosed in a clear glass-like material. After controls were set and the device activated, their images would fade. Those being teleported could converse during the journey, but apparently could not see each other. They would reappear at the desired location. The process appears quite similar to that in Star Trek, aired a few years later.
• Awareness of the teleportation concept was popularized by the Star Trek franchise, beginning with the 1966 television series. Called a transporter, it was devised as a work-around for the prohibitively expensive visual effects required to show a spaceship landing on a new planet each episode. The transporter effect was achieved by a simple fade-out of the subject with some glitter thrown in. Several stories revolve around transporter mishaps.
• Doctor Who featured a number of teleportation devices. The first occurrence is in a 1964 story, "The Keys of Marinus", which shows watch-like "travel dials" allowing instant transportation from one chosen location to another on the planet Marinus. An interplanetary form of teleportation called "molecular dissemination" is shown in the 1965 episode "Counter Plot". In stories featuring Earth or human colonies, this mode of travel is most frequently referred to as a "transmat" (T-mat), and is central to the plot of "The Seeds of Death" (1969), in which an adversary attempts to use the T-Mat network to distribute a biological weapon around the globe.
• I Dream of Jeannie (1965–1970) frequently used magical teleportation. Developing special photographic effects for the magic delayed the show's transition from black-and-white to colour by one year.
• In Andromeda teleportation via quantum entanglement is utilized several times, though it requires conditions such as being in the vicinity of a black hole.
• The 1970s BBC science television series Blake's 7 featured an alien 'teleporter' on the spaceship Liberator. It required the teleportee to wear a bracelet for transport to and from the spaceship.
• The series Charmed had many forms of magical teleportation, by various factions, each of which is equivalent but portrayed on screen by a different special effect.
• In Earth: Final Conflict, the alien Taelons bring teleportation technology to Earth in the form of interdimensional (ID) portals, which allow instant transportation between any two points on the planet. A similar technology allows the aliens' starships to travel faster than light. One episode also deals with the human development of a teleporter device which is used to assassinate a number of prominent Taelons by teleporting mini-bombs inside their bodies.
• In the Fringe episode "White Tulip", a space-time teleportation device is developed and used for a jailbreak.
• In the animated series Gargoyles, a magical device called the "Phoenix Gate" is used for time travel across the Earth to various locales.
• In the superhero drama Heroes, several characters can teleport and some can also travel in time.
• In the animated series Lilo & Stitch: The Series, 'molecular teleportation' is used to teleport objects under a glass shroud.
• In the drama Lost, some characters are teleported which also involves an element of time travel.
• From Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers to Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, the Power Rangers were capable of teleportation. A similar concept appeared in an episode of Power Rangers Ninja Storm. In Power Rangers Mystic Force, the Rangers could teleport through the trees. Also, in Power Rangers RPM, Ranger Green's special ability is teleportation.
• In the anime Mobile Suit Gundam 00, one of the mecha develops the ability to "quantum teleport" to evade danger. This is evolved in the sequel film Gundam 00 The Movie: A Wakening of the Trailblazer to interstellar teleportation.
• In the machinima webseries Red vs. Blue, which takes place in the Halo universe, teleporters are used with a running gag of one character always being covered in soot.
• In the Stargate SG-1 universe stargates form an intergalactic teleportation network which can create artificial wormholes between two devices. Another prominent teleportation technology uses ring platforms which swap contents. An alien race called the Aschen is also shown to have developed teleportation platforms that act as public transportation hubs, and the Asgard have a method of teleportation which requires only a single device.
• In the Tenchi Muyo anime franchise, the alien variants of the character Ryoko have the ability to teleport short distances, fading in and out of sight with a distinct metallic noise.
• In the 1970s series The Tomorrow People and its Nickelodean remake, a group of teenagers have the ability of psychic teleportation.
• The Transformers introduced a character named Skywarp who was capable of teleporting from place to place.[12] Transformers also utilize a device called a "Space Bridge" to travel, usually from Cybertron to a planet in another solar system. Some Transformers like the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen iteration of Jetfire carry onboard Space Bridges.
• In the Twilight Zone episode "Valley of the Shadow", the main character is teleported and told not to reveal the secrets of teleportation by the inhabitants, who feel that the invention will be misused and destroy humanity.
• In Wizards of Waverly Place, all of the wizards can magically teleport by the same technique.
• In the X-Men franchise cartoons, the character Nightcrawler exhibits the ability to teleport himself and other objects he touches.
• In the series Impulse, the protagonist and several other characters have the ability to teleport.
• In the Mystery Science Theater 3000 season six episode showing Last of the Wild Horses, the plot of the host segments dealt with the invention of a matter transference device, that brings characters to a parallel but opposite universe in a parody of the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror".
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, some of the characters can magically teleport themselves, others and nonliving objects.

