A failure of the Hester Project's prototype transporter.
The Hester Project was a 22nd century Federation research initiative that attempted to invent transporter technology.
History and specifics[]
The project was directed by research scientist Janet Hester at the Deneva Research Station on Deneva. (TOS reference: Spaceflight Chronology, TOS comic: "Experiment in Vengeance!")
On reference stardate 1/35, Deneva Research Team 4 successfully transported a single celled lifeform 2.5 meters. The team attributed results to advances in transtator technology, but they had yet to succeed with anything more complex than protozoa. Hester petitioned the Deneva Science Review Board to expand the scope of the project so that more complex organisms could be tested. (TOS reference: Spaceflight Chronology)
The Federation Council refused to allow further experimentation and shut down the project. Hester and her team disappeared while en route to Starbase 14 for reassignment, and landed on the planetoid Mycena, where they secretly established a Mycena outpost and continued their work for the next 53 years. Unfortunately, their experimental transporter failed to rematerialize Human test subjects, their atoms being scattered throughout the Theta Eridani system. The 89-year-old Hester was picked up alone by the USS Endeavor. However, non-corporeal test subjects had managed to retain some consciousness, merging into a collective consciousness called the Unity. The Endeavor disappeared shortly thereafter.
In 2273, Spock reviewed Mycena's record tapes of the failed project. The Unity finally found peace when it located Hester's body in the crashed Endeavor shuttlecraft Kepler. (TOS comic: "Experiment in Vengeance!")
- "Experiment in Vengeance!" used SFC dates that equated to the project being canceled in 2198 and Endeavor disappearing in 2251, 22 years prior to the arrival of the Enterprise in 2273. Those dates were canonically invalidated by ENT episode: "Daedalus", which established that Emory Erickson developed a working transporter in 2139.