Measure of a Man: The solution.

[Trekker4747]

If they're able to make that decision, fully aware of what it is and means, then they are sapient. Presumably this where dolphins are at in the ST Universe. It would seem dogs and cats are not since they're still used as pets.

Data, however, was able to make a choice and decided to enter SF so he should be able to leave. The Enterprise computer, however, didn't make such a choice and was built from "the ground up" by Starfleet and isn't able to make its own choices so it could not, to us her example, refuse a refit.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

If Louvois' precedent doesn't cover that, then the trial is worthless: the verdict carries no weight the next time somebody comes up with the same argument...

See below.

Well, everybody here is trying to change the terms of what it meant for Data to join, retroactively - some for the better, others for the worse. If this is possible even in theory, then Data once having been allowed to join doesn't have much impact.

It does sound reasonable for Louvois to be cheering for the team that

1) wants good for the many via risk to the one, in this "risk is our business" organization
2) rides on good old values such as AI hatred
3) wishes those in Starfleet would follow orders

even if it also places her in the camp that

4) wants to stop people from resigning when they so desire.

And yes, this is a setup. Although whether Maddox could have set it up on his own, or only with very active help from Louvois, is less clear. Quite a bit hinges on Maddox pitching Picard against a hostile judge. He can follow the adventures of Picard easily enough; Louvois choosing where to be assigned is more complicated.

Timo Saloniemi

I think there is a continuity plot element being ignored here. The show was looking for a new villain, and had basically settled on the Borg but had not fleshed out all the details. Given the Conspiracy Parasites (that were considered at set-up for the Borg but later ignored), the mission of the Hansens on the Raven, etc., Starfleet KNEW or at least suspected the Borg were out there by this point, and it would not be long before contact with them. Data was put on trial to set, or at least explore, the possible precedence of artificial life, in order for Starfleet to ensure that the Borg were defined as an enemy. We do learn later on that the Borg are obsessed with Data because of what he is. Maddox might know or have heard rumblings of what the Borg are and be in favor of taking Data part to understand the Borg better, and that is why Starfleet favors it: they know they Borg are coming. They might have even wanted to disassemble Data's daughter for that same reason.

any of them could've resigned & left,

Seska left when she felt like it.

 

[amp]

Even if Louvois found that Data was property, I always wondered what makes him Starfleet property. If he belongs to anyone it's Dr. Soong. Granted, people thought Soong was dead, but then Data would belong to his heirs. I don't see how Bruce Maddox gets to claim him.

Of course, the same argument arises in "The Offspring" when Admiral Haftel orders Data to hand over Lal although Starfleet has no more claim to her than they do to Spot.

 

[Trekker4747]

Even if Louvois found that Data was property, I always wondered what makes him Starfleet property. If he belongs to anyone it's Dr. Soong. Granted, people thought Soong was dead, but then Data would belong to his heirs. I don't see how Bruce Maddox gets to claim him.

Of course, the same argument arises in "The Offspring" when Admiral Haftel orders Data to hand over Lal although Starfleet has no more claim to her than they do to Spot.

In the "what makes him Starfleet property" argument... You could argue a "finders keepers" sort of thing. If you find a piece of property, don't know who it belongs to, and have no way of finding out or getting to someone connected to that person then it's yours.

 

[Timo]

The thing there is, Starfleet didn't grab Data. After his discovery and (re)activation, the android took his sweet time deciding that going to Starfleet might be fun. The timeline is slightly vague, but at least three years seem to have passed between discovery and enrolling.

What Data's status in those years was is an interesting question. A lab specimen? A random pseudo-citizen with a Nansen passport? A newborn Fed, all of three years old at the time of Academy entry exams?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

...forced them to serve another captain.

I don't see it that way. Nobody was forced. Any or all of them could've fractured off at any time. Point being, Starfleet service has never been compulsory for anyone... except for that one day, when a scientist decided it should be for Data, & some solitary judge at the ass end of space was either stupid or corrupt enough to go along with it.

