scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/2sgf95.md

## [MK][BST] Teleportation

* Author: u/eaglejarl *
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2sgf95/mkbst_teleportation/
* Score: 10

* Created: 2015-01-14T23:25:49

### Post:

I've been thinking of doing some superhero original fiction as soon as my current writing queue clears out.  One idea I had related to teleportation and how it could be abused.  Let's call the character Al.  Here are the rules of Al's power:

* There is no range limit on his teleportation.
* In order to teleport somewhere he needs to have a very clear picture of it in his mind.  This means either he can see it directly, he is currently looking at a detailed picture of it, or he is extremely familiar with it from spending a lot of time there.
* In order to teleport somewhere, he must know roughly what direction it is.  If he's lost his sense of direction (e.g. underwater, in a dark room, etc) he can't just teleport out.
* Whatever he's carrying when he teleports goes with him.  I need a more specific definition of "carrying" here, but the basics are intuitive: he can take it with him if he is lifting it, if it's inside something he is lifting, or if it's on top of something he is lifting.  
* He swaps places with an area at the far end, so there is always room for him when he arrives, but he will be unable to move if he teleports into a solid object.   Losing his sense of direction at this point Would Be Bad.
* Because he swaps places with his destination, the space that he and his carried stuff occupied is now occupied by the air / water / rock / whatever that was previously at his destination.  If he were to teleport into rock, lava, a roomful of chlorine gas, the blastfront of an explosion, outer space, etc, then the effects of those environments would be felt at his source.  (Of course, he wouldn't survive any of those environments without appropriate gear, but that's not relevant.)
* He is shifted into the momentum frame of his destination, so if he teleports from the pole to the equator he isn't mashed into a wall by the change in the earth's rotation.
*  When he arrives, his facing will be the same as it was at the source point.  (So, if he was facing east and he teleported to the south, he would still be facing east.)
* He cannot take part of an object with him when he teleports.
* If he's touching it / gripping it he needs to bring it with him.  In other words, he can't teleport out of handcuffs or if he's chained to a big lump of granite.  

Yes, he can teleport straight up, to the moon, to Mars, to exoplanets given a sufficiently detailed image, etc.

If you woke up with this power tomorrow, what could you do with it?  Mostly the idea here is to help me figure out where the fuzzy edges of the rules are so that I can define them more clearly.

EDIT:

* He cannot bring part of an object with him, but he can switch himself with a part of an object.  In other words, it's possible for him to teleport into a wall without instantly dying -- there will just be a him-shaped chunk of concrete back at his source point.


The "needs to bring it with him" needs more refinement, because I'm fuzzy on what it means.  Obviously he's touching the ground, so he needs to be able to leave that behind.  He's touching the air, but he doesn't bring that.  He *does* bring his clothing.  I'm not clear on whether something that's touching his clothing would have to come too.

In particular, I need better refinement on how this would interact with the "he can switch places with part of a solid object."  I think this would mean that if he teleports (part of) his body into a solid object then he can't teleport out unless he can chip the material away manually.

And no, this will not be Jumper fanfic.  :>  (Hadn't actually thought about that movie until I wrote the previous sentence.)

### Comments:

> **u/INeedAUsernameToo** [+9]  (an hour later)
> 
> There are several jumper books that explore these ideas. Spoilers below.
> 
> ...
> 
> A jumper learned how to turn the jump power "On" and keep it stuck like that, so he existed in two places at the same time. This was used to flood stuff with water, as well as drain all the air out of a sealed room. Later, a jumper learned to fly. The jumper was always familiar with their current location, so they jumped to exactly where they already where, but with a new velocity vector. This trick was also used to punch really hard.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+4]  (an hour later)
>> 
>> Grr.  I got all the way through thinking about this, got to that last sentence, and then realized that pretty much this exact thing had already been done.  I didn't realize that there were books of it too -- the movie didn't explore the ability that much so I figured there were lots of bits to find.  Sounds like there's less than I'd thought.

>>> **u/INeedAUsernameToo** [+4]  (5 hours later)
>>> 
>>> One book was about the jumper building a spacesuit and traveling to outerspace. That's the jumper that could create velocity. She put on her suit, flew up, and did cool things. Very good book. Lots of hard science. By the end of that book, I felt like I could build my own spacesuit. I highly recommend it. In fact, I recommend the whole jumper series, especially if you are going to approach a similar idea.

> **u/alexanderwales** [+5]  *Time flies like an arrow* (2 hours later)
> 
> Read the book *Jumper*, which the (terrible) movie was based on. It's got lots of cool stuff. The second and fourth books in the series are also pretty awesome. It follows almost all of the rules that you outlined above, and the author does a good job of thinking out the consequences of these rules, and extrapolating on them.
> 
> Edit: If you don't want to read them, I can spoil them for you when I get home.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+2]  (3 hours later)
>> 
>> We are go for spoilers, Captain!

>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+9]  *Time flies like an arrow* (6 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Alright, I'll try to keep this fairly brief.
>>> 
>>> **Book 1: Jumper**
>>> 
>>> * David discovers that he can teleport to places that he's familiar with.
>>> * He uses this power to run away from home (where he lives with his alcoholic father).
>>> * He steals a lot of money from bank vaults (which he only needs to really see the inside of).
>>> * He starts "acquiring" jump sites by going to them and solidifying his memory of the place, along with taking lots of photographs and video for reference.
>>> * He saves a bunch of people in hostage situations (terrorists on the tarmac - much more relevant in 1992).
>>> * The NSA get wind of him, mostly through his carelessness, and try to capture him by using the people close to him.
>>> * He realizes that he's always "resting" with respect to the reference frame of the ground following a jump, so he practices jumping away from a fall.
>>> * He practices a technique for lifting people up to jump them - usually going behind them, getting them off balance, lifting, and then jumping them.
>>> * He dumps a bunch of people in a lake in the middle of nowhere, effectively keeping them imprisoned (they deserved it).
>>> * He acquires a bunch of jump sites at emergency rooms, and then trains for jumping there reflexively when something bad happens.
>>> * He buys a cylinder of bulletproof glass and puts handle on the inside - this allows him to jump into a room with hostiles and makes them unable to shoot him even when they've got guns drawn.
>>> 
>>> **Book 2: Reflex**
>>> 
>>> * A shadowy organization drugs him during a meeting with his NSA handler, and sedates him. They get him into surgery and put a clamp on his vagus nerve that will activate if it doesn't receive two overlapping radio signals. If he goes outside the overlap zone (say, by jumping) he gets put in an incredible amount of pain, starts vomiting, and will die quickly. I thought this was a pretty clever way of turning a teleporting man into a tool. They can control where he can and can't teleport to.
>>> * He develops "twinning" where he teleports to a place and then teleports right back where he was, as a way to get around the limits of the implant.
>>> * Unlike with your rules, he takes some of the surrounding air with him. This lets him use twinning to flood an office building by setting his other location as in the water.
>>> * The shadowy organization tries to capture his wife (teleportation is either contagious or learnable with enough trips) by finding a room that she frequently jumps to, and making it airtight then filling it with noxious gas so that when she jumps in, she'll inhale it and fall unconscious right away.
>>> * The shadowy organization develops a jumper detector - it's basically a modified gravitational-wave detector that looks for a sudden change in gravity caused by someone popping into existence.
>>> 
>>> **Book 3: Impulse**
>>> 
>>> * Ten years later, they're using their powers for good - doing a lot of humanitarian stuff, occasional work for the government (extractions mostly), trying to track down what's left of the shadowy organization, etc.
>>> * Realizing that they are always stationary with respect to their reference frame following a jump, their daughter tries changing her reference frame, and after some trials and tribulations, is able to add arbitrary amounts of velocity while standing still - letting her jump straight up in the air at 20kmph, or letting her throw a very hard punch.
>>> 
>>> **Book 4: Exo**
>>> 
>>> * Their daughter develops a one-person space agency. He goes into a ton of detail on this, which I really appreciated - acquiring a space suit, adjusting for air pressure differences, communication with the ground, etc. They deorbit space junk and put microsats into orbit, then eventually build a space colony. The book ends with Cent becoming the first woman on Mars.
>>> * Twinning is used with low-Earth orbit to create a hard vacuum in a room full of enemies.
>>> 
>>> (I believe that most of this is accurate, but I might have gotten a few things wrong - for the most part, its a very well researched series.)

