7 Ups & 2 Downs From Star Trek: Discovery 5.9 — Lagrange Point

Speaking of duranium (Star Trek down to the bones of its ships), let's crack open whatever structure this counts as and see what other references await us inside. We did get the likes of a "transwarp tunnel," the pathway drive, and even a (all-too-brief) Voyager-J flyover, but there was one observation from about halfway through Lagrange Point that caused considerable debate here at TrekCulture — the 'portable pattern buffer,' used by Moll to preserve L'ak's body until his possible, Progenitorial revival.

Some of us — naming no names — thought that the new miniaturised version of relatively standard Star Trek tech should have been called something a bit less clinically descriptive by the then of the 32nd century. On the whole, I personally liked the 'says on the tin' approach to 'portable pattern buffer'.

Originally designed to be a temporary storage medium within the regular operation of the transporter, the pattern buffer has almost certainly always been a part of the human version of the technology. It was there in the version installed aboard the NX-01, as Ensign Hoshi found out in Vanishing Point. In Star Trek: The Original Series, a pattern could also be "suspended in transit" (per the Klingons in Day of the Dove, for example), and in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lieutenant Barclay was held in temporary transporter stasis in Realm of Fear.

In on-screen chronological time, it wasn't until Relics that we saw the pattern buffer be used for lengthy periods of suspension (75 years for Scotty). Before that, in canon-time, Doctor M'Benga had employed a similar approach to keep his daughter alive. Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Discovery would also make use of transporter suspension in Counterpoint and Stormy Weather respectively.

In any case, however Moll's version works, and for however long, walking around with a corpse inside a device the size of a memory stick is either seriously creepy or somehow very cool!