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Remember how we found out that not only are people fully conscious the entire time when they are converted from matter to energy and back (which makes that scene in TMP even worse), but there are CREATURES that can ATTACK them while it happens?
But those creatures are partially transported people.
So I like to imagine all the people O'Brien has stashed in the transport buffer are floating around and watching all the ship's transporter activity. They see away teams constantly coming back with fewer red-shirts, the shore leave walks of shame, and that one Lt. from Stellar Cartography who transports to their quarters every night so they don't have to make turbolift small-talk.
You'd think at a certain point O'Brien would just start saving "copies" of the red-shirts and bring them back with the rest of the away team. Which would be doubly disconcerting if you think about it because their last memory would be beaming away with the away team since they wouldn't have memories of dying.
Believe it or not, right to
jailthe pattern buffer.We have the galaxy’s best federation, because of pattern buffer
It would be better than being dead.
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
'Cause your presence still lingers here
In my pattern buffer
Is it always? What if I came back half transporter worm, or all transporter worm? Would you still love me Stephen?
I don't think he can. He's not Scotty. Voyager tried to replicate the trick, and could only hold someone in there for a few hours.
Assuming it's possible to copy patterns at all (maybe DS9 might know?). Barclay didn't clone the mid-transport people. The person he grabbed would be the original. The pattern was just maintained for an unusually long time, like a natural version of what Scotty did in Relics.