>> **u/rationalidurr** [+2]  *If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!* (2 days later)
>> 
>> Reading 4th right now, oh glob so good, everybody is competent, everybody is working towards a goal, oh jebus, thanks whales. Now to find books 1-3.

> **u/Sparkwitch** [+3]  (34 minutes later)
> 
> Yeah "carry" needs some hard rules.
> 
> How much can he carry? Does he need to be fully supporting it or can he be using, say, a wheelbarrow? How about a weight too heavy to heft, or merely too awkward to balance, for more than a few moments before dropping it? For example, he's holding somebody's hand and they jump into the air.
> 
> What if that person is holding somebody else's hand?
> 
> The "momentum frame" bit needs some work as well. If he teleports into a car traveling on the highway, exchanging part of himself with the parts of the car that his standing form has replaced, one would hope he isn't immediately bi or trisected by the remainder.
> 
> Alternately, what if he happens to teleport into the edge of a baseball bat just as it's swinging to hit a home run. Does he match momentum with the bat or with the ground? Neither is going to be ideal, but think hard about *why* either one happens and you'll have a clearer idea of how the ability works.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (an hour later)
>> 
>> Bringing things with him:
>> 
>> It might make sense to reduce this to: whatever solid objects he's touching goes with him, along with all solid objects that *they* are touching, and so on.  So, his socks go because he's touching them, his shoes go because they're touching his socks, and his shoelaces go because they're touching the shoes.  Non-solid objects can be cleanly delineated, so he has the option to leave them behind -- basically, when he teleported the molecules that were actually touching him would go with but none of the others.
>> 
>> This would mean that he needs to hop up so he's not touching the ground when he goes.  It would also mean that if he's holding onto a rope which is tied to the wall he can't teleport without letting go first.
>> 
>> -----
>> Carrying:
>> 
>> He definitely needs to be fully supporting it, although he doesn't need to be able to do more than heft it up.  Holding someone's hand while they jump doesn't count as supporting them -- they aren't supported at all.
>> 
>> Although.  Hm.  Perhaps it makes more sense to remove the weight limit and just go with the "all solid objects he's touching"?  No, then he could teleport with an entire airplane and that's more OP than I want to go.
>> 
>> -----
>> 
>> Momentum frame:
>> 
>> I figure that his subconscious is really in the driver's seat here -- he doesn't consciously understand the process of teleporting and when he arrives somewhere he doesn't consciously choose which parts of the new area to send back to his source.
>> 
>> Given that, I think he'd match whatever reference frame his subconscious decided was the "right" one.  On a planet it would almost certainly be the frame of the ground.  Teleporting into free space with no visual references (or while blindfolded), he'd keep the reference frame he came from...with possibly hilarious / fatal results.  In the case of the baseball bat:  when he teleported in the tip of it would be sent back to his origin.  It would keep swinging, so he would be hit by the part that hadn't been teleported out.
>> 
>> Also, teleporting around water would be interesting.  Imagine that he's holding some water cupped in his hand; assuming his subconscious is driving, he could bring the water with him if he wanted or leave it behind if not.  Liikewise, if he's underwater he can teleport without having to bring all the water with him because he subconscious recognizes his intent.
>> 
>> Of course, this opens up a new can of worms about how hypnosis and other control-the-subconscious techniques work on him.

>>> **u/Gurkenglas** [+5]  (16 hours later)
>>> 
>>> If he's feeling omnicidal, teleport into the reference frame of a particle hurtling through an accelerator.

>>> **u/philip1201** [+2]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> If he himself needs to be fully supporting an object, his shoes wouldn't teleport with.
>>> 
>>> So if he's wearing a single piece of clothing, which extends into a tarp, and on top of the tarp are objects, what would happen?
>>> 
>>> A) The tarp is transported, the objects aren't, despite being fully supported by the tarp.
>>> 
>>> B) The tarp tears, despite being a single object.
>>> 
>>> C) The tarp stays behind, despite being clothing that is worn. The teleporter arrives naked.
>>> 
>>> D) Both the tarp and the objects teleport along. Transportation of arbitrary amounts of mass achievable, as long as a tarp can be placed under it.
>>> 
>>> edit: assuming this fails, what if you're "wearing" a zeppelin with cargo, such that it is just barely not neutrally buoyant, and held aloft by your own legs? If only part of the zeppelin's mass is "carried" by you, what procedure is used to determine it?

>>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> Yep, it is pretty clear that the rules I proposed do not work.  :/

>>> **u/kaukamieli** [+1]  (2 hours later)
>>> 
>>> > whatever solid objects he's touching goes with him, along with all solid objects that they are touching, and so on.
>>> 
>>> So he takes the earth along with him every time because he is standing on it?

>>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (6 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> QUOTE
>>>> The "needs to bring it with him" needs more refinement, because I'm fuzzy on what it means. Obviously he's touching the ground, so he needs to be able to leave that behind. 
>>>> /QUOTE
>>>> 
>>>> :P

>>>>> **u/kaukamieli** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> "so he needs to be able to leave that behind."
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yeaaa, but CAN he take earth with him? :D Earth as our spaceship, we go where no man, woman or furry has gone before.

>>> **u/Arandur** [+1]  (3 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Ah, the mythical "Do What I Mean" instruction. With regard to reference frames and carrying things, I think that's sufficient. All you need to do is define what can't be done -- otherwise, defer to his imagination. A person who wants to teleport to a moving cat doesn't picture themselves being killed by the car -- they picture themselves appearing in an unoccupied seat.

>>>> **u/gabbalis** [+1]  (3 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> > A person who wants to teleport to a moving **cat** doesn't picture themselves being killed by the car
>>>> 
>>>> I'd hope not.

>>>>> **u/Arandur** [+1]  (4 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Bloody new phone... I'm leaving it.

>>>>>> **u/scooterboo2** [+1]  *Tinker 3: Embeded Systems* (a day later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Relevant xkcd: http://xkcd.com/1288/  
>>>>>> xkcd bot below.

