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Inspired by Personal Teleportation as a Weapon

Using the teleportation rules from that question:

  1. The Teleporter can teleport themselves and/or any object (including people) they are touching, with a total mass limit of roughly double their own mass.
  2. People/things/self can only be teleported to places which the Teleporter has previously visited in person.

How could a group of people tasked with defending a person defend them from an attacking teleporter the size of an adult human? Assume a near-future world.

Update: for simplicity sake: assume the teleportation method is a mutation similar to Nightcrawler in the X-Men as explained in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightcrawler_(comics)#Powers_and_abilities:

  • Can teleport to any area within 2 miles with pinpoint accuracy;
  • Can teleport to any area he's been before outside that zone with pinpoint accuracy;
  • Teleporting into matter causes injury and/or death, but teleporter can sense areas where this can cause issues before the teleport (sense sharply drops with distance);
  • Teleporting is through an external dimension.

This is not a duplicate of "How do I protect my shop from teleporters?, because that question is about a location and I'm more interested in how to protect a person.

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    $\begingroup$ By disrupting the teleporting process. How that works in detail depends on how teleportation works in detail. Maybe with a magnetic field, maybe by deploying garlic all over the place $\endgroup$
    – elPolloLoco
    Mar 27 '19 at 15:06
  • $\begingroup$ I'm sure we've done this before, but I only found the one about teleporting dragons, the same rules apply $\endgroup$
    – Separatrix
    Mar 27 '19 at 15:20
  • $\begingroup$ @Separatrix Those dragons are a lot larger than a human. $\endgroup$
    – Nzall
    Mar 27 '19 at 15:22
  • $\begingroup$ Found it $\endgroup$
    – Separatrix
    Mar 27 '19 at 15:24
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    $\begingroup$ As a general principle for these sorts of "us vs. them" questions, the universal answer is always "Identify their limits, whatever they are, then abuse the living daylights out of those limits until they can't hurt you." $\endgroup$
    – Cort Ammon
    Mar 27 '19 at 19:22
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Teleporting into matter causes injury and/or death, but teleporter can sense areas where this can cause issues before the teleport (sense sharply drops with distance);

You need to make an area that the teleporter cannot appear in, if you have a compound with narrow corridors with soft bits sticking out that you can walk through no problem, but anyone teleporting in will end with it inside them.

This could be done with hanging bead curtains or foam fronds sticking out from the walls or even turn the compound into a ball pit

If you need to be outside, then turn yourself into a walking porcupine, that will stop the attacker from appearing in contact with you

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    $\begingroup$ Perfect answer. It might even work with just nylon threads hanging from the ceiling. $\endgroup$
    – Echox
    Mar 28 '19 at 8:42
  • $\begingroup$ Indoor moats and ponds (full of ravenous creatures, of course) crossed by retractable bridges as a stylish interior design feature. $\endgroup$
    – user535733
    Apr 3 '19 at 17:36
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Deception

There are two stages to deception:

  1. Concealment: The target's location is concealed from the attacker...and from unwitting friends and family. When the target hides in New York, everybody not actively involved in defense is told the cover story. "Why, she ran off to Patagonia with those strange friends of hers last week."

  2. The Trap: When the attacker arrives in the remote village on the wrong side of the planet, they teleport into a series of fiendish and fatal traps: Booby traps, gas, electrified floors, snipers, old-ladies-serving-poisoned-tea, etc.

Meanwhile, the target is having a lovely time elsewhere, perhaps wearing a wig or other meager disguise until the attacker is dead...and has been autopsied so everyone knows the attacker will stay dead.

Then it's time to seek hilarious revenge on whoever sent the attacker.

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A lot of problems, a yacht of solutions

A yacht in the middle of ocean has no avenues of access for a teleporter who can only visit where they've been. Your VIP can live in comfort and safety.

The only risk would be supply boats, but those can be monitored.

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Go to Space

Bring the People you have to defend to space, where your teleporter can never been. Nowadays, only very,very,VERY few people went to space, and all of them are known. That wont change to soon. So take the people to a space station and they should be secure from the teleporter.

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    $\begingroup$ "Can teleport to any area within 2 miles with pinpoint accuracy" - 'hiding in space' then depends on the teleporter's cool-down time, and whether or not they can teleport with relative-velocities. ex: teleport 'up' 2 miles while wearing a light space suit, then teleport again till you reach your target... $\endgroup$
    – TheLuckless
    Mar 27 '19 at 20:15
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    $\begingroup$ Exactly what I was thinking. In open space, nothing prevents for recursivity. $\endgroup$
    – Malkev
    Mar 28 '19 at 14:01
  • $\begingroup$ @TheLuckless you may have a point here, but I am quite sure that you can use security against this by scaning the surrounding space. And the teleporter has to teleport up to space in 2-mile-steps, falling after each step.. to get up to space (100 km) will take quite a while - and should be very detectable. $\endgroup$
    – Julian Egner
    Apr 2 '19 at 21:34
  • $\begingroup$ @JulianEgner you detect a blip on sensors at 50km away, then another blip at 47, then 45, then 43.5, then 40,... How are you any further ahead than locking your people in a bunker on earth. [That probably cost less, and was easier to get them to unseen?] $\endgroup$
    – TheLuckless
    Apr 2 '19 at 21:42
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Lasers

Teleporters can detect mass but not lasers which is just light. With a personal tracking system so the lasers don't cut you, the rest of the room is crisscrossed with cutting lasers so teleporting in would be like jumping into a wood chipper.

Alternatively blinding lasers would also work. You'd be wearing protective glasses but anyone without the right glasses would be permanently blinded which makes a teleporting assassin ineffective.

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There are several ways: 1: Be in a location unknown to your attacker. This negates the teleporter's main advantage.... until he/she finds you. Then you are in trouble.

2: Distance. If you are far enough away, they can't teleport to you. If you have enough money, you can make a wall/solid barrier 2.1 miles thick just to prevent your assassin from getting you you in the first place.

3: Anonymity. You can't target what you don't know is there. Having a physic person to constantly make you anonymous to people/electronics around you makes you practically invisible without the side effect of blindness!

4: Counter-offer. Just bribe him/her (or use a psychic) so that you don't die.

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If momentum is preserved while teleporting, put the person on a high speed vehicle with variable speeds. Sure the attacker can teleport to them, but unless they get their speed exactly right, they'll instantly be pancaked.

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