Teleportation rules?

dreamsofnever · Mar 5, 2008

So I currently have a character who has the ability of teleportation. He's not a main character, but he definitely has a pretty big part in the story. Anyways, I'm a stickler for creating abilities that feel plausible. Or, as plausible as "special powers" can feel.

So I like to create rules. Teleportation is something I'm really enjoying having, but I'm not sure if I'm making him too powerful. (though given its his only ability, he's definitely got weaknesses then.)

Right now I have that he can teleport anywhere, as long as he pictures the destination in his mind. He doesn't need to have been there. He can also bring up to two people at a time. It hurts a bit, and definitely hurts the tag-alongs. (they sort of feel like they're being crushed and then expanded)

And if he goes long distances (i.e. US to Africa), it wears him out more.

So... what types of teleporting characters have you seen? and what bugs you/feels too powerful?

Ervin · Mar 5, 2008

One thing that always annoyed me in Harry Potter, was the way people could have so easily apparated (AKA teleported) anywhere during a fight, basically kicked the other person's ass if he/she didn't do the same. But nobody has thought of that. You need to consider how often, how quickly, and how far he can do it.

The Firefox spell checker doesn't have teleport for some reason...

small axe · Mar 5, 2008

I think someone really has to put some interesting limits or twists into Teleportation, or it just sounds TOO much.

How about if every time your character teleports, there is some obvious damage done to him/her? Sometimes it's physical, sometimes it's like a mini-stroke that erases some of his knowledge or memory? It's a great POWER but at a terrible PRICE.

Another angle might be: whether he seems to teleport "instantaneously" to an outside observer, for him it's some terrible lengthy ordeal (which you describe or don't, according to your needs)?

There's some SCI-FI story about that (I can't recall the title ... ever since I jumped out of that Saudi prince's Harem) where people who make objective jumps thru hyperspace go thru terrible subjective eternities.

Anyway, just two ideas.

dreamsofnever · Mar 5, 2008

Excellent point, Ervin. As I'm writing this, I'm careful to give him a reason to stay in a dangerous situation. But I find that it annoyed my own inner fact checker when one of his friends was in trouble. I had to figure out a way for him to not be able to get her out of there.

And small_axe, I like those ideas! I think any of those could add dimension to the story which is awesome. Now I need to ponder on that!

Hummingbird · Mar 5, 2008

One of Small_axe's reminds me of 'Butterfly Effect' movie. Everytime he changed something in the past, he'd get a bloody nose because of his brain taking in too much data at once and his body was in worse shape each time. It was cool. Lol. I love that movie.

Anyway, I think that Small_axe's ideas would be cool in teleporting.
Being physically damaged or drained of energy, like really tired to the point of passing out if it's done too much, is cool!

You could also try something like, when he teleports it weakens the balance of some energy or the like around the spot he teleported from. That way if he does it too much the world may look like swiss cheese. ^_~

Colin McHale · Mar 5, 2008

Ah, yes. This is always an interesting issue. Here's some ideas I've come up with for my own story.

Teleportation is divided into two categories: physical and portal.

Physical teleportation is the kind we all know. A magic user pictures a place in his or her mind and teleports to that spot.

Portal teleportation is the act of traveling to a location through "wormhole" generated by a beginning and end-portal.

Both forms of teleportation have pros and cons.

Physical
Pros

Depending on skill, a magic user can cast a physical teleport almost instantaneously.

Travel time through a physical teleport is faster.

Much harder to “trace” someone who has teleported physically.

Impossible to stop someone in the midst of physical teleportation.

[FONT=&quot]Cannot detect where or when someone will physically teleport.[/FONT]

Cons

In general: the longer the distance of the teleportation, the greater the strain on the magic user. An inexperienced user can be weakened even by short jumps; long jumps can result in a coma. An experienced user can be weakened for days or weeks by a long jump.

Magic user must have a clear picture of his/her destination before a physical teleport. You cannot teleport to a place you’ve never seen.

Physical teleportation is confined only to individuals; you cannot bring someone with you (unless they also know how to physically teleport).

If stealth is your aim, physical teleportation is out of the question; the user’s sudden appearance in a new location causes a burst of magic, resulting in a sound not unlike that of a sonic boom.

[FONT=&quot]No matter how experienced the user, arrival at a new location will cause him or her several seconds disorientation and possible loss of balance. This might negate the advantage of surprise/fear granted by the sudden blast of the sonic boom upon entry.[/FONT]

Portals
Pros

Though the initial concepts can be difficult, the concepts of portal teleportation are easier to learn than physical teleportation.

No limit on distance.

Traveling through a portal does not weaken the user (unless they’ve never had exposure of magic). The only possible side-effect is drowsiness.

Arrival at the end-point portal does not cause a sonic boom.