Films

• A short-distance teleportation device (used instead of elevators) appeared in the 1939 serial film Buck Rogers.
• A teleportation device appeared in the 1950 serial film Atom Man vs. Superman.
• Teleportation booths called "evaporators" feature in the 1953 Merrie Melodies cartoon parody Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century.
• The 1957 film Not Of This Earth features an alien teleportation mechanism.
• In the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, based on the children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, the character Mike Teavee is teleported through the airwaves above the heads of the other characters, before reappearing in a device resembling a TV screen on the other side of the room. Moments before, the teleportation device was demonstrated by teleporting a giant bar of chocolate through the air and onto the screen, re-materialising as a regular-sized bar, having shrunk considerably. Mike also re-materialises at a fraction of his original size.
• The 1976 film Logan’s Run features a teleportation network called "the circuit", which is used to bring people together for casual sex.[13]
• In the 1988 film They Live, aliens secretly living on Earth use teleportation as their chief mode of transport, activated by a wristwatch device for local travel or a platform for interstellar travel.
• In the 1999 parody film Galaxy Quest, teleportation is used. There is also a teleportation mishap.
• In the X-Men film franchise, some characters can teleport.
• In the 2005 Doom film, based on the video game series, an imperfect teleportation machine is used to move between Earth and Mars, with some mishaps.
• In the 2009 film Jumper, based on the Steven Gould novel, some characters have the ability to teleport by creating temporary wormholes.

Video games

Teleportation is common in video games, often used as a transition when a character enters or exits a level or chapter. It is typically explained as technological in science fiction settings and magical in fantasy settings.

Fast travel is a common game mechanic in open world games which allows a character to revisit certain previously discovered locations. It is often framed as teleportation, though in some games physical travel between locations is implied but not shown.

Games which include a teleportation mechanic will often employ it for several playable characters and adversaries, typically with different restrictions and effects. If teleporting to a location occupied by another character, that character will often receive damage or be instantly killed, referred to as a "telefrag".

Teleportation and teleportation experiments may be story elements in games. They provide the premise for the enemy's appearance in Doom and Outbreak.