I never said they did.

Context is everything though. We're in a topic about Data's hearing, that I've argued was wrongful on the grounds that it delegitimizes the basis for Starfleet service... specifically in regards to both its enrollment & resignation being voluntary, which they are, & your example of Voyager's invited Maqui crew doesn't really refute that, certainly not to a degree that would suggest Starfleet service is somehow compulsory enough to hold his hearing to deny him the right to leave as legitimate.

In the "what makes him Starfleet property" argument... You could argue a "finders keepers" sort of thing.

It's iffy to claim that years after other established conditions have existed though. Clearly they made no staked claim to him upon discovery, such that he was considered autonomous enough to join Starfleet. If they had already owned him, wouldn't him joining Starfleet be a senseless act or moot point? He'd already have been serving them, but he wasn't because he was recognized as autonomous

 

[Timo]

Naturally, we could argue Data never spent a day outside Starfleet, and his first three years after reactivation were spent either in Starfleet duties or as a Starfleet mascot of some sort. It would only be the Academy and the officer career that he'd specifically try and access after three years.

We simply don't know. Data speaks little about his past, and indeed seems to have totally clamshelled before "Datalore" where many a thing comes as news to the fellow E-D crew.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tosk]

Context is everything though.

Context matters, it's not everything. You specifically said "They're certainly not comparable to being declared property, or wards of the state or whatever." and I said that I never claimed (or implied) they were because involuntary service does not equal a person being property or a ward of the state.

I don't see it that way. Nobody was forced.

I seem to recall Chakotay physically assaulting a crewmember (and also tells him that he's going to do it again and again and again) just because they wanted to do their job and not "jump through Starfleet hoops".

 

[Timo]

OTOH, jumping off isn't procedurally complex, it seems: you just put down your combadge and go murder people.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[amp]

In the "what makes him Starfleet property" argument... You could argue a "finders keepers" sort of thing. If you find a piece of property, don't know who it belongs to, and have no way of finding out or getting to someone connected to that person then it's yours.

It doesn't seem like Starfleet or the Federation put much effort into figuring out who built Data. Earth's foremost robotic scientist disappears after promising to build a positronic brain. He's famous enough that Riker, LaForge and Yar all know of him. Years later an android who's his spitting image shows up with a positronic brain and it apparently doesn't occur to anyone that he was built by Dr. Soong.

The modern day equivalent would be something like: "Look at this cool shipwreck we found at the bottom of the North Atlantic. Coincidentally, the Titanic also sank at the same location. Well, there's no way to tell who owned this wreck, so I guess it's ours."

 

[Timo]

To be fair, Soong wasn't a robotics man. He was the positronics man - robotics could merely have been his way of marketing his product, once he felt satisfied with it (which he never did).

Robots never sound like an interesting or advanced technology in Trek. Starfleet disinterest in Data could well stem from him being treated as a sophomoric joke on Soong's expense: any kid could cobble together a 'droid and give it any face he or she wanted. I mean, Soong was famous - for being a joke, or the butt thereof, not for any known achievement.

The curious thing here is the positronics. In "Datalore", it appears that nobody suspected in the slightest that Data might have some inside. In "Measure of a Man", nothing confirms that Maddox would have suspected this before the events of "Datalore" (and indeed the revelations in that episode might have been what prompted him to act after all these decades and not sooner).

Which is fine and well, until we learn that a Soongian android may be recognized for the positronic signal it emits, in ST:NEM...

I mean, obviously not every Soong would be: nobody ever managed to locate Lore that way, or even Data when he went rogue. Nobody saw anything Soongian in Juliana Tainer, either. So is this a case of Soong installing signal-masking doodads in his later creations but not yet in B-4? (Or of the Romulans not getting the seals right when building this bad copy of a Soong?)

