This. It also explains why Worf the Uber Klingon could stand against a couple dozen Jem'hadar, one after the other. His fighting skills and conditioning to compensate for the Jem'hadars' superior strength. Plus, Tuvok may be as strong or stronger than a Hirogen, but still only weighing the same as a human, he is prone to being knocked around like one. We know Romulans posses similar strength levels to their Vulcan cousins, based on Nero single handedly picking up Kirk by the neck, and yet How many times has a human bested a Romulan? Also, how do we know Tuvok isn't weak for a Vulcan? Or Nero isn't a super strong Romulan. T'pol never demonstrated strength superior to a human male, either. So, assuming all Vulcans (or Romulans, for that matter) have ape-level strength, is false, too. BTW, the only Trek character who would have a chance against Data in hand to hand is Odo. Data has super human strength, speed, sight, while Odo has superior strength, speed, and shape shifting ability that could match Data. The weakness of Odo would be if he and Data were to fight to a stand still for more than 24 hours with neither gaining the upper hand, Data would just have to wait Odo out, until he is forced to revert to liquid state. Going by TNG Season 1, Data has eye sight near Geordi levels, but not quite as well. I am not certain what TNG episode it was, but I seem to remember Data stating he could last some 200 years. Perhaps he has an internal power source capable of lasting that long. Sort of like a terminator. That would seem a more likely explanation. Now the "reborn Data" in B4's body could be a different matter.
That one, from Insurrection, is the one relevant bit on how Data keeps on going. It may be a simplification for children, but it's probably not an outright lie (even thought Data often uses those, too). "Continually" can suggest either continuous or repeated recharging, but IMHO it does not suggest the sort of operations where the charge slowly dwindles for 200 years. ...But give the opponent a metal spear and Data is toast ("Thine Own Self"). Curious - which S1 event are you referring to? Even back then, Data tended to use a flashlight (which LaForge only took on to using in the later seasons). In "Hide and Q", it's LaForge doing the superhuman seeing, while Data doesn't appear to be able to follow: Timo Saloniemi
You can't get something from nothing. Data's cells must recharge using a variety of mechanisms. Wireless power, as others suggested, is likely a mandatory thing when Data is around powered sources. But he has also existed for long periods away from power grids, so his battery cells must recharge via other means. I suspect his skin has some kind of solar recharging properties to it. Maybe when he's out in the wilderness, he goes naked or periodically sun bathes.
Or merely hold their charge for a long time. Our heroes never appear particularly surprised when an ancient spacecraft retains life support power after possibly tens of thousands of years of dormancy; a "long" period of isolation, such as the one Lore spent floating in empty space, might not represent a major fraction of the endurance of a typical 24th century battery, at the levels of power usage we're discussing here. Timo Saloniemi
"Your Alpha was a Vorta, and the Founders smell of Tulaberries!" That's the funniest thing I've read in a while. Permission to use it as my signature? With due credit to you, of course. Demons of Air and Darkness seems to place Hirogen ahead in terms of raw strength, while Taran'atar (the Jem'hadar in question) seems to be superior when it comes to durability and tenacity. One on one, Data could tear both apart before they had time to blink. En masse, they might be able to bring him down, like Timo said.
The main advantage the Jem'Hadar have as far as fighting goes seems to be their ability to endure pretty much any privation indefinitely, save lack of White, their (so far perfect) cloaking, and their training. The former would be a huge advantage in any drawn-out battle, the middle perfect for ambushes, or at least getting into superior positions, and the last when it actually came down to getting it done. The Hirogen could meet or exceed them on the latter (heck, Worf did ), and can almost definitely beat them in strength. Don't know about detecting them cloaked, but they figured out 8472 camo when Voyager couldn't (and don't they have a cloak of their own?) One-on-one I'd say the Hirogen wins, but in a group the Jem'Hedar do, as that's more their speed. Vs Data...that depends. It seems most of Data's combat limitations that we've seen are of his choosing. I don't think we've ever seen him do much close to what he's said to be capable of.
