It turned out that teleportation in the movies is not, in and of itself, possible, exactly. It is not possible to take all the atoms in your body in one place, transport them somehow from one place to another without material movement, and have that person arrive intact and sane. Many attempts were made before these points, most especially the latter, were proven to be irrefutably and sadly true.
It is, however, possible, at insanely fabulous expense, to have a version of yourself replicated atom for atom into a huge pile of nanotic material seven feet high and about four feet wide. You, yourself, won’t be there, exactly, but you will also have the satisfaction of knowing you ARE there, and you can meet your commitments this way.
Over time, after a few wars and changes of government, the technology became everyday enough that some very wealthy individuals could do it; it was privatized, like space travel.
There became quite an industry of impoverished (or angry, or very, very curious, or, again, sometimes insane) individuals to take a 20 or 30 year trip to get from one city in the solar system to establish another city on or near another planet, so that very wealthy individuals could eventually clone themselves onto it and do business in environments of their choosing.
This worked very well for many people for a good few decades.
ENDING ONE: …except that as Earth began to depopulate, its conditions worsened pretty much universally. Which caused more people to immigrate. Which caused conditions to worsen. Which…
…well, it was only Earth. Who needed it?
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(Check back once in a while; might update a few more endings I have in mind.)
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