• In the real-time strategy game Achron, players build teleporters to move units anywhere within a certain radius of the machine.
• Within the Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) Anarchy Online, characters can teleport instantly between specific locations.
• In the role-playing video game Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, magical characters may learn a teleportation spell which enables instant travel to areas the character has visited before, including areas otherwise inaccessible after certain plot events.
• Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth features mystical transdimensional gates.
• The video game franchise Call of Duty has teleporters in some instalments.
• City of Heroes and its sister game City of Villains allow player characters to learn teleportation powers which can affect foes, allies, and groups. The game setting also includes a teleport grid; teams of players can construct a teleport pad in their base.
• In the video game Diablo II, there is a teleportation skill usable by player characters and certain enemies.
• In the Doom series, experiments with teleportation technology provide the means for antagonist demons to invade. Teleportation devices are also used to transport the protagonist between positions on various maps.
• In the first two games of the EarthBound series, the main characters can psionically teleport to previously visited locations. The action appears to involve running at accelerating speeds with an accompanying whirring sound before the actual teleportation takes place.
• In Fable, the hero can teleport from any location to a preset teleportation pad.
• In Final Fantasy XIV, players have access to two teleportation spells. The first allows players to move from one major town hub to the next or to specific locations within a town. The second allows players to return to a specified hub or to the start of a dungeon.
• In the science-fiction online role-playing game Global Agenda, players can travel between set locations via teleporters. Some allow one-way travel to settlements. Another can be deployed as a receiver, allowing respawning characters to quickly move from their base to the field; it is targetable and can be destroyed by enemy agents to eliminate this advantage.
• In the online role-playing game Guild Wars, there are short-range teleporters in part of the game setting, as well as a fast-travel mechanic called "maptravel".
• In the computer game Half-Life, invading aliens teleport to Earth. In the sequel, Half-Life 2, teleportation devices are used to move characters to different locations, involving quantum entanglement or superposition.
• In the Halo series, teleporters appear as glowing columns of green or orange, which transport any character walking into them. The teleportation system is used for fast travel.
• In the crossover game Heroes of the Storm, the Hearthstone allows heroes to teleport to their Hall of Storms from anywhere on the battlefield.
• In Kingdom Hearts, members of Organization XIII can teleport using the Corridors of Darkness.
• In the Kirby series, many bosses have the ability to teleport.
• In the Legend of Zelda series, several forms of teleportation appear. In the first game, playing the Recorder could summon a whirlwind to take the protagonist to any previous dungeon. In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the protagonist acquires a magical spell that allows him to teleport to earlier set locations inside dungeons and magical songs that allow him to teleport to set locations in the overworld. Other games in the series have similar forms of teleportation.
• The Marathon series features teleportation technology for local travel between levels and faster-than-light travel.
• Super Mario features pipes linking to treasure rooms within a level. They are portals insofar as no travel through a pipe system is shown, providing near instantaneous translocation. Pipe endings are featured throughout every level, but only a few of them are usable (without indicator). Being a 'jump and run' game, a pipe can be used simply by moving in direction of flow when standing on its opening.
• In the Mega Man series and its spinoffs, many robots have built-in teleportation devices, and booth-style teleporters also exist. The phenomenon is depicted as a streak of colored light, with the player character typically teleported into each level and out of the area once the level is completed.
• The first Metroid Prime features the Chozo Temple, which near the end of the game becomes the site of a glowing teleportation portal to the Impact Crater. In Prime 2: Echoes, teleportation allows access to secret areas. In the conclusion of the trilogy, Corruption, there is a single teleporter for the player character, while certain enemies can teleport and wormholes can be used to teleport multiple beings, objects and spaceships.
• Outbreak. The origin of the original outbreak in this massively multiplayer online game is a teleportation experiment gone awry.
• In Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm, a character named Tracer has an ability called "blink" which allows teleportation from her team's spawn room to her current location.
• In the Pokémon series, stepping on warp tiles will teleport the player to another warp tile, or in some cases, a regular tile. Also, in Pokémon Platinum, the player teleports into Giratina's world willingly. Some Pokémon are able to learn the move "Teleport", which allows them to escape from a battle or sends the player to the last Pokémon Center visited.
• Teleportation is central to the puzzle-platform game Portal, used by the character to maneuver, overcome obstacles, and manipulate objects. The player sets two oval portals on flat surfaces in line-of-sight; these are linked and continuously and instantaneously teleport matter and energy. Momentum is conserved, so that falling into one portal would eject the character from the other portal. The portals can also be used to look out from an otherwise unreachable perspective, and the portals can be arranged for infinite hallways and bottomless fall loops. The game is based on Narbacular Drop.
