Data (Star Trek)

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Template:Star Trek character |bgcolor = #ccccff |Image = Data2.jpg |Caption = Lt. Cmdr. Data |Species = android |Gender = male |Hair color = dark brown |Eye color = yellow |Planet = Omicron Theta |Affiliation = Starfleet |Posting = USS Enterprise-D,
USS Enterprise-E |Position = chief operations officer,
executive officer |Rank = Lieutenant Commander |Insignia = Image:Star Trek TNG OF3 Ops.png
Image:Star Trek TNG OF3.png |Portrayed = Brent Spiner }}

Data is a character in the Star Trek fictional universe. A Soong-type android, Lieutenant Commander Data served as the second officer and chief operations officer aboard the starships Enterprise-D and the Enterprise-E. Data appeared throughout the Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) television series and in later movies. Data is portrayed by actor Brent Spiner.

Data was a sentient artificial lifeform designed to resemble a human. His positronic brain allowed him impressive computational capabilities and the ability to perform most human activities. However, he was unable to feel emotions until late in his life, when he discovered an "emotion chip", and had ongoing difficulties understanding various aspects of human behaviour.

Data's character was a rough counterpart to Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) in that he had a rational, analytical mind and found humans hard to understand. However, he was drawn to the concept of humanity, and also found Vulcan perspectives regarding logic and stoicism rather limiting. His desire to become more human, combined with his honesty and apparent innocence about the reality around him, charmed viewers and made him one of the most popular characters of the series.

Data's name is properly pronounced (in IPA) "/'deitə/" as opposed to the alternate pronunciations "/'dα:tə/" or "/'dætə/". This was addressed in a second season episode of TNG when Data corrected Dr. Katherine Pulaski after she used an incorrect pronunciation (TNG: "The Child").Template:Ref

Contents

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Biography

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
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Star Trek: The Next Generation

Data's creation was originally a mystery. Having been rescued by Starfleet officers from Omicron Theta, a planet where almost all life had been destroyed by the Crystalline Entity, Data decided to join Starfleet as a career. After attending Starfleet Academy and graduating with honors degrees in probability mechanics and exobiology (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint", "The Measure of a Man"), Data served with distinction on the Enterprises-D and -E, with the rank of lieutenant commander. Data held some of Starfleet's highest honors including the Starfleet Command Decoration for Valor; Starfleet Command Decoration for Gallantry; Medal of Honor, with Clusters; Legion of Honor; and the Starcross ("The Measure of a Man").

Image:DataLore.jpg The first season episode "Datalore" revealed that Data was created by Dr. Noonien Soong, a cyberneticist. Data's construction followed Dr. Soong's previous, less successful attempt at an artificial humanoid life form, named Lore, who became a recurring character on TNG. Lore often appeared to be Data's "evil twin", and they often referred to each other as "brother". In Lore's first appearance, he deactivated Data in an attempt to take over the Enterprise-D and offer its crew to the Crystalline Entity. In the seventh-season episode "Inheritance", Data meets Soong's wife, Dr. Juliana Tainer, who tells him that a total of seven androids of Data's type were constructed, but that they were prone to cascade neural failures and were all short-lived.

In 2365, cyberneticist Commander Bruce Maddox obtained permission to have Data reassigned for study, wherein he would be deactivated, disassembled, and duplicated (with his knowledge and memories dumped into a computer and thereafter transferred back), possibly destroying his personality and sentience in the process. Data refused, then sought and won a legal judgment – with the aid of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, his commanding officer serving as his legal counsel – declaring him a sentient being with the same rights as other Federation citizens ("The Measure of a Man").

Image:DataLal.jpg Desiring to reproduce, Data created an android "daughter", Lal, in 2366. She exceeded Data's abilities, using verbal contractions and feeling some emotions. Unfortunately, she became scared when Starfleet scientists wanted to relocate her away from Data, and – overwhelmed – she suffered a cascade neural failure and died shortly after being activated. She told Data, "I love you, father," but Data was incapable of reciprocating. To preserve Lal's existence, Data transferred her stored memories into his own memory core. ("The Offspring")

Data was thought lost in a shuttle accident in 2366, but had in fact been kidnapped by fraudulent antiquities dealer Kivas Fajo. Fajo was subsequently arrested and Data released ("The Most Toys"). This episode also revealed Data's capacity to kill if necessary, as he holds and fires a modified disruptor on Fajo at the end of the episode, but is transported back to the Enterprise before his shot could connect.