>>>>>>> **u/xkcd_transcriber** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> [Image](http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/substitutions.png)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> **Title:** Substitutions
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> **Title-text:** INSIDE ELON MUSK'S NEW ATOMIC CAT
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> [Comic Explanation](http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1288#Explanation)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> **Stats:** This comic has been referenced 146 times, representing 0.3052% of referenced xkcds.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> ---
>>>>>>> ^[xkcd.com](http://www.xkcd.com) ^| ^[xkcd sub](http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd/) ^| ^[Problems/Bugs?](http://www.reddit.com/r/xkcd_transcriber/) ^| ^[Statistics](http://xkcdref.info/statistics/) ^| ^[Stop Replying](http://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=xkcd_transcriber&subject=ignore%20me&message=ignore%20me) ^| ^[Delete](http://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=xkcd_transcriber&subject=delete&message=delete%20t1_cnqiawr)

> **u/MoralRelativity** [+3]  (3 hours later)
> 
> Regarding the sense of direction aspect. Is this directionality to do with line-of-sight or is it absolute? I'm thinking here of the curvature of the Earth and tele-porting to the other side of the world.
> 
> On the same topic. How exact does that need to be? Can Al apply a process of elimination given that if he can't teleport then he knows the direction is not right?

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (5 hours later)
>> 
>> I was thinking of it as "which direction would I have to walk / fly to get there?"

>>> **u/MoralRelativity** [+1]  (7 hours later)
>>> 
>>> So, around and not through the Earth I assume. Then what's the direction if you need to get to the opposite side of the planet? All directions would be right wouldn't they?

> **u/russxbox** [+3]  (7 hours later)
> 
> First off, definitely read the Jumper series. Some my favorite novels and nothing at all like the movie. The character puts a lot of thought into doing things safely and right the first time to avoid problems like teleporting into solid objects. Given what's been spoiled so far, you might think there's not much untrodden ground, but that's what I thought about my knowledge of D&D munchkinry before 2YE came along and you've proven me wrong in the most entertaining possible way.
> 
> Re: a specific definition of "carrying". When the force he applies to an object counteracts (or for purposes of teleporting out of, say, deep space, would counteract at his destination) the force due to gravity, however briefly, I think he can be said to be carrying it. That stops him from loading a shopping cart full of stuff and popping away, unless he can lift the cart and its contents for long enough to teleport and also stops him from getting away if he is, for example, chained to a wall (since he may be applying force to part of the chain but the rest is held up by the wall which is a solid object too large for him to lift). Unless he can maneuver himself in such a way as to not touch the chain at all like maybe letting it hang at its lowest point and then teleporting out of it. It seems like a reasonable power limit while still having potential to end up broken (used in combination with the reference frame momentum trick, maybe).
> 
> Edit: also, the ground: if his subconscious is already handling the destination reference frame issues, why not let it handle the ground interface issue too? He has a body image of himself as X cm tall, and that's as far as the effect reaches (just never ever wear platform shoes). Jumper handled it by having an area of his surroundings a couple of nanometers thick come along for the ride, which would be mostly air but also a small amount of whatever he was standing on.

> **u/Vermora** [+3]  (22 hours later)
> 
> With regards to what the teleporter can take with them, one could use the following rules to make it more well defined as opposed to intuitive.
> The more I thought about this, the rules I had to add, but I can't see anything obviously broken at the moment.
> 
> 1) The teleportation works on whole, entire objects. Either an object is teleported with you or it is not. Liquids and gasses are considered to be collections of an innumerable number of teeny tiny particles.
> 
> 2) The item must either be in contact with skin, or in contact with another solid item of adequate size that is itself teleporting. 
> 
> If 'solid item' is too vague, we could define it more explicitly as a continuous object requiring a certain amount of force to break at any point. A very thin rope with a weak spot might then be counted as two ropes.
> 
> Similarly, two discrete, touching objects would be considered the same object if it took more than a certain amount of force to separate them. **
> 
> The adequate size rule above has two purposes.
> Items must be of sufficiently small size rules to stop everything in the same building / on the same planet from being teleported as well.
> Although rule 3 actually makes this redundant.
> 
> Items must be of sufficiently large size, to stop all gas / liquid / sand particles close to you from forcefully being teleported as well. This is important.*
> 
> *This doesn't stop really small items from being teleported. Sand/liquid/gas in contact with you or with another large item would be teleported. But Gas particles that are only touching other gas particles being teleported, wont be teleported. So you don't take a whole room full of air with you.
> 
> 3) Objects that extend more than a certain distance away from the skin / centre of mass of the teleporter are not taken. Meaning that only solid objects that exist entirely within a certain volume (possibly a sphere) relative to the teleporter are displaced.
> 
> 4) Any substance contained entirely within a container being teleported, is teleported as well. A container could be defined as a closed continuous surface not allowing particles of a certain size to pass through. This allows liquids and gases in containers to be teleported. Any solids of sufficient size in a container would have been teleported anyway as a consequence of the first three rules.
> 
> These rules should work if the teleporter has no control over their teleportation. The 'carrying' rule seems to arbitrary to make rigorous. The above rules should let you take another person if they are touching you and sufficiently close.
> 
> ** This rule has the consequence that heavy items touching the ground wont be taken, as they are touching the ground and the force between them causes the item and the ground to be considered as the same object. If they can be lifted for just a moment (and all other rules are satisified) it would be possible to take them.
> 
> If we let the teleporter choose what to take, we can relax some of the above rules and just let the teleporter what to take. Although this may affect the efficiency of the teleporter, if they are consciously having to think about everything they want to take in order to avoid being naked at their destination.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (23 hours later)
>> 
>> I like this, these are good rules.  I just lost a bunch of would-have-been-productive time looking up examples of tensile strengths, masses, sizes, etc.  Thanks for that!  :P
>> 
>> It occurs to me that a simpler ruleset would be "everything within one foot of his skin goes with him".  Under this ruleset it would be hard to UNweaponize his ability; he'd be cutting chunks out of walls, floors, people, etc whenever he teleported.  Combine that with an instinctive teleport whenever startled or frightened and you've got some real potential for disaster in this guy's life.
>> 
>> Killing him would be straightforward:  handgun will do the job just fine if you take him by surprise.
>> 
>> Capturing him would be tricky -- hand-to-hand with him would be instantly fatal for the attacker, so you'd need to get him at range with a taser, tranq gun, etc.  He can't teleport out of handcuffs, but he *can* teleport out of any cell.  You'd need to either keep him unconscious or do something like was mentioned below -- put an explosive collar on him that goes off if it stops receiving a radio signal.  Alternatively, manacle him to a wall; he can teleport out, but he'll bring the manacles and a chunk of wall with him, so he's still trapped on the far end.  Strap a sufficiently powerful locator beacon to him and you could pick him up again.

>>> **u/Vermora** [+2]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> Thanks. My idea was to make rules that didn't depend on human intuition.
>>> 
>>> Teleporting everything within 1 foot could work. The most important rule imo is establishing an upper bound on volume teleported. Otherwise, as mentioned above, you could be moving entire vehicles or arbitrarily long lines of jumping humans. Beyond that is pretty much up to you.
>>> 
>>> The 1-foot rule does prevent teleporting in crowded places if the guy cares about other people. Or within 1 foot of large valuable items if he cares about collateral damage. It would also mean a bomb strapped to the body would stay strapped on. In any case, the simplicity of such a rule is good.
>>> 
>>> It occurs to me that, going by the theoretical rules I outlined above and assuming 'the teleporter can always teleport their own naked body no matter what', they would not be able to teleport out of handcuffs UNLESS those handcuffs were bolted to a wall or floor or some other item not possible to teleport.

