Teleportation in fiction

This is a list of all notable works of fiction which include teleportation in any form.

Literary theory

Writers of fiction have long chafed against the traditional "Aristotelean" prescription of unity of place^[1] - the concept of teleportation allows them even more freedom to defy it.

Literary history

In literary terms, teleportation continues the tradition of fairy-tale technology of magically rapid transportation: the flying brass horse or seven-league boots.^[2]

Literary analysis

Within science fiction, teleportation forms a recognizable plot-device and theme. It may be defined as the traversing of a particle or an object from one point to other without actually travelling the space between them.^[3]

An early example of scientific teleportation, i.e., non-magical or spiritual, being in the 1897 novel To Venus in Five Seconds by Fred T. Jane, where the protagonist is transported from a strange-machinery containing gazebo on Earth, to the planet Venus - hence the title.

List of fiction containing teleportation

Examples of teleportation in notable works of fiction include the following:

A Certain Magical Index

In this light novel, 2.3 million students have esper ability, classified from level 0 to level 5: level 0 is no ability and level 5 is the most powerful and dangerous. One of the supporting characters, Shirai Kuroko, is a teleporter; she becomes the main character in the spin-off. Her power is instant teleportation, which allows her to teleport herself and/or anything she touches under a total weight of around 130-137 kilograms to anywhere within a radius of around 81–85 meters. She is classified as Level 4. Another character, Awaki Musujime, has an ability called Move Point. Her teleportation powers are more powerful than Kuroko's, as she can teleport anything weighing up to 4,500 kg without even touching it for a distance up to 800 meters. However, due to a past trauma where she miscalculated and teleported her leg inside a wall, accidentally tearing her leg skin and muscles out from the wall and almost dying, she has a fear of using her powers on herself and feels physically ill whenever she is forced to teleport herself. This fear prevents her from becoming a Level 5.

Aladdin

In the famous Aladdin story of The Arabian Nights, djinns are depicted as capable of instantaneously transporting themselves from China to Morocco and back, and of taking with them en route as much as a whole royal palace with its entire animate and inanimate contents. This is presented as part of a djinn's inborn magic powers.

Lady Po Nagar

The founding legend of the Kingdom of Champa (in present-day Vietnam) refers to Lady Po Nagar, originally a peasant girl who went to China, married a son of its Emperor and had two children with him. When her husband refused to let her go back to visit her family, she flung a magical piece of sandalwood into the ocean, and thereby disappeared with her children from China and reappeared at Nha Trang in Vietnam, whereupon she became the Queen of Champa.

Kefitzat Haderech

The concept of Kefitzat Haderech (Hebrew: קְפִיצַת הַדֶּרֶךְ, Modern Qəfiẓat haDéreḫ, Tiberian ), which literally means "contracting the path" and refers to a miraculous travel between two distant places, is recurring in Jewish culture from the Talmud up to the writings of Agnon.

Lung-gom-pa

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 attainable by adepts which confers the ability to move nearly instantaneously from point to point.

Der Ring des Nibelungen

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.

The Disintegration Machine

Arthur Conan Doyle's The Disintegration Machine (a 1927 Professor Challenger story) also revolves around the idea of teleportation.^[4]

The Engines of Dawn

In The Engines of Dawn teleportation works by a sort of portal that uses a technique called Fractal Compression, which unlinks molecular bonds, re-arranges them until they are satisfactorily close together, and transmits them through trans-space to another portal. The organism is rearranged to its previous size with a rush of euphoria.

"The Fly"

In the short story "The Fly" by George Langelaan (and the two films based on it: the 1958 film The Fly and its 1986 remake), a scientist successfully teleports himself over a short distance but discovers that he has been merged with an unseen housefly that entered the telepod with him. The process of dematerialization and reconstitution combined his molecular structure with that of the fly.

Golden age of science fiction

Later authors of science fiction used the concept of teleportation more extensively, making the concept a staple of the genre. 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' Rogue Moon (Gold Medal Books, 1960) feature teleportation.

Gridlinked

The Neal Asher novel Gridlinked (and almost all other novels set in the same universe) makes frequent reference to teleporters known as "Runcibles" which link much of human civilization together (runcible linked worlds form the "Polity", a semi-utopian AI-controlled civilization). These allow for instantaneous teleportation between any two points in the runcible grid. They can be used to transport objects or information, and can be used for time travel (although this normally has serious complications). Despite their widespread usage in this fictional universe, runcibles have not replaced faster-than-light space travel, which remains a common occurrence in the polity.

Harold Shea

Teleportation is a principle plot device in the Harold Shea stories by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt and later other others. The protagonists utilize teleportation to project themselves into the universes and worlds, but it is an inexact science, and they miss their target realities as often as they hit them. Teleportation is also used to extract others, and again there is uncertainty of who or what you would get.^[5]

Harry Potter

In the Harry Potter book series by J. K. Rowling, there are several methods of teleportation, all of them magical. Apparation and Disapparation allow the wizard to disappear in one location and appear in another location. If the wizard is not sufficiently skilled, he can splinch himself, meaning to leave part of himself behind. A skilled wizard can also take somebody with him while apparating. Because of the risk associated with apparation, a wizard must be of age and licensed in order to apparate; however, many wizards choose not to, as it is very dangerous. Unlicensed, untalented or unwilling wizards can use Floo powder, dust that is sprinkled over a fireplace enabling a connection to another fireplace, and Portkeys, enchanted objects that transport themselves and anyone holding them to a predetermined place at a predetermined time.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

In Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series teleportation has been described as "not quite as fun as a good solid kick to the head" on account of the fact that teleporting involves having your atoms ripped apart in one place and put back together somewhere else. In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, teleportation is generally frowned upon. One popular poem from the book goes "I teleported home one night with Ron and Sid and Meg, Ron stole Meggie's heart away, and I got Sidney's leg."