During the Borg invasion of the Federation in 2366-7, Data successfully interfaced with Locutus of Borg (an assimilated Captain Picard who was abducted then rescued), accessed the Borg collective consciousness, and introduced a command into a low-level program pathway that forced the Borg to regenerate. This action effectively "put them to sleep", halted their advance, and caused the Borg ship to self-destruct in orbit of Earth ("The Best of Both Worlds").

Image:DataSoongolder.jpg In 2367, Data was taken over by a homing signal generated by Dr. Soong, who intended to give Data a basic emotion chip which Soong had perfected in secret after being thought dead. The homing signal compelled Data to commandeer the Enterprise-D and bring it to Soong's lab on Terlina III. Unfortunately, the homing signal summoned Lore as well, who tricked Soong into giving him the chip and then killed him ("Brothers").

In 2368, Data's head was discovered in an archeological dig in San Francisco. The ensuing investigation sent Data, later followed by several senior Enterprise-D officers, to late 19th century San Francisco. Data's presence set up a number of temporal paradoxes involving Guinan, who had been present on Earth at that time, and the senior staff. Jack London and Mark Twain appear in the episode. Data's head was blown off in the 19th century; the officers escaped with his body, but Captain Picard was left behind. Picard implanted a message into the head, and when it was reattached hundreds of years later, the crew were able to avoid catastrophe and rescue him ("Time's Arrow").

Image:DataTainer.jpg In 2370, Data was kidnapped by Lore and coerced through Lore's manipulation of Soong's aforementioned emotion chip into aiding an insurrection by the Borg. After the threat to the Federation was dealt with, Data was forced to disassemble his brother. From Lore, Data obtained the emotion chip which Soong had originally intended for him ("Descent").

Later in 2370, Data met a woman who appeared to be Dr. Juliana Tainer, the widow and collaborator of Dr. Soong; in a sense, Data's mother. However, she turned out to be an android constructed by Dr. Soong after the original Dr. Tainer died; she had, unlike Data, been unaware of her nature as an android. Dr. Tainer eventually divorced Dr. Soong and remarried ("Inheritance").

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Films

Image:DataLaForgeemotionchip.jpgIn 2371, Data (with the assistance of his best friend, Geordi La Forge) chose to install the emotion chip he had extracted from Lore. Despite initial difficulties in adaptation, Data successfully integrated the emotion chip (Star Trek: Generations). He was later able to deactivate the emotion chip at will, which he did at the request of Captain Picard during the Borg attempt to commandeer the Enterprise-E, following the Battle of Sector 001, in 2373 (Star Trek: First Contact).

In Star Trek: First Contact, when the Enterprise-E pursued a Borg sphere through a temporal warp to 2063, Data was taken captive by Borg drones who had boarded the Enterprise-E and was brought before a manifestation of the Borg Queen. The Queen attempted to coerce Data into allying with the Borg, reactivating his emotion chip to make Data easier to manipulate. She provided him the ability to feel tactile sensations as humans do by grafting functional organic flesh to portions of his body, and attempted to seduce him sexually. Though Data was admittedly tempted by the Queen's manipulations, and for a brief time seemed to have joined the Borg's cause, it was a ruse for him to strike against them. His actions were instrumental in averting their complete assimilation of the ship, saving Picard (who surrendered to the Borg in exchange for Data), and preventing the Borg's assimilation of humanity in the 21st century.

Image:DataB4hd.jpg Data was chosen to become first officer of the Enterprise-E in 2379; shortly thereafter, he discovered a second prototype version of himself, whom Dr. Soong had named B-4. However, before acceding to the first officer's position, he was lost in the line of duty while saving the Enterprise-E and its crew from the thalaron beam generator aboard the Reman ship Scimitar when that ship exploded (Star Trek: Nemesis). However, before his death, Data copied his knowledge and memories to B-4's brain in the hopes that this would help B-4 learn and grow. When asked how he felt about this, Data replied that he was an android and could not feel emotions. This download gives the possibility for Data to be resurrected in a future movie, although this may necessitate the use of parts from the dismantled Lore, since B-4 had severe circuitry limitations.

In an alternate future created by Q, Data held the Lucasian professorship at Cambridge University ("All Good Things...").