A portal, depending on its size and complexity, can simultaneously teleport anywhere from 1 to 20 people. Larger creatures need larger portals.

As long as a portal exists (and it has no magical access code) anyone can use it.

[FONT=&quot]Portal openings can be masked by illusion spells.[/FONT]

Cons

Travel through portals is slower than physical teleportation. The longer the distance, the longer the travel-time is.

Though portals are (kind of) easy to learn in concept, creating them is quite challenging, and they take time to set up.

A hastily made portal can have disastrous consequences such as: dropping someone in mid-port (who knows where they wind up), porting someone in a loop, bringing them back to the beginning portal without dropping them off at the end, or simply porting someone to the wrong place. Also, an improper portal can sometimes open rifts that teleport other things to you, like demons, which you probably don’t want to meet.

A powerful magic user can detect and physically “rip” someone out of a portal who is in the midst of traveling through it.

[FONT=&quot]Unless under an illusion spell, portals are easy to spot. They are also easy to detect magically (the more powerful a portal gets, the easier it becomes to detect).[/FONT]

A magic user of enough skill can collapse a portal before or while it is being used.

Prolonged exposure to portal openings/endings is not pleasant. Over time they can cause headaches and nausea.

[FONT=&quot]Powerful portals can create a state of weightlessness on the ending side. The greater the strength of the portal, the wider this effect will be.[/FONT]

I'll probably add to this list over time, but you get the idea. Teleportation is powerful, but can have nasty consequences.

Mr Flibble · Mar 6, 2008

small axe said:
There's some SCI-FI story about that (I can't recall the title ... ever since I jumped out of that Saudi prince's Harem) where people who make objective jumps thru hyperspace go thru terrible subjective eternities.

Wasn't that The Jaunt? Stephen King, In Skeleton Crew. To teleport you had to be drugged because although it was instant for your body, it was thousands of years for your brain and you went mad. So some kid decides not to take the drug, and turns up after teleporting, madder than a bucket of frogs.

'Longer than you think Dad!'

And Colin has just described my teleport / portal system down to the last detail. Have you been peeking? And the cons make for great fun when I really need to screw with my characters.

Teleporting works, but it has to cost.

Paichka · Mar 6, 2008

IdiotsRUs said:
Wasn't that The Jaunt?

'Longer than you think Dad!'

*shudder*

That SS f-ed with my brain hardcore. It's one of those that stuck with me long after I put the book down. I can see the kid tearing his eyes out, scream/laughing "long jaunt, dad! long jaunt!"

*shudder*

carry on.

yappo · Mar 6, 2008

If there is one, there should be more of them. As long as you can locate the teleporter you can jump after him/her.

Make use of them, and make demands. Costs don't have to be attached to the act of magic in itself. Finally a solution to the postage problems. He/she has to work half of each year as a postman. The rest is mostly as a military resource, where he/she teleports INTO danger rather than out of it.

If you screw up the spell during duress no-one knows where you end up. In the middle of a mountain for example. Heard that's bad for your health. Also heard not all students graduate...

Think hot-landings with helicopter crews.

Sten

Tom Johnson · Mar 6, 2008

Many of the early sf writers experimented with teleportation, from P.K. Dick to A.E. Van Vogt. Van Vogt's Null-A novels were some of the best: "Worlds of Null-A", "Pawns of Null-A", and "Null-A Three". "Pawns of Null-A" was one of the first sf novels I ever read, and I was hooked at age 12! I later crerated my own character in the "likeness" of Van Vogt's main character, in "The Tomorrow Man", who has the ability to teleport great distances. Short distances are no problem, but long distances can create a number of problems for him. He may complete his "jump" and suffer from temporary amnesia, and always naked.

hammerklavier · Mar 6, 2008

It would be really cool if he had to have been there, or if not, then had to be holding some object (or person) who had been there.

Plot Device · Mar 6, 2008

I have a race of fantasy creatures who have two abilities that LOOK like they are identical or that they somehow overlap, but they're really not:

1) They can walk through solid objects (like walls, etc) at will,
and
2) Can teleport. And when they teleport, they can pick up another person etc and take him/her/it with them.

HOWEVER ...

They can't COMBINE the two powers. What I mean is that if one of my fanatsy creatures wanted to teleport from the Brooklyne Bridge to the outside of the Sphynx, he could do that in a seoncd. BUT .... if he wanted to teleport from the Brooklyn Bridge to the INSIDE of the Sphynx, he would need to complete one act of teleportation to a spot somewhere on the ground outside the Sphynx, and then engage in an act of walking through the outer wall. So he can't teleport through solid objects.

And here's the REAL twist: he can only walk HIMSELF through the solid wall, but not anybody else. If he tried to take someone else with him through the wall, they'd just bounce off the outside (and maybe get hurt in the process). And depending on how fast he's going through that wall, that other person might get reduced to nothing but a huge splat of blood on the bricks.