Hyperion

In the novel Hyperion by Dan Simmons, and its sequels, teleporters known as "Farcasters" play a significant role. These teleporters are essentially portals through which people and objects can be transported. Some farcasters only transmit between two points, whilst 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 farcaster), or houses where farcasters replace doors, allowing a single building to exist on many different planets at once. Whilst human civilization eventually comes to depend on farcasters for its survival, they permit the AI TechnoCore to parasitise on human brains as people move through the farcaster network. When this network is destroyed to prevent the TechnoCore from destroying humanity entirely, the Human Hegemony (the leading civilization at the time) collapses.

The Jaunt

In Stephen King's The Jaunt, teleportation is a routine form of transportation in the future, but sentient organisms must be asleep while undergoing the process to avoid nightmarish results. When 'Jaunting', a sentient organism's mind does not particulate when transmitted, unlike the physical matter of the organism's body. The mind therefore experiences the Jaunt, but while the particles that make up the organism travel instantaneously, to the conscious mind the trip seems to last forever. In an experiment, a convicted criminal, offered a full pardon on the condition he takes a Jaunt awake, emerges on the other side but instantly suffers a massive heart attack, uttering the cryptic phrase: "It's eternity in there..."; the story features a boy who avoided being knocked unconscious for the trip to see what it was like and was driven apparently hopelessly insane by the sheer loneliness of the experience.

Jumper

In Steven Gould's book Jumper, Davy teleports (and later his wife Millie, in Reflex) by warping Space/Time around himself, creating a wormhole or gate that lets him appear instantaneously anywhere on Earth. Davy uses his power to combat terrorists and avenge his mother's death at their hands. The government figures out that Davy has teleportation powers and attempts to coerce him into working for them on covert operations. In the sequel, Reflex, a criminal organization with hooks high up in the government, use operant conditioning to force Davy to use his teleportation powers for their ends. Finally, in a third book, Jumper: Griffin's Story (a novelization of the film Jumper), an organization knows about and hunts these people that can teleport freely, considering them an abomination. The people belonging to the organization are known as Paladins and people who teleport are known as Jumpers. Davy and another Jumper, known as Griffin, combat the Paladins in order to take them down and rescue Millie from them.

Known Space universe

In Larry Niven's Ringworld and in other novels from the Known Space universe, Earth's citizens travel instantaneously from point to point in glass "displacement" booths for a marginal fee. Destination is specified by dialling a destination number, much like we would dial a telephone today. Displacement actually occurs at light speed, but because any distance on earth is negligible at that speed, the trip is perceived as instantaneous.

The Man Without a Body

Perhaps the earliest story to depict human beings achieving the ability of teleportation in science fiction was printed in 1877: Edward Page Mitchell's 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 the man's head is transmitted.^[4]

The Prestige

In Christopher Priest's 1995 novel The Prestige and the 2006 mystery thriller film version The Prestige (film) a magician uses a teleporter built by Nikola Tesla in his act.

One Step from Earth

One particularly novel variety of teleportation can be seen in Harry Harrison's short-story collection One Step from Earth, nine stories all revolving around a variety of teleportation Harrison calls matter transmission (or "MT"). Rather than using the Star Trek metaphor of disassembling and reassembling something, MT works by taking two screens and aligning them to share the same part of another dimension (called "B-space"). "What goes in one comes out the other", as one character puts it. The stories explore the technical difficulties of the system—the screens can be separated by theoretically infinite space, but the quality of that space (such as the presence of gravitational fields) can affect transmission—as well as the social implications of having such a device. In one story, "Waiting Place", a one-way MT screen is used to dump criminals on an isolated planet where they will only be a danger to each other; in another, "Wife to the Lord", a man achieves godhood in the eyes of his people by using the planet's sole MT screen to work miracles.

The Singularity Project

F. M. Busby's 1993 book "The Singularity Project" uses quantum singularities (artificial black holes) to transpose two masses.

The Stars My Destination

The Stars My Destination, (also known as 'Tiger, Tiger'), by Alfred Bester, tells of a future time when psionic displacement/teleporting has become commonplace. This story is the origin of the term jaunt (spelled "jaunte" in the book, from the surname, "Jaunte", of the first person to do so) as a term for personal teleportation.^[6]

Think Like a Dinosaur

In James Patrick Kelly's 1996 Hugo Award winning story, Think Like a Dinosaur, a woman is teleported to an alien planet, but the original is not disintegrated because reception cannot be confirmed at the time. Reception is later confirmed, and the original, not surprisingly, declines to "balance the equation" by re-entering the scanning and disintegrating device. This creates an ethical quandary which is viewed quite differently by the cold-blooded aliens who provided the teleportation technology, and their warm-blooded human associates. This story was subsequently made into an episode of Showtime's acclaimed revival of The Outer Limits. Jack Chalker's Soul Rider series explores similar moral issues.