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Relationships

Image:Dataspot.jpg Characterizing his relationships with friends as based on a dependency that stems from a sense of familiarity that is caused by frequent contacts, physical and visual, Data explained that his "mental pathways have become accustomed to your sensory input patterns." These "mental pathways" had a brief intimate relationship with crewmate Tasha Yar (TNG: "The Naked Now") in 2364, and attempted to pursue a romantic relationship with another crewmate, Lt. JG Jenna D'Sora ("In Theory"), in 2367. In 2373, Data had another intimate encounter with the Borg Queen. Data was best friends with Geordi La Forge and also has a pet cat, named Spot.

Image:DataBorgQueen.jpg Data had an affinity for other artificial lifeforms – particularly kindred Soong-type androids like him, but also less sophisticated machines like Exocomps ("The Quality of Life"). Upon Lal's death, Data reintegrated her memories back into his own; prior to Data's demise, he copied his memories into B-4.

Over the years, a strong relationship of loyalty, respect, and trust has emerged between Picard and Data. This relationship resembles a typical father-son experience, especially in terms of mentoring. Data has exhibited overt protection of Picard, particularly when there is a threat — for example, the first Borg encounter in First Contact on the Enterprise-E and Data's mortal sacrifice in Nemesis.

Although Data has the admiration and respect of his fellow shipmates, there have been many instances where his rights, both as a Starfleet officer and as a sentient being, have been called into question. In 2365, Data was transfered to the command of Commander Bruce Maddox to take part in experiments which were meant to better understand the workings of a Soong type android, but would have been potentially lethal to Data ("The Measure of a Man"). Commander Maddox had no qualms with the potential lethality for Data, as he did not consider Data a sentient lifeform, as indicated by being the sole dissenting vote on the Starfleet Academy admission board regarding Data's admission to Starfleet Academy. When Data attempted to resign his commission in Starfleet, he was summarily ruled property of Starfleet. He would have been compelled to participate in the experiments, if not for a challange by Captain Picard, in which the sector JAG ruled Data a sentient being capable of deciding whether or not to participate in the experiments.

In 2366, Data duplicated his positronic brain into the being Lal, whom he considered his child ("The Offspring"). Despite already having defined his rights as a sentient being, Starfleet command attempted to compel Data into giving up Lal to Starfleet research for further evalulation. Captain Picard began to challenge Starfleet's decision, but Lal's positronic network soon destabilized and she died before a formal challenge could be made. In 2367, during the Klingon civil war, Data was assigned as commander of the U.S.S. Sutherland as part of the tachyon net to detect Romulan incursions into Klingon space ("Redemption - Part II"). The crew, and most noticably the executive officer Christopher Hobson, displayed a distinct prejudice towards having an android captain. They displayed their prejudice through several means, including requesting transfers from his command, attempting to exclude him from command decisions, questioning his command decisions, and at times refusing to execute his commands.

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Specifications

Data was composed of 24.6 kilograms of tripolymer composites, 11.8 kilograms of molybdenum-cobalt alloys and 1.3 kilograms of bioplast sheeting (TNG: "The Most Toys"). Data's upper spinal support was a polyalloy designed for extreme stress; his skull was composed of cortenide and duranium ("The Chase"). Data was built with an ultimate storage capacity of 800 quadrillion bits (approximately 88 petabytes). At the onset, Data was constructed with a total linear computational speed rated at 60 trillion operations per second (TFLOPS) ("The Measure of a Man"). However, through bidirectional sequencing (which compensated for signal degradation) and conversion of his main interlink sequencer to asynchronous operation, Data's computational speed was thereafter no longer limited by the physical separation of his postronic links and, thus, became unlimited ("The Quality of Life").

It is interesting to compare Data's computational specifications with contemporary computer technology. As of 2005, Data's storage capacity is at least 17 times that of Google; after Data's specifications were initially noted on-screen, TNG began referring to quads (and derivatives) as the basic units of computer storage capacity. As well, BlueGene/L, the world's fastest supercomputer, has a measured peak computational speed of approximately 280 TFLOPS, almost five times that of Data's initial computational speed (and potentially 'dating' the 'technology' on TNG). However, contemporary machines are physically larger, much less sophisticated (e.g., employing electronic, vis-à-vis positronic, circuitry), and not at all sentient.

