10 More Crazy Star Trek Fan Theories

We know from the Next Generation episode Second Chances that Starfleet transporters are capable of copying people under certain conditions. This is what happened to Will Riker, resulting in his clone Thomas. Also, the episode Relics showed us that Montgomery Scott was able to remain inside a transporter buffer "mid-beam" for about a century, eventually materialising and feeling like only a few moments had passed (a technique also used by Dr. M'Benga in Strange New Worlds to prolong his daughter's life).

One can assume that it would be possible to combine these effects, allowing Starfleet to copy individuals and store those copies inside of secret transporter buffers.

Storing these copies would certainly infringe on their rights, but we know that Section 31 has no problem with breaking the rules behind closed doors. They probably wouldn't keep copies of every Starfleet officer, but perhaps only people that they deem to be extremely important (Data, the President of Earth, or Section 31 agents for example).

Using this method (which we already know is possible) anyone could be brought back from the dead, though their copies would only possess their memories up to the point that they were split, so these stored doppelgangers would have to be continually replaced.

It’s even possible that this has been done to character before. Lieutenant Shaxs was resurrected using some mysterious, unexplained, and horrific medical science that he hesitated to ever talk about in the Lower Decks episode We’ll Always Have Tom Paris. Maybe the real Shaxs did die, but the Federation couldn’t stand to lose such a valuable officer.