Timeline

In the 2003 Michael Crichton novel Timeline (novel), the characters are transported back through time by means of Quantum teleportation, which sends them to another universe where the present time is the past of their universe. Michael Crichton distanced himself from the 2003 movie Timeline (film) saying it departed too much from his novel, with teleportation in the film working based on the idea that the organisation discovered a wormhole reaching into the past.

Transit

Edmund Cooper's 1964 book about a group of people, teleported to a distant world to do battle with a similarly displaced group of aliens.

The Belgariad and The Mallorean

In David Eddings' Belgariad and Mallorean series, sorcerers are able to 'translocate' themselves and objects through the power of "The Will and the Word".

The True Game

In Sheri S. Tepper's series of books set in the world of The True Game, teleportation is one of the eleven psychic abilities which can be possessed by Gamesmen. Those Gamesmen with teleportation as their only talent are called Elators, and can 'port faster and farther than Gamesmen with teleportation plus other talents.

Tunnel in the Sky

In Robert A Heinlein's story gates, more or less a way to merge 2 places in the universe together through use of a piece of hardware, are being used to colonize various planets. Our hero is taking a class on survival. The final exam is to spend a period of time (2 weeks, a month) on one of the discovered planets. All of the students are gated to assorted places on the planet, close enough to each other to that they can help each other out. But a nearby supernova disrupts the calibration of the gates, and it takes more than a year for the network to be re-established. The students form a colony of sorts, learning about the flora and fauna of the planet and how to survive.

Dragon Ball

When Son Goku leaves the destruction of the planet Namek, he lands on a planet called Yardrat. There, the inhabitants teach him how to teleport using a technique labeled Shunkan Idō (瞬間移動, lit. "Instant Movement", renamed "Instant Transmission" in Funimation's dub). The technique is capable of teleporting him from a few meters to vast interstellar distances and even across dimensions (as evident by his ability to teleport to the series' version of Hell or Heaven) as long as he is able to sense the ki of a lifeform at the location he wishes to go to. Other characters such as Cell and Majin Boo replicate the technique from Goku, or possess different variations of it.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

In a show called My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, the character Twilight Sparkle can teleport herself using her unicorn/alicorn magic. This is accompanied by a flash of light and explosive sound or sound of magic, after which she disappears and reappears on other place. Other characters, such as Nightmare Moon and Discord, can also teleport. Both Twilight and Nightmare Moon can teleport other objects or beings besides themselves. The limits of such magic are not known, but in the season 2 episode "Dragon Quest", Twilight has trouble teleporting all her friends to safety. It's possible to assume that most of the powerful unicorns and alicorns can teleport, but this is not stated in the show.

Television

Blake's 7

The 1970s BBC science television series Blake's 7 featured a 'teleporter' on the spaceship Liberator. It required the teleportee to wear a bracelet for transport to and from the spaceship: misplacing a bracelet while away from Liberator was a plot device used from time to time in the series. Teleport Bracelets worked because they contained an alloy known as Aquatar. Teleportation was a known technology to the Federation (the oppressive interstellar regime in power), however it seldom worked and never worked on living matter. As such the Alien teleport technology of the liberator gave the rebel crew of the Liberator a technological advantage throughout the series. Likewise, the ship used in the final series, Scorpio had a teleport system using bracelets. Initially it was only semi-complete by the ship's original owner, and from time to time had 'teething' problems in early episodes of the season.

Charmed

The series Charmed showed many ways of magical teleportation, by both evil and good sides. Whitelighters and half whitelighters have the ability to "orb", while Elders have the ability to orb themselves and/or other people separately. Some demons and warlocks have the ability to "blink" or "shimmer", while higher level demons and The Source can teleport in and out with various techniques. There is no significant difference between the various teleportation methods, except for the type of special effect used to portray it on the screen.

Doctor Who

The longest BBC sci-fi television series, Doctor Who featured a number of teleportation devices over the years. 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". Transmat (or T-Mat) technology is central to the plot of "The Seeds of Death" (1969), in which Martian Ice Warriors attempt to use Earth's mid-21st century T-Mat network to distribute a biological weapon around the globe. Time Lords are said to have "transcended" transmat technology when (in their words) the "universe was half its present size".

Fringe

In the episode "White Tulip", MIT astrophysics professor Alistair Peck (Peter Weller) is experimenting on his own body to convert himself into a time machine to travel back in time to see his fiancée, who was killed in a car accident several months before. He travels back to a train; this causes the train, and the passengers to be drained of power. When Fringe Division fails to stop him, he starts the time loop again. The second time, Walter volunteers to try and stop him alone. During their meeting, Walter shares his belief that ever since he took Peter from the parallel world, God may be punishing him and is looking for forgiveness in the form of a white tulip. After Peck escapes, he is able to accomplish traveling back to his fiancée and reunites with her, before they both die in the car crash. The events of the episode never took place, but Walter is seen writing a letter to Peter about his origins, but later burns it upon finishing. In the end, he receives a letter from Peck, which contains a simple drawing of a white tulip, telling Walter to forgive himself.

Heroes

In the NBC drama Heroes, the characters Hiro Nakamura, Peter Petrelli and Arthur Petrelli have the "power to bend the spacetime continuum", which enables them to teleport and travel through time while Heroes Evolutions characters Tracy Chobham and Manuel Garcia can only teleport.

