Anybody with an off switch is most assuredly not an unstoppable superman, & even Superman has Kryptonite. Data may have some superhuman abilities, as do many life forms in Star Trek, but he is proven to not be unstoppable on many occasions.
The point being, this is not one of those. Fajo thought he had Data contained. He was wrong. It's pretty unlikely the villain would have a Plan B in place to cover this catastrophic failure of his.
Fajo himself is a weak point in his schemes, and when we enter the controversial bit, he is utterly at the mercy of Data - whose ability to wallop mere humanoids to submission is one of those "proven on many occasions" things. Were Fajo to actually possess a means to protect himself, it's rather likely he would make use of it, rather than just prattle away phrases that reveal his ignorance and tactical weakness.
As such, Data was still imprisoned on a ship he had no authorization to access, by an individual who had unknown numbers of security measures protecting himself, and imprisoning essentially his entire crew, who then deliberately set his sights to the specific task of capturing & holding indefinitely a Soong Android.
On top of which he was an utter idiot who thought Data obeyed the Three Laws. Data is specifically an expert in circumventing security measures aboard enemy ships and facilities; Fajo's skinlocks, passwords and forcefields are merely a series of obstacles Data might need to clear one by one. But he
doesn't need to, now that Fajo has placed himself at Data's mercy.
The only known advantage Data had, was a weapon in his hand, designed solely for "Vicious" lethal force. You use that advantage, if it's all you have, which is what the episode is saying was the case.
This is the setup, yes. Like every setup where Superman is supposed to be out of options, it faces a steep uphill battle. The audience is familiar with Superdata coping with like obstacles already, and the villain furthermore has just been shown throwing away his trump cards. It just takes some doing to make the audience accept the premise here, is what I'm saying.
Should he have though? In season 2 Starfleet tries to strip him of his rights. In season 3, they try to strip some of them again. After the unintended issue in season 4's Brothers, he likely had to have been scrutinized pretty significantly, and a whole bunch of new measures had to be taken, so he could no longer so easily hijack the Enterprise, & that very same season, he has a very close call with losing Starfleet's trust in Clues. Data walks a fine line with Starfleet trusting him... A fair explanation for why he never advanced beyond Lt.Cmdr.
And again, it appears that Data's disinterest in using force to defend himself is the root cause. As soon as Data feels he has been wronged too much, he forces his adversaries to their knees, and nobody dares complain. He's always back in uniform after an episode spent fighting for the enemy, those who derided his ability to command bow to him in the end, and even those detractors of his wearing flag markings on their collars apologize for their obstructionism afterwards.
Fajo feels he has Data subjugated because Data doesn't resist. But Data has little reason to resist. Fajo isn't in the process of doing immediate harm, and Data will have plenty of opportunities to bring him to justice later on. Every moment spent shipboard helps Data along in his inquiries and the building of a case against Fajo.
So he has this publicly known protocol, whatever it is, that in some measure prohibits his ability to use lethal force
But Fajo's out-of-the-blue utterance here is our
sole reason to think such a protocol should exist. Data freely takes lives in Starfleet service otherwise, whenever the need arises. But just like Picard flies a ship that can afford to take a pounding while her captain quotes ancient wisdom to his attackers or debates finer psychological points with his officers, Data walks in a body that can take sticks and stones, and seldom needs to kill up close and personally.
Starfleet apparently doesn't much care whether Data is a sentient being. The organization would not be so understanding if one of its soldiers was a known (un?)conscientious objector!
There's people in this thread charging Data with attempted murder. Why should we think Starfleet would be more trusting, given their track record with him?
But Starfleet adores murderers. It wants its employees to kill, and extends serious professional latitude for them to choose the whys, hows and whens. Data is in certain practical aspects more efficient in disposing of Starfleet's enemies than, say, Riker or Pulaski, who also kill left and right; all the more support for him, then.
No, Sir. Data should be keeping his mouth shut about anything that might get looked at the wrong way imho, especially where his parameters for lethal force are concerned, & by this time in the show, after all that's happened that was risky for him, Data should, & apparently does know that, enough to zip his lip
I certainly agree Data might feel the need to say little. I just don't think it works to his advantage in practice. But that is just another aspect of his Superman invulnerability: he doesn't need a career, either. If he does want one, he can outlive his bosses and/or become them, at his leisure.
That's what Superman is all about, too: he could be Eternal King of All Earth easily enough, but unlike mere humans, he is not interested in being that, and doesn't need to in order to be a success story. Which is what makes him a hero rather than a villain.
Timo Saloniemi