> **u/Sceptically** [+2]  (44 minutes later)
> 
> Ouch. He'd need to not be touching the ground in order to teleport? And ~~if~~ when he gets himself embedded in a wall then he'd be stuck there unless he could manually bust himself out? That could turn out lethal rather quickly.

> **u/AdjectiveRecoil** [+2]  (an hour later)
> 
> What if he teleports into a block of concrete with his mouth open? Does the concrete fill his lungs? Or does it stop at his lips?
> 
> What's the minimum distance that he can teleport? How does he avoid ending up with his feet an inch into the floor? Could he hold out a piece of paper, and teleport so that the paper cuts through something? What's the minimum time between teleports? Could he teleport somewhere holding a grenade, then teleport back before it explodes? Could he [teleport into the sun for a nanosecond](http://what-if.xkcd.com/115/), and teleport back out, leaving a large chunk of plasma at his original location?
> 
> Also, how can he teleport into a solid object if he has to picture his destination? It's pretty difficult to picture the inside of a block of granite.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (an hour later)
>> 
>> > What if he teleports into a block of concrete with his mouth open? Does the concrete fill his lungs? Or does it stop at his lips?
>> 
>> I think it fills his lungs.  Teleporting into a solid object is apparently a Really Bad Idea.
>> 
>> > What's the minimum distance that he can teleport? 
>> 
>> I'm going with "the smallest distance that he can perceive as a distance."  He can't teleport a nanometer, in other words, but he can teleport a millimeter or so.
>> 
>> > How does he avoid ending up with his feet an inch into the floor? 
>> 
>> He teleports to the floor's surface.
>> 
>> > Could he hold out a piece of paper, and teleport so that the paper cuts through something? 
>> 
>> Yes.  I was actually thinking that exact thing when I wrote the bit about switching mass, but I figured I'd leave it out so as not to bias people's thoughts in one particular direction.
>> 
>> > What's the minimum time between teleports? 
>> 
>> The smallest time that he can perceive -- less than the blink of an eye.  Basically, the speed of thought.
>> 
>> > Could he teleport somewhere holding a grenade, then teleport back before it explodes? 
>> 
>> Yes.
>> 
>> > Could he teleport into the sun for a nanosecond, and teleport back out, leaving a large chunk of plasma at his original location?
>> 
>> Yes, assuming that he can accurately target the sun somehow.
>> 
>> > Also, how can he teleport into a solid object if he has to picture his destination? It's pretty difficult to picture the inside of a block of granite.
>> 
>> I'm figuring it as "he can visualize the area around it and then project himself within that image."  So if he can teleport to, say, a particular room then it's very easy to extend that visualization to "in this room, but inside *this* chunk of wall here".  He couldn't teleport just "down 1,000 feet" because he can't visualize that at all.

>>> **u/kaukamieli** [+2]  (2 hours later)
>>> 
>>> If it fills his lungs just with having his mouth open, wouldn't it automatically happen with his nostrils?
>>> 
>>> And if he can teleport with the speed of thought and there is no cooldown, like with the grenade example, it's going to be so overpowered. Are you planning to balance that with everyone being op?

>>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (6 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> > If it fills his lungs just with having his mouth open, wouldn't it automatically happen with his nostrils?
>>>> 
>>>> Feh.  Ok, teleporting such that his head lands inside a solid object is apparently fatal.  He could teleport such that the rest of him is in an object, though, in order to switch with part of its mass.
>>>> 
>>>> Just to make sure we're on the same page -- I'm assuming that he pulls the pin, teleports, drops the grenade, teleports out, the grenade goes off a couple seconds later when its fuse burns down.  He wouldn't be fast enough to teleport between the moment that the grenade exploded and the moment that the blast front hit him, if that's what you're asking.

>>>>> **u/Chronophilia** [+2]  *sci-fi ≠ futurology* (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> If he has reason to believe it's fatal, he won't want to experiment with it. So he won't know whether teleporting his head into an object will fill his nasal cavity with concrete unless a weirdly specific life-or-death situation forces him to try.

>>>>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> A very valid point. :>

>>>>> **u/WalkingHorror** [+1]  (15 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Wouldn't some air-proof costume solve lung problem? Also, Google Glass with GPS, compass and accelerometer is his best friend in darkness and solids. When in trouble, teleport to North Pole.
>>>>> Building up on sun question - so assuming good enough navigation/calculation and star maps, he could destroy Earth (and possibly smallish stars) by teleporting in neutron star? ([they are so dense that if you could dip a teaspoon into one of them and scoop out some of its neutrons the spoon would weigh 100 million tons](http://www.space.com/6682-neutron-star-crust-stronger-steel.html))

>>>>>> **u/Rouninscholar** [+1]  (18 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Air proof costumes kill us unless we have an air tank.

>>>>>> **u/Solonarv** [+1]  *Chaos Legion* (3 days later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> [Destroying Earth is not nearly as easy as you think.](http://qntm.org/destroy)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> A human-sized chunk of neutronium weighs  10^15 to 10^17 kg (1 to 100 times the mass of Mt. Everest).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Earth is 6 * 10^24 kg, i.e. 7.5 to 9.5 orders of magnitude heavier.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> While the crater would certainly be pretty big, Earth would still be Earth.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Plus, the neutronium would be arriving without any significant momentum (which is what makes asteroids so deadly), so the damage might not even be that big. I'd imaging the effect would be roughly similar to flipping Mt. Everest, i.e. you'd get a big ol' hole in the ground and not much else.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Nice try though.

>>>>>>> **u/WalkingHorror** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Thanks! That link is quite awesome.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Aren't you forgetting the power of all of that mass expanding in single moment, though? Didn't find anything about it in article.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>  Also I'm pretty sure it would be enough to penetrate the crust and create enormous volcano, which could be enough to change atmosphere to unbreathable, no?

>>>>>>>> **u/Solonarv** [+1]  *Chaos Legion* (3 days later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I couldn't find anything on how stable neutronium would be outside of the enormous pressure that created it, nor on whether it would behave like a solid or (in?)incompressible fluid.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I assumed it would be solid or fluid, but stable, i.e. wouldn't immediately explode, in which case you'd get a *really* deep hole, which doesn't *necessarily* create a volcano (I think).
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> If it *does* immediately explode, it would probably expand into something at *least* as dense as air, which'd take up at most as much volume as earth's atmosphere\*. Now *that* is one gib blastwave; I assume it'd wipe out most non-extremophile life, including plants; you'd have enormous tsunami-like waves crashing into approximately half the world's beaches, possibly reaching far into otherwise dry land and swallowing several islands whole.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I'd try to run some calculations on that blastwave, but it's late, I'm tired, and I'm very unfamiliar with fluid dynamics :/
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> *Earth's atmosphere conveniently weighs around twice as much as Mt. Everest
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I will, however, submit this to Randall Munroe of xkcd and see if that won't get a What If entry. My sleepy brain refused to calculate the energy released by 66L of neutronium expanding until equilibrium with the atmosphere's reached, but I'm pretty sure it would be far more that the similar [relativistic baseball](http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/) entry.