• Prey features portals as core gameplay element. Initially in fixed locations, which are often hidden, two-way portals can be used for transportation and will also transmit weapons fire. Some portals will additionally change the size of characters to fit the environment, in one instance fitting a room inside a shoebox.
• In Quake 1 teleportation is used to bridge between levels. The teleporters resemble a door frame and are filled with a surface of wobbling stars. They are called 'Slipgates'. In Quake III Arena teleporters are used casually as shortcuts and gameplay element. The target of a teleporter being a specific and marked place elsewhere in the map. In the occurrence of a player standing on this very spot when another player uses the teleporter, the player occupying the 'landing zone' explodes into parts when the unwilling aggressor emerges. Indeed, it is through this mechanic that the player defeats the final boss of the first Quake. Additionally a player also has to be careful when using a teleporter, since the target zone can be ridden with anticipatory projectiles. In Quake 4 the teleporter mechanic can also be used to transport projectiles, allowing for greater attack and defense options.
• Ratchet & Clank features teleportation throughout the series.
• In Red Alert 2, the Chronosphere is a mass-teleportation superweapon that can be constructed by the Allies, which can teleport up to nine vehicles between any two points on the map. It can place enemy ground vehicles in the ocean and enemy naval units on land, destroying them. Later in the series, vehicles gain the ability to teleport.
• Within the MMOG RuneScape, players may use teleportation spells or enchanted items to magically teleport to various cities and locations. There are also a number of quest-related items that allow teleports to special areas.
• In Rogue Galaxy, teleport platforms are a common technology scattered about the solar system, though they only allow planetary (not interplanetary) travel.
• Within the MMOG Second Life, all avatars (residents) have the ability to teleport (TP). Originally, residents could only teleport between telehubs, which were located within a cluster of regions (referred to as "sims"), and then walk, drive or fly the remaining distance to their destination. This was later replaced with point-to-point teleportation, which had an economic effect on virtual real estate surrounding the telehubs as residents no longer had to pass through, around or over shops and buildings placed next to a telehub.
• In SimEarth, once a civilization reaches the Nanotech Age, it uses transporters to spawn new cities.
• In The Sims 2: Apartment Life, witches can be teleported from one location on the screen to another. The same occurs with Repo men and NPC's who are locked out of their houses.
• In the Sonic the Hedgehog series, a handful of characters can teleport. There are also teleporters called "switch balls" which allow a one-way teleport.
• In Starcraft, the Protoss teleport all equipment and field bases from factories on their homeworld. Terrans also have an experimental teleporter, which they use to supply inaccessible military stations. In Starcraft 2, an upgrade allows the Protoss to teleport their soldiers anywhere on their power grid and their Stalker mechs can "blink" to escape untenable situations.
• In Street Fighter, the Indian character Dhalsim utilizes teleportation as a special move called "Yoga Teleport" to evade attacks from opponents.
• Tabula Rasa features waypoint pads which operate as teleportation booths between any two previously explored waypoints within one zone, and wormhole portals which send characters from one planet to another instantly. Dropships used to move between zones employ a teleport system to load and carry passengers and cargo. Also used are portable wormhole generators which allow a player to access the waypoint pad system from remote areas.
• In Team Fortress 2, engineers can build a one-way teleporter for their teams to travel quickly and safely to the frontlines. It can be upgraded through three levels, with each upgrade decreasing the cooldown. A two-way teleporter can be purchased for certain matches.
• In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, magical teleportation is available between the two Mages' Guilds. There are also a number of teleport spells which can teleport the character to specific places. In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion a plugin gives players access to a larger network of teleporter pads.
• Most instalments of the Ultima series feature a system of teleportation portals called moongates, which become active and change destinations intermittently. There are also spells and items for various teleportation effects. The moongates of Ultima Online are always active to all locations, operating as a fast-travel mechanic.
• In Unreal Tournament and its sequels, teleports allow the players to traverse the map. Some game types have an option for a "translocator", a device held like a weapon which can launch a small disc to which the player can teleport. This can be used to traverse the map quickly, bypass obstacles, or telefrag opponents.
• Within the MMORPG World of Warcraft, characters can use an object called a "Hearthstone" to teleport the character to a previously visited inn which was set as the destination while there. Users with the engineering profession can also create trinkets to teleport to the certain regions. Various "mishaps" can happen, including temporary gender or race change, arriving dead, or becoming stranded on a floating rock high above Area 52 (Netherstorm). Various classes have specific teleport abilities. Druids have an ability to teleport to Moonglade. Mages can teleport themselves or their parties to capital cities. Warlocks can summon others to their location, as can meeting stones. Rogues have a short-range teleportation ability to appear behind an enemy.
• In EVE Online, stargates allow players to travel from one system to another, and jump drives allow capital ships or black ops to jump to other systems.

