Alain Fournier writes:

[trimming down a bit]

On Sep/24/2020 at 04:14, David Spain wrote :
Anything that fits inside the transporter beam? Essentially using quantum
mechanics and spooky action-at-a-distance to get around the light speed
hangup. I've always thought that if you can essentially assemble something
in zero elapsed time anywhere in the universe, that's probably the best way
to travel. The trick is getting the receivers where you want them.

I thought about this some more. I was wondering what would be the best payload
for an Alcubierre drive. But the answer to my question might very well be no
payload at all. If at destination they can detect that an Alcubierre drive has
arrived, and know when and/or where that has happened, even if the drive
contains nothing, information can be transmitted this way. And since the size
of the drive seems to be a limiting factor, if you reduce the payload to
nothing, you don't have to bother making the drive big enough to carry it.

And I've thought about my response a bit more as well. It would be somewhat
silly and naive to think that we humans would necessarily be the first
inventors of a Star-gate. So essentially the issue of receivers sort of solves
itself! The answer is any civilization that is sufficiently advanced to create
this technology will have a receiver at their location by definition! This
also neatly solves the Star Trek Prime Directive issue as well, since there is
already a significant barrier to entry and requires a level of technological
sophistication on the part of each party that is amenable to first contacts.

Also you can prevent hostilities and invasion by hostile aliens simply by
turning your receiver off! Of course this presumes one has invented one's own
Star-gate and that some interloper hasn't sneaked one into your system via
light-sail over a gazillion years that you don't know about!

Dave