The Keys to the Dimensions Series of novels

Kenneth Bulmer wrote a series of novels about a number of dimensions that can be accessed by gates: "thin" places between the dimensions that can be pierced in a number of ways. Porteurs are psi-talented persons who can open the link. The Porvone Portal of Light and the Slikketer Window are two devices which can also open the link. In some of the novels, the character "The Contessa" is searching for or has developed an electronic device that can also open the links. The novels include:

   The Key to Irunium (1967)
   The Key to Venudine (1968)
   The Wizards of Senchuria (1969)
   The Ships of Durostorum (1970)
   The Hunters of Jundagai (1971)
   The Chariots of Ra (1972)
   The Diamond Contessa (1983)

Lilo & Stitch: The Series

As Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel is in a jail cell on a desert asteroid (his cell being secretly decked out with various lab equipment that he can hide from prison guards by voice command), his experiment bounty hunter, Gantu, must send any experiments he captures to him via "molecular teleportation." As seen in the series and the movie that started it, molecular teleportation consists of a large glass container lowering down over the object for transport. When the teleporter is charged, a swirling, yellow flash of light and smoke surrounds the object before it disappears in a flash. Another such flash of light and smoke appears in the destination teleporter where the object reappears. The glass enclosure on these teleporters are an absolute necessity as opening them will automatically cancel a teleport.

Lost

Teleportation occurs in the ABC drama Lost, in which it is closely linked to time travel. The character Benjamin Linus is teleported off the island after turning an ancient wooden wheel buried in a frozen chamber. He ends up in the Tunisian desert eight months in the future. The character of John Locke undergoes a similar experience when he pushes the aforementioned wheel back onto its axis. Also, the characters of Hugo "Hurley" Reyes, Jack Shephard, Kate Austen and Sayid Jarrah are teleported off Ajira Airways flight 316 in 2007, ending up back on the island in the year 1977.

Power Rangers

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.

Star Trek

Pop-culture awareness of the teleportation concept was influenced by the numerous Star Trek television and theatrical movie series (beginning in 1964 with the original TV series pilot episode, "The Cage") that was originally created by television writer-producer Gene Roddenberry, primarily as a work-around for the prohibitively expensive visual effects required to depict a star-ship landing on a new planet every week. The transporter effect was achieved by a simple fade-out of the subject with a few cents' worth of glitter thrown in, a much cheaper alternative.

The teleportation of Star Trek is likely the most widely-recognized fictional teleportation: the “transporter” device, which is used to teleport people and things from ship to ship or from ship to planet and the other way around in an instant. Persons or non-living items are placed on the transporter pad and are dismantled particle by particle by a beam, with their atoms being patterned in a computer buffer and converted into a beam that is directed toward the destination, then reassembled back into their original form (usually with no mistakes). Site-to-site transportation is also possible, where the subject does not need to be on a transporter pad at the source, or at the destination. However, there are a few accounts of groups of teleportees being fused together by a scrambled beam, transported to alternate universes, leaving copies of themselves behind, and similar mishaps.

Stargate

The most obvious instance of teleportation in the Stargate SG-1 universe is the Stargate itself, along with the intergalactic network of similar devices. Going by the dialogue of the series, the Stargate forms an artificial wormhole between two Gates. Travelers are then disassembled by the originating Gate, transferred as a matter stream with reassembly instructions to the receiving Gate, which then reassembles them upon arrival.

Another prominent teleportation system is implemented between two ring platforms. Each ring platform has five rings which elevate around the transported objects and swap the contents between the two ring platforms. However, there have been some instances of using a ring transporter to teleport objects short distances having a single platform perform both the disassembly and assembly, ascending or descending in between. It is noted in the series that the ring teleporter technology is related to the Stargate technology, although the rings have limited range as they do not utilize wormholes.

Later in the series, an alien race known as the Asgard use a method similar to many other science fiction depictions of teleportation. This method does not require teleportation apparatus on either end.

The Tomorrow People

The Tomorrow People, a television series first made in the mid-1970s and then re-made into a modern, Nickelodeon program incorporated psychic teleportation or "jaunting" as a psionic gift bestowed upon a group of random teenagers.

The Transformers

The Transformers introduced a character named Skywarp, a member of the Decepticon Air Force called the Seekers, who was capable of teleporting from place to place.^[7] 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.

The Twilight Zone

There is a Twilight Zone episode called Valley of the Shadow in which 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.

Wizards of Waverly Place

In this show, all of the wizards have the same teleportation technique. They teleport with a flash and it looks like they're sucked into a little light, as smoke appears after them.

X-Men

In the cartoon series based on the Marvel Comics superheroes of the same name, the character Nightcrawler exhibits a mutanagenic ability to teleport himself and other objects he touches.

Theater

The Tempest

William Shakespeare toys with the idea of teleportation in The Tempest (1610–1611).^[8]

Films

Buck Rogers (serial)

A short-distance teleportation device (used instead of elevators) appeared in the 1939 serial film Buck Rogers.

Doom

In the film based on the video game series of the same name, a teleportation machine used to move between Earth and Mars would not always work. One of the characters has half of his body teleported to Mars and the other half somewhere else in the galaxy.

Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century

Teleportation booths called "evaporators" feature in the 1953 Merrie Melodies cartoon Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, a Buck Rogers parody starring Daffy Duck.