Colin McHale · Mar 6, 2008

IdiotsRUs said:
And Colin has just described my teleport / portal system down to the last detail. Have you been peeking? And the cons make for great fun when I really need to screw with my characters.

Teleporting works, but it has to cost.

Haha, see? No matter how different you think your ideas are, somebody else will always have thought of them!

Do you have rifts in your story too? I wasn't entirely honest when I said there were only two types of teleportation.

Rifts are basically a combo of physical teleportation and portals.

Rifts
Pros

Depending on skill, a magic user can cast a series of rifts nearly as fast as he or she could cast a physical teleport.

Travel time is nearly as fast as normal physical teleportation.

Although someone could be stopped in the midst of casting a rift or traveling through it, both tend to go so fast, it would be very difficult to do so.

A magic user can cast rifts and bring others along. But he/she must be physically holding or touching the person(s) or creature(s) he/she wants to take with.

Rifts, essentially miniature portals, do not cause sonic booms when people travel through to the other end.

Rifts do not require the magic user to have a clear picture of where he/she is going; instead the user must determine the direction and distance he/she wants to teleport. However, if you’re not aware of your surroundings, you could wind up opening a rift over a 500-foot drop, for instance.

Cons:

Rifts are harder to learn than either portals or physical teleportation. Not many have the skill to use rifts.

Rifts technically have no limit on distance, but the physical strain on the magic user increases so quickly, long distance rifts are impractical. Unless the magic user enjoys being unconscious for months. For all intents and purposes, rifts are only viable over short distances, and even then they are physically draining.

The more people a magic user brings through a rift, the greater the effort it takes.

Rifts can produce a significant magical “signature”; it’s relatively easy to track where someone teleported to through a rift (although the “signature” vanishes the instant the rift closes, which happens soon after people have traveled through it).

Since rifts are opened and closed with haste, they cannot be masked with illusion spells.

Like physical teleportation, arrival at the end of a rift will cause several seconds of disorientation.

Rifts have been known to strip people of clothing and items.

[FONT=&quot]Rifts are still considered experimental magic; not all side effects are known. Frequent use of rifts is strongly cautioned against.[/FONT]

Plot Device · Mar 6, 2008

BTW--I am convinced I have the Sphynx on the brain here today simply because of the recent movie Jumper which is still out in theatres, if anyone is interested. It's not a bad film. It has its problems, for sure, but it's an interesting concept.

If anything Jumper is a mid-grade comic book concept with shades of The Highlander and The Fugitive in it. It has potential to become a TV series just like Highlander did, and if it does, they will then be afforded the opportunity to refine the details of their world (much the way Highlander refined the details of their own world). I think their world DEFINITELY needs some refining, but the potential for three or more years of good story fodder is very rich.

Sassee · Mar 6, 2008

Here's some of the rules I've picked up from other sources -

X-Men (movie):
Nitecrawler could only teleport to places he had already seen. Doing anything else meant he risked materializing in the middle of a wall or desk or <insert other object here>. Not good for the body, as you can imagine.

Heroes:
Hiro *sort of* teleported. In all actuality he froze time and walked to where he wanted to go, then unfroze time again, so it just *looked* like he teleported. The only actual teleporting he did in the sense you mean is a jump through time, but he couldn't control that for a long while and still can't always control it (where the series stands now, anyway).

I like the rule mentioned above where one cannot teleport through solid objects. That's a pretty good limit.

I also like the idea that there is a limit to how many times one can teleport without incuring some sort of bodily injury (a nose bleed, lack of energy, etc).

Whatever rules you decide to go with, just stay consistent, and make the limits believable.

bluejester12 · Mar 6, 2008

Sassee said:
Here's some of the rules I've picked up from other sources -

X-Men (movie):
Nitecrawler could only teleport to places he had already seen. Doing anything else meant he risked materializing in the middle of a wall or desk or <insert other object here>. Not good for the body, as you can imagine.

Actiually it was places he could see at the time. He'd look behind an enemy then teleport there. Plus he left the scent of brimstone behind whenever he teleported. Not much of a quality, but other characters utilized that fact to detect illusions and imposters.

The Harry Potter Apparating did have it's drawbacks. It could make one feel sick and there was the danger of splinching (ie, body parts materializing separating)

NicoleMD · Mar 6, 2008

Maybe have a recharge period of say six hours, during which time addtional teleportation would be extremely dangerous to the body, or it'll dump him somewhere unpredictable. That might keep him in the face of danger without the reader wondering why he won't just jump away.

Nicole

Smiling Ted · Mar 6, 2008

Let's not reinvent the wheel.