Comics

• The Dan Dare adventures in the Eagle used a "telesender", originally invented by the Treens. A running joke was that Dan Dare's assistant Digby always arrived upside down. Its first appearance was in Voyage to Venus, published in 1950.[14]
• DC Comics also has many teleporters, including Zatanna, Misfit, Darkseid, Ambush Bug, Angle Man, Manitou Raven, Bolt, Chronos, Dr. Fate, La Encantadora, Gog, and Hourman. There is also a way for non-teleporters to travel called the Boom Tube. Additionally, the Justice League of America's lunar Watchtower contained banks of teleportation tubes based on Martian technology.
• Published by Gold Key Comics, the mid-1960s science fiction war comic M.A.R.S. Patrol Total War featured an unknown invader who used teleportation to attack various spots on the Earth.
• The Marvel comic books feature many mutants and other characters with teleportation powers, such as Azazel, Nightcrawler, Magik, Locus, Lila Cheney, Amanda Sefton, Madelyne Pryor, Blink, The Wink, Paragon, Silver Samurai, and Eden Fesi. The character Spot can open holes he can teleport himself or even parts of himself through.[15]
• Several different forms of spacetime jutsu (technique) appear in the Naruto Shippuden manga. Those include teleporting one's self, teleporting objects or humans, and adjusting time to teleport. Those techniques have names such as Kamui for teleporting objects/humans, Summoning when teleporting an animal to one's location, and Flying Thunder God when teleporting one self to where a teleporting seal is located (mainly used by the "Yellow Flash").
• In the manga and anime series Dragon Ball, the main protagonist learns how to teleport across the universe, called "instant transmission" (瞬間移動, Shunkan Idō, lit. instant movement). The upper gods called Kais are capable of performing an upgraded form of instant transmission. Moreover, many antagonists like Cell and Majin Buu learned to do it as well.

See also

• Portable hole

References

1. Matter Transmission in John Clute and, Peter Nichols (ed), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Orbit, 1999 ISBN 1 85723 897 4
2. "Sri Sadasiva Brahmendral Biography". Archived from the original on 2015-07-25.
3. "Autobiography of a Yogi by Parahamsa Yogananda". Archived from the original on 2012-06-23. Retrieved 20 June 2011.
4. Denney, Reuel (July 1953). "Reactors of the Imagination". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc. 9 (6): 206ff. ISSN 0096-3402. Retrieved 2011-08-20. In The Tempest, Shakespeare toyed with teleportation and sleep-teaching [...]
5. Macknik, Stephen L. "Penn & Teller's Cups-and-Balls Magic Trick". Scientific American Blog Network. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
6. "History of Magic". This French site, Magiczoom, has now closed its doors. Archived from the original on 2006-05-15.
7. Steinmeyer, Jim (2003). Hiding the Elephant. Da Capo Press.
8. Kaku, Michio (2008), "Teleportation and Science Fiction", Physics of the impossible: a scientific exploration into the world of phasers, force fields, teleportation, and time travel, Random House Digital, Inc., p. 54–55, ISBN 0-385-52069-7
9. Donald A. Wollheim (ed.), Wollheim's World's Best SF Series Three, Daw Books, 1974
10. Darling, David J. (2005). Teleportation: the impossible leap. John Wiley and Sons. p. 8. ISBN 0-471-47095-3.
11. L. Sprague de Camp; Fletcher Pratt (1979). Wall of Serpents. Dell. p. 173. ISBN 0-440-19639-6.
12. Mark Bellomo (2007). Transformers: Identification and Price Guide. p. 32. ...Skywarp was famous for his ability to teleport at will across great distances...
13. Virtel, Louis (2011-08-17). "Bad Movies We Love: Logan's Run". Movieline. Retrieved 2014-03-19.
14. Tatarsky, Daniel. Dan Dare: the biography. Orion Books. pp. 173–174. ISBN 978-0-7528-8896-5.
15. Clark, Brian (2010-10-14). "5 Villains That Would Be Cooler Than the Lizard in the Spider-Man Reboot". Movieline. Retrieved 2014-03-19.