The Fly (1958)

The Fly was adapted from the short story of the same name by George Langelaan. It features a scientist who has been working on a matter transporter device called the disintegrator-integrator. He initially tests it only on small inanimate objects, but eventually proceeds to living creatures, including the family's pet cat (which fails to reintegrate) and a guinea pig. After he is satisfied that these tests are succeeding, he builds a man-sized pair of chambers. His experiment goes horribly wrong when he tries to transport himself: a fly is caught in the chamber with him, resulting in a mixing of their atoms to make a half-man, half-fly.

Galaxy Quest

Galaxy Quest has a scene where the captain is in a desperate situation and needs transporting. They try it first on an alien pig which ends up inside out, but are forced to use it on the captain or he will die. He survives.

Jumper

In Jumper, a genetic abnormality allows a young man to teleport himself anywhere by gravitationally creating a wormhole. He discovers this gift has existed for centuries and finds himself in a war that has been raging for thousands of years between 'Jumpers' and 'Paladins' who have sworn to kill them.

Logan's Run

Logan’s Run features a teleportation network called “the circuit”, where people can bring over volunteers to choose from in order to have sex with them.^[9]

The Projected Man

The Projected Man has a scientist experimenting with teleportation by means of a laser projection device. However, after a failed attempt at projecting himself, he becomes a disfigured monster who embarks on a murderous rampage.

Now You See Me

The 2013 film Now You See Me features a group of high-tech magicians who claim to use teleportation in their act and use it to pull a heist, but in actuality the device is just a stage prop.

Stargate

Stargate's titular device is a teleportation system that utilizes an artificial wormhole to transport people to another Stargate on an extra-solar planet.

Another, more local teleportation system is seen to be used between two ring platforms. Each ring platform has seven rings which elevate around the transported objects and swap the contents between the two ring platforms.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3

In the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, the turtles come into possession of an artifact that would swap whoever held it and read from it with someone from feudal Japan, but body only; the people swapped would appear in each other's clothes.

Terminator

In the Terminator series of movies, Skynet used its displacement technology to produce a time machine, and thus named it the "Time-Space Displacement Equipment."

They Live

In They Live a nameless drifter referred to as "Nada" discovers that the ruling class of Earth are in fact aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people with subliminal messages in mass media. Teleportation is their chief mode of transport, which is used either as a wristwatch for shorter distances, or on a platform in an underground station which beams out into space (for longer distances).

X-Men

The 2nd and 3rd installments of the X-Men movie franchise feature characters from the Marvel Comics universe, including the character Nightcrawler, who exhibits a mutagenic ability to teleport himself and other objects he touches. In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the character of John Wraith has a similar ability. In X-Men First Class there is a mutant named Azazel who has the ability to teleport.

Spaceballs

A malfunctioning teleporter is used as a gag in the film.

Video games

Achron

In this real-time strategy game, players may not only build teleporters, which can teleport units anywhere within a certain radius from the machine, but also chronoporters, which teleport units through time.

Anarchy Online

Within the Massively Multiplayer Online Game, Anarchy Online, all characters have the ability to use a "Whoompa" to teleport instantly to a destination listed above the doorway. This type of teleportation is limited to the planet Rubi-Ka. However, in the Shadowlands a character may teleport instantly to a "garden" using "Insignias" on certain statues. (e.g. Thrak, Enel, Shere)

Arcanum: Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura

In Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, a Role-playing video game, magical characters may learn a Teleport spell, which enables instant travel to areas the player character has visited before. This enables easy and fast access to all areas of the continent, including areas otherwise inaccessible after certain plot events.

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth features mystical transdimensional gates. Often found in deep caverns.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Call of Duty: Black Ops features a teleportation device in the maps "Kino Der Toten" and "Five". In Kino Der Toten, the teleporter can be linked from the mainframe to the pad and is free to use. In "Five", there are many teleporters that emit a reddish glow and teleport the character to other teleporters. There is a main teleporter that activates once the DEFCON level is increased. Once activated, it teleports the player to the Pack A Punch room.

Call of Duty: World at War

Call of Duty: World at War features a teleportation device in its Map Pack 3 zombie mode in a map known as Der Riese. The DLC features three teleporters which are supposedly activated by a mainframe and costs 1500 points to use.

City of Heroes/City of Villains

City of Heroes and its sister game City of Villains allow player characters to learn teleportation powers at levels 6, 14, and 20. These begin with the ability to teleport foes short distances to a location near the player or the ability to teleport group members to the player's current location from hundreds of meters away. Later powers allow player characters to teleport themselves and nearby allies more than a hundred meters at a time. Within the game setting, there is said to be a teleport grid running throughout the city that is used mainly to transport injured characters to a medical facility. Supergroups (the in-game term for a guild or clan) can also construct teleport pads which, after they obtain the beacon for a zone, can be used to travel directly there from their base.

Diablo II

In the computer video game Diablo II and the Diablo II Expansion Pack, the Sorceress character is able to develop a teleportation skill and speed through levels through development of an ability. In this game the teleportation is a lightning based skill. The 'Enigma' runeword armor, when worn, also grants any character the Sorceress teleportation ability.

Also, any character can purchase Scrolls of Town Portal, which create a portal to the nearest town and back. These portals can be used by any party member, but disappear after the creator uses it to return from town. Last of all are Waypoints which are teleportation pads. Each town has one, and there are numerous waypoints in each act. They need to be activated (by clicking on them) before they can be used; but once they are activated, they can be used to teleport to any other activated waypoint (even from one act to another) with limitless uses.