The classic teleport story is Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination. He creates an entire society shaped by personal teleportation (which, by the way, he calls jaunting, some decades before Stevie King does his thing) and teleportation isn't even the crux of the story.

Larry Niven included an essay on teleportation in his collection The Shape of Space.

You might want to check out both of those. Or Steve Gould's Jumper, for that matter.

Sage · Mar 6, 2008

Restrictions I've used on teleporting (over the course of two different worlds with two separate sets of rules):

The person can only teleport somewhere they've been before.

The person can take someone along who hasn't been there or who can't teleport, but it becomes more difficult and can go wrong (wrong place, separation, etc.)

If a person is distracted during the teleport, they can end up somewhere else.

You can't teleport an unconscious person.

Person can only teleport between one plane and another, not from place to place on, say, Earth.

Sassee said:
Heroes:
Hiro *sort of* teleported. In all actuality he froze time and walked to where he wanted to go, then unfroze time again, so it just *looked* like he teleported. The only actual teleporting he did in the sense you mean is a jump through time, but he couldn't control that for a long while and still can't always control it (where the series stands now, anyway).

I don't think that's really what the series is saying he's doing all the time. He teleported from Japan to New York in the first ep, IIRC. He travels through space as well as time at many points in the show. And I don't think we've seen proof that times when we don't see him move are always a matter of him stopping time and walking away, although some certainly are.

dreamsofnever · Mar 6, 2008

Plot Device said:
BTW--I am convinced I have the Sphynx on the brain here today simply because of the recent movie Jumper which is still out in theatres, if anyone is interested. It's not a bad film. It has its problems, for sure, but it's an interesting concept.

Yeah, I liked Jumper, so I bought the book. And holy wow did they completely change almost everything for the movie!

Anyways, I just wanted to say thanks again to everyone for all the thoughtful responses to this thread. I love the creative input and now I have a few things to mull over as I decide the fate of my teleportation character's ability. Can you hear him cowering in fear?

Seriously though, thanks so much guys! I don't know why I didn't think of posting here sooner!

JimmyB27 · Mar 7, 2008

I never really understood why having seen a place before was important for teleporting. The distance/direction of your teleporting is going to change enormously depending on where you are now, plus places can change a lot if you've not been there in a while. And what if someone creates an exact replica of where you're aiming for with the aim of capturing you?
I would think that more important would be an immensely good sense of direction and spacial awareness to allow you to triangulate where you are now and how far, and in what direction you need to teleport. Or perhaps some kind of sixth sense that can detect obstacles at a distance.

ChaosTitan · Mar 7, 2008

JimmyB27 said:
I never really understood why having seen a place before was important for teleporting.

As others have said, it's a handy way of assigning a limitation to the power. I haven't seen Jumper yet, so I have no idea how or if their jumping ability is limited. But it's rarely any fun (for me, at least) to see a character use a power that has no side effects/limitations.

Nightcrawler is a great example. If he didn't need to know where he was going first, he could go anywhere and do anything. Same with the sulphurous smell he leaves behind. Good limitations.

I've fiddled with teleportation briefly in one book, and I hope to be able to use the ability again. It's a learned skill, rather than a given gift. It leaves the teleporter with horrible headaches, it hurts like hell if she's going through solid objects, and can be unpredictable in its use because accessing that ability requires emotional manipulation.

It wouldn't be nearly as fun if she could snap her fingers and save the day.

JimmyB27 · Mar 7, 2008

ChaosTitan said:
As others have said, it's a handy way of assigning a limitation to the power.

I understand that, I just don't think it's all that logical as a limitation.

Mr Flibble · Mar 7, 2008

Well if you haven't seen the place, how do you know you won't appear inside a wall or something?

If your teleporting mechanism means you have to visualise where you want to go ( and I can't think of any other way of steering it off the top of my head. Sat Nav?) then obviously you need an image to visialise. A photo is two dimensional, so won't really do when you are travelling 3 dimensionally ( you'll be part of the wall again)

For me it's not a arbitrary 'oh I must have a limitation' it's a logical nessecity for my version of teleporting.

JimmyB27 · Mar 7, 2008

IdiotsRUs said:
Well if you haven't seen the place, how do you know you won't appear inside a wall or something?

If your teleporting mechanism means you have to visualise where you want to go ( and I can't think of any other way of steering it off the top of my head. Sat Nav?) then obviously you need an image to visialise. A photo is two dimensional, so won't really do when you are travelling 3 dimensionally ( you'll be part of the wall again)

For me it's not a arbitrary 'oh I must have a limitation' it's a logical nessecity for my version of teleporting.

But visualising it still doesn't tell you where it is in relation to you - and that, to me, is the important bit. If you were dumped in the middle of a forest, you wouldn't be able to find your way home on foot just by picturing your house, why should teleporting be any different?

Teleportation rules?

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