What's the point?

[Dumbass 0]

On a couple occasions Janeway used the EMH as an Emergency Command Hologram.  What would have been the point of that?  

 

I know Starfleet doesn't like to turn over ship functions to the computer, but isn't that exactly what she did when she created the ECH subroutine?  Isn't the ECH controlled by the computer as well?

 

Why not just turn over the ship to the computer directly?

[Garnoopy 0]

Vanroy, you make a good point, but I think I can answer some of your questions.

 

The point of the ECH was that in the event that the ship became contaminated, and life support could no longer be maintained, the ECH could remain on board to keep the ship under Starfleet control.

 

The ECH is technically controled by the computer, in a sence. From what I know of the EMH and ECH, they are controled by a seperate computer designed for teh EMH program. That way, in the event of an attack and main computer failure, the EMH could continue to function for medical purposes. Also, if the main computer became infected by a virus of some sort, the ECH program could be seperate and not also get infected.

 

Reason for not just turning the ship over to the computer directly: The computer cannot move. The ECH has arms, legs, eyes, and fingers. The ECH could walk to the warp core, and replace fused relays, however, the computer could not because they comptuer does not have the ability to walk around and fix things. I'm sure in the next model they'll add this ability   ::o:  

 

Hope this answers all of your questions. If you can't tell, I'm a VOY fan.