Doom series

In the Doom series, the UAC's experiments with teleportation technology provide a way for demons from Hell to enter our universe. Teleportation devices are also used to transport the protagonist between positions on various maps.

Defense of the Ancients (DotA)

Heroes in DotA can be teleported from one location on the map to another location. Items such as Scroll of Town Portal or Boots of Travel can be used to teleport the heroes themselves. Some heroes have inherent skills that can teleport themselves or other heroes to different locations on the map (e.g. Pit Lord or Nature's Prophet). The action of teleportation takes a few seconds of "channeling" time for the process to be complete and the hero must remain stationary during the process.

EarthBound series

The first two games of the EarthBound series, Mother and EarthBound respectively, the main characters could use PSI to teleport to any location they'd previously been. The action appears to involve running at accelerating speeds with an accompanying whirring sound before the actual teleportation takes place. The third game of the series, Mother 3, does not have the teleportation power, likely due to the much smaller overall setting.

Fable

In Fable, the Hero can teleport using the Guild Seal. Although he can teleport from anywhere, he must teleport to a preset teleportation pad.

Global Agenda: Free Agent

Global Agenda, a science-fiction based online role-playing game, allows the player to travel between set locations via teleporters. One type of teleporter appears in the main game world, where they serve as a one-way trip back to a settlement. Another type, also one-way, is used in multiplayer matches, where the entrance is placed in the team's spaceship and the exit can be carried into the field by players. Once placed, respawning players can use the teleport to instantly get back into the fight, saving valuable time and allowing the team to keep the pressure up even when losing. The teleporter exit can be destroyed by enemy agents in order to gain an advantage.

Guild Wars

In the online role-playing game Guild Wars; one can use the short-range transporters in the Crystal Desert. One simply steps on the pad, observes the lighting sequence of the four (4) crystals, and then touches them in the same order to activate the teleporter. In addition to this, all players can instantly teleport to any previously visited town or outpost at any point in the game, this is called "maptravel" by both the manual and in-game characters.

Half-Life series

In the computer game Half-Life, Gordon Freeman's experiment goes wrong, causing aliens to teleport to our world. In the sequel, Half-Life 2, teleportation devices are used to move Gordon and other characters to different locations. What little is explained about these devices regards Quantum Entanglement or Superposition. Portal consists primarily of a series of puzzles which must be solved by teleporting the player's character and other simple objects using the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (the "portal gun"). The engineer class in Team Fortress 2, which technically is not part of the Half-Life series, can build a teleporter entrance and exit.

Halo series

In the Halo series, the teleporters appear as glowing columns of green or orange. The player can walk into these columns and be instantly teleported. The titular ring-shaped artificial worlds also house teleportation systems that can be used for instantaneous transport from anywhere to anywhere within the system's range.

Kingdom Hearts

In Kingdom Hearts, members of Organization XIII can teleport using the Corridors of Darkness.

Kirby series

In the Kirby series, many bosses have the ability to teleport.

Legend of Zelda series

In the Legend of Zelda series, several forms of teleportation appear. It first appeared in the first game, where, upon playing the Recorder, a whirlwind would appear that could take the protagonist Link to any previous dungeon. It later appeared in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, where Link is teleported back to the beginning of the dungeon after beating the final boss. He later also acquires a magical spell that allows him to teleport to earlier set locations inside dungeons, and also magical songs that allow him to teleport to several set locations in the overworld. In later games, similar forms of teleportation return. For example in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Link uses his Wind Waker to conduct a melody that will summon a waterspout that will carry him to any one of set locations that he chooses, somewhat similar to the aforementioned whirlwind from the first game. Another game is The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. In this game, Midna can teleport Link to any of the fixed locations on the map.

Marathon series

The Marathon series features teleportation technology as both a speedy means of local travel that moves the player between levels and as the fastest method of faster-than-light travel.

Super Mario series

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.

Mega Man series

In the Mega Man series and its spinoffs, many robots (including the titular character) have built-in teleportation devices, and booth-style teleporters also exist. The phenomenon is depicted as a streak of colored light (colored the same as the character). The start of each level in the games usually involves the player character teleporting onto the screen, and later teleporting out of the area again once it has been completed.

Metroid Prime

The first Metroid Prime features the Chozo Temple, which near the end of the game becomes the site of a glowing portal to the Impact Crater. The main character Samus can step into the circle and be instantly transported into the hollow core of the meteor that crashed there.

In Prime 2: Echoes, when Samus obtains the Light Suit, she can step into beams of golden light to teleport to secret areas, or temple Energy Converters. Pirate Commandos appear to teleport in combat at first, but they are later revealed to travel via an alternate dimension instead, making the travel take just as long as it would have otherwise. The benefit then comes not from instant travel, but from being invisible to and unable to be harmed by their target as they move. Said alternate dimension is a parallel world that the main character can travel to via rifts in spacetime.

In the final part of the trilogy, Corruption, there is a single teleporter on planet Bryyo. Stepping into it transports Samus to a hidden site at the opposite side of the planet in a flash of light. Some creatures in the game, such as Warp Hounds and Pirate Commandos, are able to teleport through their own power and technology. Leviathans can open wormholes, which have a similar effect, except that they allow multiple beings, objects and space ships to pass through at once.

Outbreak

The origin of the original outbreak in this Massively Multiplayer Online Game is a teleportation experiment gone awry.