> **u/Chronophilia** [+2]  *sci-fi ≠ futurology* (2 hours later)
> 
> >In order to teleport somewhere he needs to have a very clear picture of it in his mind. This means [...] he is extremely familiar with it from spending a lot of time there.
> 
> If he's teleporting to a location that has changed significantly since he last saw it, does the teleport go through anyway? Does it simply fail? For example, he's teleporting to his childhood home, but someone else has moved in and bought all new furniture.
> 
> If there are several places that his mental image could match, does it pick at random? Does it pick "the closest match"? Does it choose in some other way? Or fail? For example, he's teleporting to a hotel room, and there's 100 identical rooms in the building - where does he go?
> 
> Either way, could this be used to gain information about a place without actually teleporting? I'm imagining that Al attempts to teleport to his safe-house, but specifically pictures the door being locked and the room being empty. If the teleport fails, he knows it's not safe there - and his attackers don't know he knows.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+3]  (6 hours later)
>> 
>> > If he's teleporting to a location that has changed significantly since he last saw it, does the teleport go through anyway? Does it simply fail? For example, he's teleporting to his childhood home, but someone else has moved in and bought all new furniture.
>> 
>> Hm.  I think it fails.
>> 
>> > If there are several places that his mental image could match, does it pick at random? Does it pick "the closest match"? Does it choose in some other way? Or fail? For example, he's teleporting to a hotel room, and there's 100 identical rooms in the building - where does he go?
>> 
>> If he's just teleporting to "some random hotel room that looks like this" then it fails.  If he's teleporting to "room 202", or has some other unique descriptor for the room, then it works.
>> 
>> > 
>> > Either way, could this be used to gain information about a place without actually teleporting? I'm imagining that Al attempts to teleport to his safe-house, but specifically pictures the door being locked and the room being empty. If the teleport fails, he knows it's not safe there - and his attackers don't know he knows.
>> 
>> Yes!  And that is full of awesome sauce.

> **u/None** [+2]  (3 hours later)
> 
> Ignoring the whole found-out-and-dissected-by-the-NSA bit. Also assuming that teleportation takes place in a manner that prevents relativistic happy fun times. What I would *actually* do is just shorten my commute. Probably do a bit more tourism and hiking.
> 
> > In order to teleport somewhere he needs to have a very clear picture of it in his mind. This means either he can see it directly, 
> 
> In a clear night sky with a telescope, I can see the Andromeda galaxy. Presumably that isn't enough to let me teleport to the Andromeda galaxy -- or would it? If so, this offers extremely cheap space exploration: I don a space suit, teleport to the moon, look at a particular nebula, spend a handful of jumps getting close to that nebula, gather telemetry with my space suit, and teleport back.
> 
> You found an exoplanet? With a good image of the region, I can teleport to some spot nearby, then hop successively closer with relative jumps. If I see a place that's sufficiently Earthlike, I can investigate it further, even land. The moment I detect danger, I'm back home in a decontamination tank.
> 
> You want to set up a space station? Lift in in a helium balloon ten inches off the floor and I can teleport it to orbit. Or if that's cheating, I can at least heft 80kg chunks into space, and I can go up there with minimal preparation and cost to assemble these chunks.
> 
> > or if it's on top of something he is lifting.
> 
> How does this translate into zero gravity? Can I grab onto a giant space station and teleport with the whole thing?
> 
> > He is shifted into the momentum frame of his destination, so if he teleports from the pole to the equator he isn't mashed into a wall by the change in the earth's rotation.
> 
> Similarly, if I teleport from here to the moon while jogging, I will be going a jogging pace relative to the surface of the moon. If I am falling at 100m/s and teleport to the far side of the gravity well I'm in, I will be falling 100m/s in the opposite direction.
> 
> > He cannot bring part of an object with him
> 
> How about fluids?
> 
> > but he can switch himself with a part of an object.
> 
> Which is scary, actually. Some of those objects are people. I would need to install webcams in the places I typically want to teleport to in order to ensure they're empty when I want to teleport there.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (6 hours later)
>> 
>> >>     In order to teleport somewhere he needs to have a very clear picture of it in his mind. This means either he can see it directly,
>> > 
>> > In a clear night sky with a telescope, I can see the Andromeda galaxy. Presumably that isn't enough to let me teleport to the Andromeda galaxy -- or would it? 
>> 
>> Nope.  And a satellite image of New York would not be sufficient to let him teleport to Times Square.  He'd need an up-close-and-personal picture taken at the actual location.
>> 
>> Hm.  Now that I think about it, that probably wouldn't work.  Too many things would be different from the picture to the state of the target at the current moment -- tourists not there, etc.
>> 
>> Needing a very-close-to-exact match to current circumstances would do a lot to control the power level here.  If "someone moved the couch" is sufficient to ban him from teleporting into a room things become much less exploitable.
>> 
>> >>     or if it's on top of something he is lifting.
>> > 
>> > How does this translate into zero gravity? Can I grab onto a giant space station and teleport with the whole thing?
>> 
>> *grumble*   You Internetians and your difficult questions.  
>> 
>> I honestly don't know how that would work.  What would you do with it?
>> 
>> >>     He is shifted into the momentum frame of his destination, so if he teleports from the pole to the equator he isn't mashed into a wall by the change in the earth's rotation.
>> > 
>> > Similarly, if I teleport from here to the moon while jogging, I will be going a jogging pace relative to the surface of the moon. If I am falling at 100m/s and teleport to the far side of the gravity well I'm in, I will be falling 100m/s in the opposite direction.
>> 
>> I think the momentum frame would need to be defined in relation to the center of mass of the object.  So, if you are falling 100 m/s and you teleport to the opposite side of the earth, you're still falling 100 m/s second and you're still falling towards the center of the earth; it's just that your velocity vector has been flipped.

>>> **u/None** [+1]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> Actually, that momentum thing is another problem. If I'm orbiting the sun, how can I safely teleport to the earth? I'm moving relative to the sun's surface, and very fast at that. Or from interstellar space -- there, it's not even a matter of safety. What are you measuring my momentum relative to, if I manage to get to the barycenter of the Milky Way and Andromeda?
>>> 
>>> For the teleporting to distant galaxies problem, it seems like you're saying I need to be able to distinguish features of a particular size to go there. I can't look at the moon and teleport there because the features I can distinguish are leagues across. I can teleport across a valley because I can distinguish features that are under a meter across. But this would place a dependency on eyesight.
>>> 
>>> Blind people can't teleport. I would be hard pressed to teleport a city block without glasses unless I'd been there before. (And it seems like you want to rule out technological assistance for this part, so eyeglasses don't let me teleport further than I could without. Or telescopes would help, at least within a few light seconds.)
>>> 
>>> Also, what about teleporting onto moving objects? If I am sufficiently familiar with the QE2's main deck, can I teleport there even if the ship is on the move? Obvious momentum considerations aside.
>>> 
>>> What about different locations that look identical?
>>> 
>>> What if I know a place very well but don't know where it is? I was drunk and wandered into the middle of a desert, had an hour of lucidity and memorized a place, passed out, woke up in a hospital... Can I teleport back?
>>> 
>>> You need to be oriented, but what if I'm oriented on Mars and want to teleport to Earth? Do I need to know the vague direction toward Earth?

>> **u/rationalidurr** [+0]  *If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!* (2 days later)
>> 
>> Im just respondign to the zero G part.
>> NO there is no zero G in space its all free fall. People, satellites and space stations still have weight and momentum, its just that they are all falling to the Earth and moving to the side at the same time, so they don't fall completely.
>> 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weightlessness
>> 
>> I thinks this explains better.

