The Perfect Crime...?

[CoffeeCat]

If I were on a 24th century starship and I wanted to *hide* someone for an indefinate amount of time, I'd take one of the shuttle transporters and beam out the person, leaving their pattern in the buffer (ala Scotty in TNG: Relics) and then remove the pattern buffer and hide it somewhere - probably the loo. How long would it take for security to figure me out? Or would I be hiding this person pretty good?

[JadziaKathryn]

Well, it depends on how long in took security to find that the pattern buffer was missing. Maybe if you replaced the pattern buffer that would help. But I don't think that security would find the person for a good long time.

[Rigil Kent]

Will a pattern remain intact indefinitely? If so, then that seems like a fantastic way to hide them ... maybe even replicate a copy of that pattern buffer (sans the person's pattern) and replace it.

I wonder, though, wouldn't there be a master log of who used the transporter and when? A log that would be recorded within the ship's master computer? Thus, if it says Crewman Smith used the transporter at 1900 hours, but the pattern buffer indicates that the transporter wasn't used at 1900, someone is gonna notice...

[JadziaKathryn]

I think using a shuttle transporter would help. And I bet a gifted enginner could get around the computer records.

[CoffeeCat]

Well that's good - maybe a little too good because it might end up the the death of another character if I use it and security overlooks it; which would be characteristic of them because I noticed that whenever there's a missing person on a starship, security checks the transporter logs on the ship, but not in the shuttles.

Will a pattern remain intact indefinitely?

Scotty was in the transporter for about 75 years.

If so, then that seems like a fantastic way to hide them ... maybe even replicate a copy of that pattern buffer (sans the person's pattern) and replace it.

I wonder, though, wouldn't there be a master log of who used the transporter and when? A log that would be recorded within the ship's master computer? Thus, if it says Crewman Smith used the transporter at 1900 hours, but the pattern buffer indicates that the transporter wasn't used at 1900, someone is gonna notice...

But does it record the shuttle transporter's logs? That's the real question. I'd avoid the main transporter for exactly that reason.

Oh, and JZK - The "gifted engineer" is gunna be the one that's transported...

[Rigil Kent]

An engineer is not the same thing as a computer specialist though. It would be like expecting a jet mechanic to be able to rewrite circuit boards or hack into an ATM machine. There would likely be ... "fingerprints" (for lack of a better word) present to indicate that something was deleted...

And aren't their internal sensors going to detect when a transporter is active, regardless of where it is?

[CoffeeCat]

Hmm. Usually. Which would mean that the sensors would have to be taken off line for some reason - maybe maintenance?

[Rigil Kent]

Or the guilty party could use the sensors being taken offline to cover up his/her tracks. Like, blowing a sensor relay that just happens to be necessary for all internal sensors and making it appear that the target of the crime was doing X instead of Y, or by uploading a false reading to the actual sensors so it appears that the shuttle transporter was used to beam the target to a cloaked ship or something.

[CoffeeCat]

Like a wild goose chase.

Rigel, we should team up and become criminal masterminds.

[Rigil Kent]

Heh.

Another thing that occurred to me is if he/she/it uploaded something into the sensor relay that causes a false reading of the target to appear at random locations, which leads people to think that the target is still active. This could be fixed, though, by a competent computer specialist who was able to tell that there was some additional and unnecessary code present in the relay. An adjustment of that and continuation of the "cloaked ship" idea is if the additional code uses recorded data from a previous engagement with a cloaked craft to simulate the faux-cloaked ship's flight...

Now, if the "bad guy" is that "competent computer specialist", watch out...

[CoffeeCat]

Naaa. I don't think the bad guy would be that competent - it's a member of Janeway's crew.

[Rigil Kent]

Apart from the two Vulcans that I'm aware of, are there any other telepaths aboard the ship? Or empaths? Their presence could seriously hamper the success of any crime...

[CoffeeCat]

The only telepaths that I know of all croaked or left (Kes, Lon Suder, & Stadi)

[CX]

Scotty was in the transporter for about 75 years.

But the guy he was with didn't make it because his pattern had degraded too much.

[CoffeeCat]

*Shrugs.*

I don't think this abduction will last 75 years. 75 hours maybe.