Man, I really, really wish the writers had the foresight and carefulness in their writing to come up with some acceptable phlebotinum justifying why transporter clones and other various transporter transformations not just don’t, but indeed can’t happen.
I get that it makes for some plotlines, but it also makes for so much idiotic fridge logic. Like “why don’t they save a pattern buffer copy of EVERY away team in case of emergency” or “why isn’t the federation using a volunteer clone army for military engagements” or indeed what we here.
Or even “why isn’t federation surgery just loading someone into the transporter buffer then editing their XML to fix the injury”.
And don’t even get me started by the wasted potential of holography, especially during and post-Voyager.
The T.O.G. has a moratorium on unauthorized cloning, and you DON’T. EVER. disobey T.O.G. directives.
Honestly, I can almost buy that explanation.
…until you realize that even the Jem’Hadar won’t do it. They had transporters, right? I could maybe buy that the Romulans, Cardassians, and Klingons would refuse to do it based on some combination of pride and honor, maybe. I could never buy that an organization like Section 31 wouldn’t, though, or any number of the monster-of-the-week species.