Schisms question

[at Quark's]

From Schisms

PICARD (to computer): Computer -- are there any crewmembers missing from the Enterprise?
COMPUTER VOICE: There are two crewmembers unaccounted for.
PICARD: Identify them.
COMPUTER VOICE: Lieutenant Edward Hagler and Ensign Sariel Rager.
PICARD: When did they leave?
COMPUTER VOICE: They have not been present since twenty-three thirty-two hours.
RIKER: How did they leave?
COMPUTER VOICE: Method of departure unknown.

Now, why would Starfleet program the ship's systems to monitor all crewmembers (and hence be able to note the time since their absence) and yet not issue an alert to security the moment one or more of them have gone missing inexplicably?

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

The computer may not be able to distinguish between when a crewmember leaves the ship by choice versus being abducted.

--Captain Terrell

 

[at Quark's]

Hmm...

But would a crew member be allowed to leave the ship at all without first asking permission or at least informing a superior officier in one form or another? Starfleet is a semi-military organisation after all. (I suppose the situation might be a bit different when they are docked at a starbase, but certainly not when they're in deep space as they are in this episode).

So I would say that any unscheduled disappearance would be cause for concern, and much more so if the 'method of departure' is 'unknown'.

 

[Paradise City]

Picard himself suffers a similar problem when he's abducted by Q in Q-Who. They are slow on the up-take to note his disappearance. The computer has a lot of convenient blindspots that just happen to serve the drama of that particular week.

 

[TwoJakes]

Space 1999, the computer would promply notify the control center personnel whenever someone died, which was frequently.

 

[Capn Nick]

This has bothered me too. I used to think it was a privacy thing, then I thought it was a restricted access thing (like only certain people could know the location of certain other people) but now I think maybe it's just that Starfleet is fallible.

Usually, the only way off the ship is by transporter and shuttle bay. They guard those (though not that well haha). Perhaps it just never occurred to anyone to build in that computer system alert because it seemed like it would never come up. They often respond to technology that does what they consider to be beyond the limits of what they can do with "but that's impossible!" - maybe the designer said "nobody can be unwillingly transported off a starship."

Either that, or Riker and Worf have been summarily executing poorly performing crew members and want to keep it to themselves :-)

 

[JesterFace]

Picard himself suffers a similar problem when he's abducted by Q in Q-Who. They are slow on the up-take to note his disappearance.

Q may have had something to do with that, who knows...