Pokémon series

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 esacpes from a battle or sends the player to the last Pokémon Center visited.

Portal

Portal features an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device or the ASHPD or simply the portal gun. The ASHPD shoots Portals, or linked gateways illustrated as Orange and Blue holes on flat surfaces. Portals effectively function as holes in space. Portals have a unique effect on the laws of physics, allowing the player to fling themselves out of one portal by jumping into its twin from a great height. Infinite hallways and bottomless fall loops are also possible. Teleportation from a great distance is theoretically possible, but not possible during normal gameplay due to material emancipation grids (also called "fizzlers") that clear out any open portals when you pass through them, however, this system is circumvented in Portal 2, where the main character can see the moon through a break in the ceiling. The walls that are capable with portals are covered with a processed form of moon rocks, so the main character shoots a portal onto the floor, then onto the moon, and the vacuum began to suck everything through the portal into space. Unlike the 'square head with teeth' portals of Narbacular Drop (on which the gameplay of Portal is based) - Portal uses oval form portals.

Prey

Prey features portals as core gameplay element. Portals transport the player to a great variation of locations. Apart from being used to keep trans-location fresh and interesting, one instance transports the player onto a miniature planet all the while shrinking him to miniature scale. In another instance a portal is used to fit an area the size of a room into a shoebox. Portals are often hidden in odd places such as the backside of cornered objects or even on the ceiling. Many portals are reachable only thru 'spirit vision'. Arrows can be shot thru the portals with the bow. If a portal closes while it is being traversed, its occupant dies of dismemberment.

Quake series

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 'Slipgate'. 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. 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 and Clank series

Ratchet & Clank features teleportation as common transportation throughout the series.

RuneScape

Within the Massively Multiplayer Online Game, RuneScape, teleportation is an important and popular means of transport. Players may use the Magic skill to cast teleportation spells, allowing transport to various cities and locations. With a high Magic level, players can also cast "teleport other" spells on players. All teleport spells require Law runes, along with several other runes depending on the spell; for instance, teleporting to the town of Varrock requires one Law rune, three Air runes and one Fire rune. Various items of enchanted jewellery can, when activated, teleport to certain areas, for instance the ring of dueling, which allows eight teleports to the Duel Arena, before disintegrating. One exception to the spells is the Lumbridge home teleport. It does not require any runes but can be interrupted because it is a ritual and need no experience. There are also a number of quest-related items that allow teleports to various areas, such as the "Enchanted Lyre", which teleports to the province of Rellekka when played, and the "Ectophial", which teleports to the Ectofunctus when emptied. No teleports can be used past level 20 wilderness, except the Ring of Life and Amulet of Glory, which can be used up to level 30 wilderness. sadasdsadasd

Rogue Galaxy

Teleport Platforms are a common technology scattered about the solar system. They are a small, blue-and-cream pad with a simple cross-shaped pattern on the pad itself, and a hologram of a large placard with a dog head-shaped rune that, curiously is the same as Jaster's Birthmark, hovering over it. Closer inspection reveals two lines of complex lettering near the top. Only platforms on the current world can be used, there is no interplanetary teleport system. They also contain special equipment that instantly heals and re-fills the AP of the party, and a memory-storage device that allows one to save the game. As the name suggests, they allow instant transport between the currently-occupied pad and whichever pad is chosen.

Second Life

Within the Massively Multiplayer Online Game, Second Life, all avatars (residents), have the ability to teleport. Originally, residents could only teleport from one telehub to another telehub which were located within a cluster of regions (referred to as "sims") and then walk, drive or fly the remaining distance to their destination, but this was later replaced with point-to-point teleportation. The elimination of telehub teleportation had an economic effect on the prices and values of 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. Within the culture of Second Life residents typically shorten the word "teleport" to the letters: TP.

SimEarth

Once a civilization (regardless of the species that gains sapience) reaches the Nanotech Age in SimEarth, it uses transporters to spawn new cities in uncolonized regions instead of using manpower (Stone Age), horses (Bronze and Iron Age), motorized vehicles (Industrial Age), or airplanes (Atomic and Information Age). Also, a Nanotech Age civilization can build their cities on water.

The Sims 2: Apartment Life

If you meet a witch on a corner you can befriend her and become a witch yourself, after you learn your spells you have an option that can 'teleport' your sim from one location on the screen to another. This same action happens with repo men and other Sims II NPC's if you should try to lock them out of your house.

Sonic the Hedgehog series

In Sonic the Hedgehog series, Shadow the Hedgehog can use Chaos Emerald's power called "Chaos Control", when he can teleport himself to the other place. Sonic the Hedgehog and some other characters and enemies can use the same power.

In the stage "Mystic Mansion" on Sonic Heroes, there are teleporters called "Switch Balls" with symbols on the pad and the ball that can allow players to teleport if they touch it. The active switch ball has glowing symbols on the ball. These will release symbol particles spreading from the pad and the blue light starts to permeate on the middle of the screen. Once teleported to another room in the stage, the switch balls will stop glowing and become inactive. Thus, it cannot be reverted.

Starcraft

Protoss teleport in all equipment and field bases from factories on Aiur. Terrans also have an experimental teleporter, which they use to supply inaccessible military stations, such as the Jacob's Installation. In Starcraft 2, the Protoss have refined their technology even further, allowing teleportation of soldiers anywhere on their power grid once the Gateway is upgraded to the Warp Gate structure, and their Stalker mechs can "blink" to escape untenable situations.

