Who'd win in a battle between Data and the T-X? Both get 17 minutes of prep time. Data has a phaser set to kill, and the T-X has its usual internal weaponry. The two meet on the sands of Myrtle Beach, 100 feet away from each other.
Not sure about that. The T-X is obviously more durable than a human, and a phaser set to kill generally only ends a human's life, not disintegrate part of it.
I'm sure I could use the 17 minutes to push a bunch of buttons and increase the phaser to a level where it could be a problem for the terminator.
Terminators can be destroyed relatively easily with weapons from 2029, so I doubt they would so well against 24th century tech.
Data will deduce that the number of pips on commander rikers uniform is the exact phaser setting to neutralize the terminator. Later data meets Picard in his ready room to discuss the ethics of the terminator against his own moral beliefs
Why would they fight? Unless Data gets in the way of the T-X's mission she would ignore him assuming he's an ally and Data wouldn't fight her unless he perceives her as dangerous to him or others. If they meet on the sands of Myrtle Beach they'd probably just stand around. If they do fight for some reason it's obvious Data will win, he has 17 minutes of prep time, even if the phaser's stuck on a kill setting that's enoigh time for Data to take it apart, fix it, crank it up to maximum power and disintegrate the T-X before she whips out her internal weapons or comes close enough for hand to hand combat.
Why Myrtle Beach? Why not Atlantic City, that place is already a trash heap, so nobody would care if its destroyed.
As said above, the T-X is easily damaged and destroyed by 20th/21st century weapons. It puts up a fight, sure, but easily damaged and destroyed. Data has a 24th century weapon that at its highest setting can evaporate pretty much anything. Data has 17 minutes to figure this out. 16 minutes and 59.11 seconds longer than he needs.
TNG era phasers also disintegrated objects on the rare occasions for which it was budgeted. Data with a phaser drops T-X no problem, and holsters his phaser with swagger and flair. Data without phaser gets ripped apart rather quickly, probably falling into several lifeless parts.
There's a difference between a Phaser being on the "kill" setting and being on the "maximum" setting, at least in TNG. The phasers in TNG has 16 different levels ranging from a mild stun, to kill, to evaporation of heavy, dense, materials.
data has had a long epic battle with the t-x and she is mangled on the ground and data looks phaser aimed and primed and says "i believe the usual phrase is :your terminated @*$ker" and shoots her, walks away face blank and slightly throwing his shoulders foward in triumph.
Guys, my original post was supposed to mean that Data's phaser power level cannot be increased from the kill setting to 'disintegrate.' A normal kill setting shouldn't be enough to destroy the T-X. In the episode, "Conspiracy," for example, it took a few phaser shots on the kill setting just to knock out the symbiont-infested Admiral Quinn. Data knows of the capabilities of the T-X, and the T-X knows of Data's, and that is what the 17-minute prep time is useful for.
Then that breaks the premise of your situation. If Data has a 17 minutes to prepare and a regular 24c phaser and he's aware of what the T-X can do and is capable of and he knows this is a "fight to the death" then why wouldn't he put the phaser on one of it's higher, more disruptive, settings? Because in a straight fight Data wouldn't have a chance. Falls, electrical arcs, and dimensional portals have all taken out Data or his limbs through the series. A regular 16th century arrow was even able to cause superficial damage to Data. The T-X with the various weapons built into her endoskeleton would be able to make pretty short work of Data who only has a phaser, apparently, only set to "kill" which isn't going to do squat to even a T-800, let alone a T-X.