>>> **u/autowikibot** [+1]  (2 days later)
>>> 
>>> #####	
>>> 
>>> ######	
>>> 
>>> ####	
>>>  [**Weightlessness**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weightlessness): [](#sfw) 
>>> 
>>> ---
>>> 
>>> >__Weightlessness__, or an absence of 'weight', is in fact an absence of stress and strain resulting from externally applied mechanical contact-forces, typically normal forces from floors, seats, beds, scales, and the like. Counterintuitively, a uniform gravitational field does not by itself cause stress or strain, and a body in free fall in such an environment experiences no [g-force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force) acceleration and feels weightless. This is also termed "zero-g" where the term is most correctly understood as meaning "zero g-force."
>>> 
>>> >====
>>> 
>>> >[**Image**](https://i.imgur.com/wMU24oY.jpg) [^(i)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Foale_ZeroG.jpg) - *Astronauts on the International Space Station experience only microgravity and thus display an example of weightlessness. Michael Foale can be seen exercising in the foreground.*
>>> 
>>> ---
>>> 
>>> ^Interesting: [^Michel ^Jonasz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Jonasz) ^| [^Space ^adaptation ^syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_adaptation_syndrome) ^| [^Sex ^in ^space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_in_space) 
>>> 
>>> ^Parent ^commenter ^can [^toggle ^NSFW](/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot NSFW toggle&message=%2Btoggle-nsfw+cnrrsns) ^or[](#or) [^delete](/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot Deletion&message=%2Bdelete+cnrrsns)^. ^Will ^also ^delete ^on ^comment ^score ^of ^-1 ^or ^less. ^| [^(FAQs)](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/wiki/index) ^| [^Mods](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/comments/1x013o/for_moderators_switches_commands_and_css/) ^| [^Magic ^Words](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/comments/1ux484/ask_wikibot/)

>>> **u/None** [+1]  (2 days later)
>>> 
>>> There *is* zero g in space, or close enough; we just haven't reached it. The barycenter between Andromeda and the Milky Way would be an example -- you'd have two sources of gravity, but they're too remote to provide any appreciable amount of force, and you're not falling toward either.

> **u/dhighway61** [+2]  (4 hours later)
> 
> The first thing I'd do is get one of those belts that vibrates in the direction of true North, or maybe implant a magnet into a finger. People seem to have acquired tremendous sense of direction after taking those steps. That would solve the most dangerous drawback of the power. 
> 
> After that, I'm not sure. It would be tempting to get rich. If I managed to resist the draw of easy riches, I'd probably get in touch with Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or someone else capable of doing great things for humanity. Teleportation could probably solve a lot of problems for the developing world.
> 
> I think it might be possible to imprison someone by standing in a jail cell, wearing a very large sumo suit, swapping places with a target, and immediately teleporting back to a safe place.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+2]  (5 hours later)
>> 
>> > I think it might be possible to imprison someone by standing in a jail cell, wearing a very large sumo suit, swapping places with a target, and immediately teleporting back to a safe place.
>> 
>> Yep, that should work.  What's the sumo suit for?

>>> **u/dhighway61** [+3]  (5 hours later)
>>> 
>>> To increase my physical volume. That makes teleportation accuracy less of an issue, as well as reducing the chance of injuring my target. If the sumo suit is large enough, it is conceivably possible to displace more than one targeted person.

>>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+2]  (6 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Ah, clever.  Hadn't thought about that part of it.

> **u/Rhamni** [+2]  *Aspiring author* (16 hours later)
> 
> Could be used to break practically unbreakable things? Say he needs to get his crew of criminals into a bank vault. He could stand before a wall/menacing vault door, then teleport so that a part of him is inside the door, then quickly away, then repeat until the hole is big enough for his people to get in.
> 
> Similarly, if it ever becomes necessary to break the Unbreakable Artefact, just teleport so an arm appears where half the artefact was?
> 
> I guess there would have to be other powers in the world that could interfere with his.

> **u/Evilness42** [+2]  *And even myth is long forgotten...* (17 hours later)
> 
> Well, getting a job as a photographer would probably be a good idea. Otherwise, it could potentially have applications in digging/construction/mining. As in, teleport in to clear out chunks of rock, etc. You can then do stuff with the chunks of rock that are cleared out. Would he be capable of telefragging? Stick your arm out in front of you, teleport to a position where it would be inside someone's face.

>> **u/IWantUsToMerge** [+2]  (22 hours later)
>> 
>> > Would he be capable of telefragging?
>> 
>> It almost doesn't need to be said. Unless you have a Zion(and interventional godlike figures don't really belong in rational fiction), powers will apply just as well to organic material as inorganic material. There is the issue that if the character users that, they'll come to be seen as a living weapon, though, and they may be wise enough to avoid demonstrating that. They might even decide to lie about it.

>>> **u/Evilness42** [+1]  *And even myth is long forgotten...* (a day later)
>>> 
>>> I know, I know. Stupid of me to even ask, really. Limits like that are only put in by authors who want to limit their character(')s potential(s), or don't realize how teleportation works(or how it should work the way they portrayed it).

> **u/Geminii27** [+2]  (18 hours later)
> 
> Reference frame hacking. He's falling towards the ground for some reason - can he teleport directly to the ground without plowing into it at the same speed?
> 
> If not, can he teleport to the *exact opposite location on the planet* while maintaining a reference frame with respect to, say, the Sun, so that he's now traveling upwards instead of downwards? And when he slows to a stop, can he now teleport safely to the ground?
> 
> If his reference frame is always going to be with respect to the nearest gravitational sink, that's going to be problematic. If he falls from somewhere and reaches terminal velocity, he can keep teleporting back up into the air, but will presumably eventually succumb to fatigue unless he can find somewhere like a giant airbag to appear above.
> 
> Hacks from density-changing power exploits:  
> - being able to cut through any form of normal matter by teleporting a hand or finger into the matter, then teleporting back out again, leaving a crudely gouged hole. He could make neater cuts by picking up a knife or a chopstick and teleporting only that part of "things he's carrying" into the target. If he can control exactly what comes with him during teleports, he can disintegrate chains, handcuffs etc.  
> - being able to place items inside or the other side of things (like containers or walls) by tying them to a thin string, swinging the string until it's horizontal, and then teleporting himself, the string, and the item so that the string penetrates the container/wall and the item winds up embedded or on the other side, with only the smallest hole in the penetrated surface to give it away. Maybe use fishing line?  
> - should he take to wearing a face-mask with an oxygen supply? It'd handle the problem with destination material getting into his lungs, provide a few minutes of air while he reoriented, and it could have a built-in mini-gyroscope in his field of view which always showed which way was 'up'. Escape any embedding by teleporting a mile up, then looking for the ground and immediately teleporting back to it. Might want to start wearing shoes/boots with shock absorbers, or an airbag suit, or something which could minimize the impact of short falls. Or just have a permanent set of emergency-services giant airbags (the kind used for jumpers) set up in a cave somewhere. Or take to wearing an emergency small parachute all the time.
> 
> (On a side note, if the material of the destination fills his lungs if he has his mouth open, does he have to block his nostrils as well?)
> 
> Wealth hacking. What's the value of genuine moonrock to specialist collectors? What are people currently paying to put micro- and nano-satellites into orbit? Would the character be interested in smuggling? How about delivering "diplomatic parcels" to embassies?
> 
> How stealthy is the character? Could they track people while staying out of sight on rooftops or other locations? If he didn't want to empty out bank vaults to make some cash, would he consider tracking drug dealers to their sources, tracking those sources to *their* sources, and eventually seeing if they could wind up looking at somewhere with a stupidly large amount of physical cash stored on the premises? Which leads to the question of how much of a pallet of cash could he grab with a jump-in, jump-out maneuver? Especially if he seeded the area with smoke grenades first and then did multiple jumps? What if he wore a sumo suit and just teleported into the cash pile from his storage location? (Sure, a lot of cash would be chopped up, but the raw volume should bring a lot of it back. And doing it again on a two-second delay would allow the cash which had been surrounding him on the first appearance to fall into the hole he'd made, making it a target for the second trip.)
> 
> Come to think of it, I'm really liking the airbag-suit/sumo-suit thing. Automatically increase his 'displace' volume *and* handle short falls!