I could swear there was an episode where Data requires Geordi to examine something and an off-hand comment was made saying Data's eyesight was better than normal, but not as good as Geordi's VISOR. I want to say Heart of Glory, when they were aboard the freighter at the beginning of the episode. I'd have to rewatch it, to be sure. I can't explain the apparent inconsistency there, though.
The Jem'Hadar are genetically engineered super soldiers. They should be at least as strong and as fast as the Augments / Khan. Unfortunately, they were not typically portrayed as such.
The Jem'Hadar were engineered to terrorize; this might not necessarily make them particularly good soldiers. Say, their cloaks don't allow them to fight; it's difficult to understand why, unless the cloak is mainly for "secret police" type of work. That is, by being invisible, the Jem'Hadar are everywhere at once, and you can never speak freely and certain that nobody is listening behind your shoulder... The Founders haven't encountered major opposition for 2,000 years, as per "To the Death". It might be contrary to their interests to maintain an army, even if it is chemically enslaved to them, and better to maintain a force that can merely terrorize fellow humanoid societies, with things like unopposed orbital bombardment, use of poisons and diseases, and kidnapping or other elimination of individual dissidents. As for the Data's-eyesight-compared-to-Geordi's bit, I've been trying to find it, but it's not in "Heart of Glory" at least. Only LaForge's sight is discussed there (although Data has worked on the technique to make this sight visible to others). Timo Saloniemi
It's funny how given what an advantage being able to cloak is, they hardly ever use it to any real advantage. Whenever we see them fight they seem to almost always de-cloak a few feet before they reach the opponent, and they always end up getting beat. Why not just fight the enemy while cloaked or uncloak at the very last moment?
Why can't a Romulan ship cloak and fire phasers or raise shields while cloaked? It could be that Gem'Hadar can only cloak while standing totally still, because their skin needs a few seconds to adjust to bend light exactly right to make them invisible.
The Jem'Hadar soldiers were overrated. They never seemed very hard for our heroes to fight hand to hand compared to Klingons or Romulans.
Given the fact they were an average of a few months old, I think having "average" combat skills can be forgiven. The Jem'Hadar were more about quantity than quality.
Spot on. Firing phasers or using shiny things such as shields or warp engines will create a very visible effect one way or another - and thus expose your position even if you yourself remain invisible. But only if your opponent is a starship, capable of sensing things like nadion radiation from phaser preheat or whatnot, and capable of plotting your position and course from such data. Better to drop the supposedly power-consuming cloak, then, and divert that power to tactically useful things. Remaining invisible in a fistfight does not carry such a penalty. Your opponent can't track you even if he can observe where your punches fall... I don't really think chameleon skin has anything to do with Jem'Hadar invisibility. These folks don't just become invisible, they also make the hardware they carry (guns, clothes, sensors) invisible as well. Probably it's psychic: a Jem'Hadar, when concentrating intensely, can make people around him ignore him, fail to see him even when he's perfectly visible. Such ignorance will extend to things being carried or held by the Jem'Hadar, too, up to a certain limit. And the ignorance will affect the minds, not the senses, of the opponent - so it doesn't matter if the opponent uses a sensor such as a tricorder, as he will still be fooled into ignoring the Jem'Hadar. This model covers most of the bases, and is very similar to how certain "shapeshifters" such as the Salt Vampire seem to operate: through illusions rather than through actual if weird physics. There's one pretty obvious hole there, though. Shouldn't opponents located far away (say, on an orbiting starship) have an easy time seeing the Jem'Hadar through their sensors? Then again, we don't get too many plotlines where this would matter. And we do notice that the Jem'Hadar invisibility doesn't work in ship-to-ship fighting, which we might take to indicate that it's indeed psychic and suffers from range limitations. Perhaps if the Jem'Hadar concentrate really hard, they can cloak their ship - which is of no use in combat where concentration of that sort is impossible, but might explain a few feats of infiltration, or the fact that a fleet of hundreds was invisible to the Romulan Tal'Shiar crews, experts in cloaked warfare, in "The Die is Cast"... Timo Saloniemi