Star Trek: Decontamination Gel, Explained

Traveling to alien planets introduced Starfleet officers to all sorts of unknown contaminants. By the 23rd century in the Star Trek universe, all transporters were equipped with a program to filter out contaminants.

Star Trek’s transporters work by breaking down an organism or object into its individual molecules, converting those molecules into energy, beaming that energy to the specified destination, then reconstructing the molecules back into the organism or object. Because the matter being transported is broken down to the molecular level, a filtering program can detect potential contaminants (bacteria, viruses, particles of organic material, etc.) and filter them out before reconstructing the matter back into the person or object being transported. However, this technology wasn’t perfect, even in the 23rd and 24th centuries. So, there had to be a backup decontamination process.

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The Old School Decontamination Protocols

Back in the 22nd century, transporter technology was still experimental, and quite dangerous. When the crew of the Enterprise NX-01 wanted to go somewhere off-ship, they took a shuttlecraft. And when they came back, they had to undergo the decontamination protocols.

As soon as NX-01 crew members stepped off their shuttlecraft, they headed to the decontamination chamber. The chamber was filled with high-powered ultraviolet lights to kill any viruses and bacteria the crew members might be carrying on their skin or clothes. Once there, they had to cover their entire bodies in decontamination gel. Of course, this required taking off most of their clothes. Then, they had to hang out in the decontamination chamber until tricorder scans revealed their bodies to be free of potential contaminants. Interestingly, Star Trek canon has never established exactly what’s in decontamination gel or how it works. It’s simply referred to as a topical gel used in decontamination protocols.

Once transporter technology and the filtering systems built into them were reliable, these decontamination protocols became a thing of the past — mostly. As any fan of Star Trek knows, the awesome technology of the future malfunctions just like the technology of today.

Sometimes the transporter’s filter wouldn’t detect a contaminant, and the transporter would reconstruct the organism or object with the contaminant still present. Sometimes, the filtering system just broke down for unknown reasons. That’s exactly what happened in the recent Star Trek: Lower Decks episode “Starbase 80?!?”. While the transporter’s filtering systems were offline, Starfleet officers coming onto a new ship, starbase, or Federation planet had to undergo the old school decontamination protocols: gobs of decon gel and a stay in the decon chamber.

The Infamous T’Pol Decontamination Scenes

Star Trek: Enterprise introduced the decontamination protocols in the very first episode, “Broken Bow.” After picking up a dangerous pathogen on an alien planet, Subcommander T’Pol and Commander Trip Tucker had to do a stint in the decontamination chamber. Since it was essential to cover their entire bodies in the decontamination gel, Enterprise viewers got their first of many awkward scenes of Enterprise NX-01 crew members stripping down to their undies in a cramped room and rubbing each other down with decon gel.

The decontamination chamber was an essential plot device, demonstrating how the crew of the Enterprise NX-01 didn’t have access to the technology that Star Trek fans were so used to seeing. However, it also became the setting for some of Star Trek’s most suggestive scenes. The vast majority of the decon chamber scenes involved T’Pol, the Vulcan first officer played by former supermodel Jolene Blalock. In these scenes, Blalock was usually clad in boy-short undies and a bra. And she was always being sensually rubbed down by one of her crewmates, usually Tucker (played by Connor Trineer) or Captain Jonathan Archer (played by Scott Bakula).

The scenes were dripping with sexual tension, but they never came off as sexy. In fact, most fans found them extremely uncomfortable. Maybe it was because they were such an obvious attempt to force sexiness into Star Trek. Or perhaps it was because the scenes are so exploitative of Blalock, turning her into a sexual object rather than honoring her character. To this day, the decon chamber scenes are one of the most criticized aspects of Enterprise.

The Lower Decks Spin on the Decon Chamber

Since it premiered in 2020, the writers behind Lower Decks have excelled at not only honoring the Star Trek shows that came before it, but also at calling out the problematic parts of those shows. And they manage to do so in such funny ways that it doesn’t feel like they’re disparaging the legacy of Star Trek. They’re just flipping the script, literally, to make those problematic aspects visible and change the narrative.

In “Starbase 80?!?” the Lower Decks writers took on the infamous decon chamber. Though they had a chance to parody the T’Pol decon chamber scenes by putting Mariner and Boimler or Tendi and Rutherford into the awkward situation of rubbing each other down while half naked, the writers chose not to take the obvious road. Instead, they put Commander Ransom in the role of T’Pol.

As fans will know, Ransom loves his own body almost as much as he loves Starfleet. He showed up in the decontamination chamber not just ready to rub himself down with decon gel, but downright pumped. Fans got an unnecessarily long, but absolutely hilarious, scene of Ransom seductively rubbing the gel all over his body while groaning with pleasure.

The scene was both completely in character for Ransom and a clever way to critique Enterprise’s exploitative, and frankly sexist, decon chamber scenes. As always, the Lower Decks writers walked the tightrope between parody and commentary of the Star Trek universe perfectly.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Release Date

September 26, 2001

Seasons

4

Creator

Rick Berman, Brannon Braga

Number of Episodes

98

Network

UPN

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Sources: Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Lower Decks