> **u/lsparrish** [+2]  (a day later)
> 
> I'd prioritize setting up a lunar colony. Get a self-sustaining automated factory system going there. Port in starter batches of the small, high tech stuff like laser diodes, motors, and computer chips, make the bulkier stuff out of refined regolith, get an in-situ tech spiral going until it is truly self replicating (hiring/kidnapping engineers as needed), then cover the whole Moon with robots.
> 
> For startup cash, instead of trying to sell authentic moon dust (potentially raising questions about where it came from), maybe sell it online as moon dust [simulant](http://www.orbitec.com/store/simulant.html). Martian dust simulant sells for $500 for 50lb. A few dozen trips, using an old scuba suit or something, and you have enough to finance some better engineered gear (like maybe an actual space suit). After that, you can stay long enough to look around a bit. In certain impact craters (caused by C-type asteroids) there are probably diamonds. These could be sold to finance further operations.

>> **u/xamueljones** [+1]  *My arch-enemy is entropy* (2 days later)
>> 
>> Actually [diamonds are extremely cheap](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/304575/).

>>> **u/lsparrish** [+2]  (3 days later)
>>> 
>>> They seem to still fetch a fair price. You'd be unlikely to get anything near full retail value, but that's not a problem if you have a significant supply on hand. Also, higher weight category diamonds fetch higher prices. You'd want to keep them small enough to avoid attention, is all.

> **u/lsparrish** [+2]  (a day later)
> 
> The ability to teleport objects you are holding, combined with the fact that whatever is there at the destination changes places with it, seems pretty exploitable.
> 
> You could hold extremely lightweight objects and teleport next to big heavy objects to move or cut through them. It could be used to tunnel your way through a mountain (just need a piece of styrofoam long and light enough).
> 
> If "carrying" applies to buoyant, inflated objects, one could conceivably use a helium balloon inflated in the desired shape and just barely heavier than air, to displace arbitrarily large structures -- entire mountains, perhaps -- lifting their rocky mass to extreme heights, etc.

>> **u/lsparrish** [+2]  (3 days later)
>> 
>> Teleporting while holding onto a piece of diamond might be a way to fuse two or more of them together. Big gems fetch disproportionately higher prices relative to small ones, and diamond dust is actually cheap, so you could make money this way even just using diamonds from earth.
>> 
>> By using a glass replica of an exquisitely cut gem, you could turn raw uncut diamond into finished gems directly. Rest the replica on your hand and teleport to holding your hand directly under the bulk. (The diamond section ends up at the other location and the glass ends to buried in the raw diamond.)
>> 
>> You could also make some 'stamp' three dimensional shapes out by teleporting in plastic models from a 3D printer. So you could make durable, tough customized components for your workshop, and maybe even a good suit of armor. (In addition to the protection, picking stuff up with powered armor might be a way to increase teleport limits.)

> **u/Farmerbob1** [+2]  *Level 1 author* (3 days later)
> 
> His potential as an assassin or saboteur is pretty damn extreme with the current power description.  Here's a very low tech example.
> 
> Put on a protective suit.  Fill a creatively-designed (so you can study it and teleport back to it) storage tank to neck-height with diesel fuel, and feed non-oxygen gasses into it.  Use a drone or live video to teleport to a site.  Inflate a very large airbag, drop a lit thermite charge, and then teleport back into the diesel-filled room, holding the airbag below neck level.  You then exit the tank out the ladder.
> 
> Even if you carry sparks back with you, there will be no oxygen in the diesel tank to ignite, but a couple cubic yards of diesel fuel will appear at the point where you teleported out, right on top of the magnesium flare you lit.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+3]  (3 days later)
>> 
>> This took me a second...by "pop an airbag" you mean "inflate it", right?  I thought you meant pop as in "pop a balloon" and was confused.
>> 
>> Yeah, that would make for a pretty big problem for whatever was on the other side.  I don't think you'd get a thermobaric explosion, just a giant Molotov cocktail, but that would be bad enough.

>>> **u/Farmerbob1** [+1]  *Level 1 author* (3 days later)
>>> 
>>> Reworded the airbag bit.  I doubt there would be a thermobaric explosion, but a few cubic yards of burning diesel fuel is a nightmare in almost any place where people would be.  And there's nothing to say that you couldn't do the same with more esoteric chemicals.  I chose diesel because it is a dense energy liquid, and easy to get.

> **u/Dreamliss** [+1]  (14 hours later)
> 
> I can't tell from your post if you've already read the Jumper books by Steven Gould or not. While the teleport power in the books doesn't match up to your qualifications exactly, I feel that Gould's approach to it is very rational. Also I just wanted to point out that the movie is nothing, *nothing* in comparison to the books.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (16 hours later)
>> 
>> I have not, no. I saw the movie but didn't realize there were books as well. And this was all parallel evolution-- I wrote up the description and didn't think about Jumper until I got to the last sentence.

> **u/Tirran** [+1]  (21 hours later)
> 
> I think the mechanic would work better if instead of teleportation, it was the ability to switch position and momentum. Some of the rules you have are really ad hoc and not well defined as is(Like the entire handcuffs thing. If he can teleport without bringing the aor around him with him or just the air tpuchinf his skin, he'd be able to teleport away by just teleporting a thin slice of metal with him) and feel really janky. If instead he could could switch objects' position amd momentum with himself the rules would bw a lot more simple and elegant. You could restrict the amount of material he'd be able to transfer my some sort of muscle-like mechanism, that would gradually become more powerful as the story progressed, or just leave it to his own body mass(which could be exploited by becoming so fat he'd need the equivalent of a baby elephant to swap with every time which would cause a small boom any time he appeared). If you actually want to write a rationalist story and aren't afraid of newtonian physics, that would probably be the easiest way, because right now your system is so piecemeal it can't be explored or exploited properly.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (22 hours later)
>> 
>> What's the difference between "teleportation" and "switch position"?
>> 
>> No argument that the rules I proposed are janky -- that was kinda the point, was to get some help at refining them.