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Inspiration

The character of Data was inspired by a made-for-TV movie Gene Roddenberry wrote in the 1970s entitled The Questor Tapes, which was the pilot for a series that would have detailed the adventures of a lifelike android searching for the secret of being human. In the movie, Questor was to have experimented with sexuality, actually making love to a female character. Network censors did not allow this scene to be used in the film, but a decade later, relaxed standards allowed an "intimate relationship" to occur between Data and Tasha Yar, as described above.

Roddenberry himself stated that Data was based on The Bicentennial Man created by Isaac Asimov, as well as inspired by other "Positronic Androids" in various other stories by Asimov.

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Brent Spiner on Data

The ending for Star Trek: Nemesis gave slight suggestion that B-4 may become a replacement for Data, thus possibly becoming Data in the process and mirroring Spock's rebirth and the cryptic suggestions alluding to it at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. However, Brent Spiner has noted that he has visibly aged out of the role and that it would be implausible for him to continue playing an android whose appearance should not change with time (though the seventh-season episode "Inheritance" established that Data has an aging program that ages his appearance, and "All Good Things..." show an {appearance-aged} Data). Hence, B-4's presence (and suggestion that he has a copy of Data's memories stored) is most likely meant to have been a tease, or a way out if circumstances change.

In 2005, Spiner recorded a brief, voice-only cameo as Data for the finale episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, "These Are the Voyages...": Data is heard speaking to Deanna Troi over a com-link (for which Spiner was not credited). Spiner had previously played Arik Soong, an ancestor of Data's creator, in a fall 2004 story arc on Enterprise.

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Key episodes and milestones

Notable moments in Data's life as shown on screen:

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Quotes

Data: "Intriguing."
– Data's common utterance of amazement at something; various episodes.

Data: "I am an android..."
– Data's common response to people asking if or implying that he feels emotions; often followed with "I am not capable of..."; various episodes.

Yar: "You are fully functional, aren't you?"
Data: "Of course, but..."
Yar: "How fully?"
Data: "In every way, of course. I have been programmed in multiple techniques, a broad variety of pleasuring..."
Yar: "You jewel! That's exactly what I hoped."
– An 'inebriated' exchange prior to Data's first intimate encounter on the Enterprise-D in "The Naked Now."

Data: "Captain, I believe I am feeling anxiety. It is an intriguing sensation. A most distracting —"
Picard: "Data, I'm sure it is a fascinating experience, but perhaps you should deactivate your emotion chip for now."
Data: "Good idea, sir." [click] "Done."
Picard: "Data, there are times when I envy you."
– Prior to engaging the Borg on the Enterprise-E in Star Trek: First Contact.

Borg Queen: "Are you familiar with physical forms of pleasure?"
Data: "If you are referring to sexuality, I am... fully functional, programmed in... multiple techniques."
Borg Queen: "How long since you've used them?"
Data: "Eight years, seven months, sixteen days, four minutes, twenty-two seconds..."
Borg Queen: "Far too long." [kiss]
– Upon Data's temptation by the Borg Queen in First Contact.

Borg Queen: "Data!?"
Data: "Resistance is futile!"
– Upon Data's deception of the Queen in First Contact.

Data: "And for a time, I was tempted by her offer."
Picard: "How long a time?"
Data: "0.68 seconds, sir... For an android, that is nearly an eternity."
– While lamenting the Borg Queen and her destruction in First Contact.

Data: "It is... It is... It is green."
– Data describing a nameless bottle of Aldebaran whiskey to Scotty after he was unable to ascertain the liquor's identity. A reference to a line spoken by Scotty in "By Any Other Name".

Data: "Data to Counselor Troi."
Troi: "Yes, Data?"
Data: "I was wondering if now would be an appropriate time to continue our conversation on the long-term effects of space travel on my positronic net?"
Troi: "Data, can I give you a rain check?"
Data: (confused) "You may... check me for rain if you wish, Counselor; however, I assure you there is no water in my..."
Troi: Data, "I'll get back to you."
– A cameo voice-over from the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, "These Are the Voyages...".

"Ode to Spot" (in "Schisms"):

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature:
an endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature.
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.
I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
a singular development of cat communications
that obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
for a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.
A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
you would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
it often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.
O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.
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Notes

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See also

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External links

Template:Star Trek regularscs:Dat de:Personen_im_Star-Trek-Universum es:Data fr:Data it:Data nl:Data (Star Trek) pl:Data (android) sv:Data (Star Trek)

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