Street Fighter

The Indian character Dhalsim utilizes teleportation as a special move called "Yoga Teleport" to evade attacks from opponents.

Tabula Rasa

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 (sometimes known as hedgehogs) which can be used to move between zones and are also seen dropping troops into the field employ a teleport system similar to the waypoint pads to store and carry their passengers and cargo. Also used are portable wormhole generators which allow a player to access the waypoint pad system from remote areas.

Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2's engineer class can build a teleporter that enables his team to travel faster and less conspicuously to the frontlines. It can be upgraded through three levels, with each upgrade decreasing the amount of time needed to recharge between uses.

The teleporter consists of an entrance pad and an exit pad placed flat on the ground, meaning that teleportation is a one-way ride (although during Mann Vs Machine matches, the engineer can purchase a 2-way teleporter from an upgrade station). The teleportation itself happens instantly, with the teleporting person disappearing and reappearing in a flash of yellow light bursting from the teleport pads. If the person can see the entrance from where the exit lies, they will be able to view a silhouette of themselves dissolve into colored sparks that drop to the ground and disappear.

The teleport devices are capable of functioning perfectly even when severely damaged, but destroying either of them completely will break the teleportation link. If a person passes through the teleport when someone else is already standing on the exit, the latter will be killed instantly ("telefragged") by the other materializing inside them. The teleporting person is not harmed by this.

The Elder Scrolls Series

In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind the Mages' Guild transport systems are instantaneous travels (i.e. with no lapse in in-game time) between two locations, more specifically between two Mages' Guilds. The game also features a range of spells such as 'Mark' and 'Recall', 'Divine Intervention', and 'Almsivi Intervention' which teleport the player to specific places.

Also in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the Wizard's Tower plugin gives the players access to teleporter pads to each of the Mages' Guild Halls in the game. These pads teleport the player from Frostcrag Spire to the particular Guild Halls.

Ultima series

Ultima Online, in addition to a short-rage teleport spell, features a pair of spells called mark and recall. Mark is cast on a rune, marking it with the spellcaster's location; a spellcaster can then return to that location by casting recall on the rune. Another spell, gate travel, can also be cast on a rune but creates a temporary portal instead. Ultima 7 features a similar system.

Most Ultimas feature a system of permanent but intermittent portals called moongates whose location and destination depend on the phase of the world's two moons. In some there is a spell to open a gate whose destination likewise depends on the phase of the moons, and/or an Orb of the Moons which opens a moongate to various locations. Ultima Online's moongates are always present and can transport the user to any other moongate at any time.

Unreal Tournament series

In Unreal Tournament and its sequels, teleports exist to allow the players to traverse the map. Also, in some game types, the option exists to give each player a handheld device called a Translocator; this device, as a primary fire mode, fires a small disc to which the player can then teleport, as a secondary fire mode. It can be used with some skill to telefrag opponents by teleporting within the enemy character model when the destination disc is close enough.

World of Warcraft

Within the MMORPG World of Warcraft, characters can use an object called a "Hearthstone" to teleport the character to an inn to which the hearthstone is set. Characters can change the inn to which they "hearth" (as it is often called in-game) by visiting another inn and asking an innkeeper to make that inn their home.

Users can also create trinkets to teleport them to the regions of Tanaris, Winterspring, Netherstorm, Blade's Edge Mountains, and most Northrend areas through the use of the "Engineering" profession. Various "mishaps" can happen, including temporary gender or race change, arriving dead or even ending up on a floating rock high above Area 52 (Netherstorm).

Some classes have the ability to teleport to certain places, for example, Druids can teleport to Moonglade by use of an ability.

Mages can create portals to capital cities that everyone in the party can access. Also mages can teleport themselves to the capital cities.

Warlocks can summon others with the help of group members.

Meeting stones now work like warlocks summoning spells, without the use of a soul shard.

Rogues also have a form of teleportation, Shadow step, an ability that makes the rogue appear behind an enemy.

Comics

Dan Dare

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.^[10]

DC Comics

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. The Flash has also "teleported" into parallel universes by vibrating at a very high frequency.

Additionally, the Justice League of America's lunar Watchtower contained banks of teleportation tubes based on principally Martian technology.

Dragon Ball

The main protagonist, Goku, learns from an alien species on how to teleport across the universe in the manga / anime series Dragon Ball. The technique was coined, "Instant Transmission" (瞬間移動, Shunkan Idō, lit. Instant Movement), where Goku would focus his index and middle finger together towards his forehead and concentrate on a location he could sense through clairvoyant means through the practice of Qi Gong/Ki that is prevalent in the Dragon Ball universe. It was taught to Goku when he was on Planet Yardrat after his deadly battle with Frieza on Planet Namek.

In addition to Goku, the upper Gods called Kais are also capable of performing an upgraded form of instant transmission. Moreover, many antagonists like Cell and Majin Buu learned to do it as well.

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.

Marvel comics

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, Eden Fesi and dozens of others.

In Fantastic Four #65 (August 1967), Ronan the Accuser, a member of the alien race the Kree, uses a device to teleport himself from an orbiting spaceship to a street in New York City.

The character Spot can open holes he can teleport himself or even parts of himself through.^[11]

Naruto Shippuden manga

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").

See also

• Portals in fiction

References