>>> **u/Tirran** [+1]  (23 hours later)
>>> 
>>> It's the difference between switching the molecules at one location with  molecules of equivalent mass at a second location, and suddenly causing molecules at one location to not exist and then exist at a second location. In the second version, at the first site you would immediately notice a drop in pressure because several mols of molecules all of a sudden left the vicinity. I'm not sure how much force it would generate, but the acceleration or jerk would probably be on the order of a punch or kick pulling matter in the area in(likely a lot larger, I haven't done the math). At the site of reappearance, it would then produce an equivalent amount of acceleration/jerk. In addition, the person would suddenly have about 80 grams of atmosphere through their body. We're mostly empty space, so initially the molecules would all fit. Unfortunately, the rapid collisions would push the molecules apart pretty rapidly. 80 grams doesn't seem like a lot, but when you have about 6 grams of oxygen in your brain trying to escape as fast as possible, death would probably be the best thing you can hope for. In the first version, you avoid all of these complications, because you can switch the momentum and position of all the molecules in the relevant area. It'd be easiest if you could have a direct mass to mass exchange because then the velocity wouldn't change, but since momentums are exchanged it would work almost exactly like an elastic collision so you can easily calculate it. This has the added benefit of being able to switch with lower or higher mass objects, the person would just be going as much faster or slower as mass was lost or gained(the exact equation is M1*V1i + M2*V2i = M1*V2f + M2*V2f, where M1i is object 1's mass, V2i is object 2's initial velocity, and V1f is object 1's final velocity). Basocally, if he changes position with a cliff, he'd suddenly be moving at an insane speed. This is the best system in my opinion, because it at least conserves energy, and has enough complexity that the main character will have to experiment a lot to understand.

>>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> Switching with stuff at the other end is exactly what I proposed, which is why your post confused me. Maybe I should have phrased my question as "what's the difference between what I'm proposing and what you're proposing?"
>>>> 
>>>> Your system would work but is OP for the story I was to tell -- I don't want the character to be switching places with a cliff. Thanks for the idea, though.

>>>>> **u/Tirran** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Oh, I must have misunderstood. I interpreted the entire sixth bullet point way wrong, because I thought that you were just switching volume, without any respect to the energy of the system he was switching with. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> I think it came from "momentum frame", which I mistook for just meaning velocity without any respect for mass because of the entire warp into space thing. I think I read into that that it was just gonna be positional wish fulfillment because there wouldn't be anything to switch with other than radiation and incredibly tiny dust molecules that would completely retard the speed he would be going at.
>>>>> In addition, the entire "Teleporting into a solid object is apparently a Really Bad Idea" made it seem as though he wouldn't be replacing the concrete with the oxygen in his blood and lungs.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Within the constraints of those rules though, I think the best thing he could do is to rapidly redefine how his subconscious defines self, because if he subscribes to the cosmic view that he is deity and is therefore omnipresent, he could functionally teleport anything anywhere. He wouldn't even be really wrong or irrational in believing that, because if the only delineation between what he can and can't manipulate is what he believes he can or can't manipulate, he is deity.

> **u/None** [+1]  (2 days later)
> 
> Possible problems:
> 
> > He is shifted into the momentum frame of his destination, so if he teleports from the pole to the equator he isn't mashed into a wall by the change in the earth's rotation.
> 
> Locations don't have momentum frames, the stuff in them does, and you threw that stuff back the other way.
> 
> > He cannot take part of an object with him when he teleports.
> 
> Is this a special exception to his portal-cut-swap on arrival? He has to teleport away first and then back into the object to take part of it?
> 
> > In order to teleport somewhere he needs to have a very clear picture of it in his mind. This means either he can see it directly, he is currently looking at a detailed picture of it, or he is extremely familiar with it from spending a lot of time there.
> 
> -
> 
> > In order to teleport somewhere, he must know roughly what direction it is. If he's lost his sense of direction (e.g. underwater, in a dark room, etc) he can't just teleport out.
> 
> These two don't seem to play well together.
> 
> > There is no range limit on his teleportation.
> 
> Does he speed of light lag on his way to his destination? In what frames of reference do we observe an instantaneous transmission? In which ones does his teleport provide FTL signaling and backward time travel?
> 
> Is energy and entropy conserved? If he changes from one potential in a field force (ex gravity), such as say by teleporting to a lower altitude, does he become hotter while the displaced material becomes colder?

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (3 days later)
>> 
>> > Is this a special exception to his portal-cut-swap on arrival? He has to teleport away first and then back into the object to take part of it?
>> 
>> He brings things from his source to his destination.
>> 
>> > These two don't seem to play well together.
>> 
>> Why not?
>> 
>> > Is energy and entropy conserved?
>> 
>> I hadn't thought about it, but that's a really interesting limitation.  Thanks for the suggestion.

>>> **u/None** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>> 
>>> >> Is this a special exception to his portal-cut-swap on arrival? He has to teleport away first and then back into the object to take part of it?
>>> 
>>> > He brings things from his source to his destination.
>>> 
>>> I have a block of cheese. I want to teleport half the block of cheese to a destination. I put my hand on top of the block of cheese. I teleport to the destination. I lower my hand slightly. I teleport back. Roughly half the cheese overlaps with my hand on my arrival and is sent to the original destination like I intended.
>>> 
>>> You haven't actually stopped me from portal cutting things I want to take with me, you've just delayed me by a jump and perhaps some setup time to find an appropriately sized/shaped object to cut with. I can murder anyone by holding out my fist, teleporting at them, and arriving with my hand in their chest, and chunks of their sternum and heart on the floor behind me.
>>> 
>>> Furthermore, portal cutting severs chemical and physical bonds which contain potential energy. Depending on how fine you grain it, I might also be severing nuclear, chromodynamic, or even mass-equivalency bonds when the edge of my portal blade slices off part of a particle's amplitude in phase space. I might cause *tacnuke explosions* around me on arrival, or behind me.

>>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> Portal slicing something via double jump:  sure, absolutely.  That was explicitly stated to work.   
>>>> 
>>>> Teleportation cuts at a macroscopic level and therefore does not cause explosions.

>>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> So if someone stretches out a monomolecule across the hallway, and I jump into it, what happens?
>>>>> 
>>>>> How hard does an object have to be to stop my portal cut? How much force is being applied to how small a macroscopic region?

> **u/MugaSofer** [+1]  (3 days later)
> 
> >Whatever he's carrying when he teleports goes with him. I need a more specific definition of "carrying" here, but the basics are intuitive: he can take it with him if he is lifting it, if it's inside something he is lifting, or if it's on top of something he is lifting.
> 
> I know you still haven't decided on a precise definition for "carrying", but: this reminds me of a scene in *The Long Earth*, which has a similar rule. Specifically, it reminded me of the scene where (extremely minor spoiler alert) the protagonist teleports while "carrying" an airship on the end of a rope, and it works.
> 
> The simplest way to do this would be to have air act as a sort of "teleport-insulator", but that would either require you to jump every time you teleport (heck, why not?) or to be able to leave bindings behind. Or, maybe, to only leave behind things that are below you?

> **u/CitrusJ** [+1]  (6 days later)
> 
> Possibly tie in "what he's carrying" to some level of what he psychologically believes he's carrying?  I'm assuming he makes a mental decision to teleport and then it happens, so maybe those kind of barriers would help (and he has to be directly touching it?  The thing about carrying things in general is how do you define where an object ends?  A rope isn't homogeneous, so how would 'the universe' know where the rope ends and say a tied string begins, especially as there could be air molecules, bacteria, etc. intertwined.  Let alone how you define it's boundary with another object at a microscopic level).
> 
> Uhh you say he faces the same way as the source point, but you need to define a reference frame for that (can be a secret/ties into his eventual source of power).  Facing south doesn't make sense if he teleports into space, unless he literally always is aligned based on his position and direction on Earth.
> 
> "Sense of direction" is loosely defined.  As in knowing which way is the Sun/the magnetic North/South?  If it's something like this it'd be worth always carrying a compass etc.

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