For some reason, our ST:NEM heroes still believe that positronic signals go together with Soongs. Do they think this is a Soong with a malfunctioning filter? Or did Starfleet invent positronic signal receivers only some time after "Inheritance"? I mean, previously they could sense nothing at an arm's length, and now they can sniff out a Soong across interstellar distances...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[amp]

To be fair, Soong wasn't a robotics man. He was the positronics man - robotics could merely have been his way of marketing his product, once he felt satisfied with it (which he never did).

For what it's worth, in "Datalore" LaForge calls Soong "Earth's foremost robotics scientist."

 

[Timo]

And Ira Graves laughs him off (Soong, that is). What Soong has no credibility in is robotics, is what I mean.

(I wonder about the Graves/Soong situation. Soong clearly was originally on Earth. Would Graves compete in a different category altogether, scorning the provincial achievements of Soong and being the bigger name all along, on that planet of his, and in the Federation overall? Or was it more like neck to neck?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[amp]

And Ira Graves laughs him off (Soong, that is). What Soong has no credibility in is robotics, is what I mean.

Graves claims to have taught Soong. But he never says that Soong doesn't know anything about robotics, just that his work lacked aesthetics.

GRAVES: Shhh! Absolutely no aesthetic value whatsoever. Looks like Soong's work.
DATA: Quite correct, sir! Did you know Doctor Soong?
GRAVES: Know him?! I taught him everything he knows. You could say that I was the father of his work. Which kind of makes me your grandfather, doesn't it sonny?

The fact that Graves id'd Soong as Data's creator with just a glance makes it even more curious that Starfleet was so oblivious.

 

[Timo]

I still plead the joke angle. We now know that Harry Mudd can kick up an android army for criminal purposes (perhaps with the help of Norman, perhaps not), and Starfleet's only reaction is one of frustrated disgust. And nobody wants androids around: Data exists in a vacuum, but is not considered interesting for it, quite the opposite in fact. "Robotics" would appear to be something serious AI researchers do as a hobby, or perhaps the way they might study Latin - a uselessly silly dead language that chiefly survives as a historical curiosity.

That Data's positronic nature was unknown is the big mystery here. Every limb of B-4 emits positronics like crazy, and our heroes don't think this is suspicious, but the opposite instead. Surely assorted authorities would have checked whether Data was a radiation hazard, regardless of the nature of the emissions. Did Soong invent an all-new type of radiation that only the most modern sensors can detect?

Sure, the emissions might be some sort of standard radiation, only in the form of a telltale signal. But Data would still be a potential radiation hazard if likewise emitting - and once the emissions were detected, the signal probably would be analyzed, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JesterFace]

How about a transporter duplicate? Copy Data's brain that way and give that to Maddox?

The risk however is obvius, the twin might be evil.

 

[Timo]

I gather this would be unproblematic otherwise - but what would this second Data have to say about being torn apart and possibly never put back together again? And what would the first Data have to say about being duplicated?

The thing about android armies always was a straw man. Those could be achieved far more easily than by studying Data and then building copies. But copying in general seems to be bad form in Trek, and while it's fine and well to kill one's own copies (except on Bajor!), it's by that same token that making copies is not fine and well...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

... because involuntary service does not equal a person being property or a ward of the state.

I kind of feel like it does. If you are not allowed to leave or terminate service. You are owned.

I seem to recall Chakotay physically assaulting a crewmember (and also tells him that he's going to do it again and again and again) just because they wanted to do their job and not "jump through Starfleet hoops".

I'm not too familiar with every interaction on Voyager, & if Chakotay is being abusive, that's problematic as an XO...

However it's still not forced service though. It's forced standards of service. Not the same thing at all. I can try to do my job however I want, or more likely, the employer I agree to work for demands I do it their way, per my agreed employment. I'm still not forced to be there.

Dude could've just told Chakotay, well if I can't do it my way, I quit, turned over his badge & hung around with Neelix cleaning pots, until they dropped him off at the next available port of call. Or he could've maybe made some other arrangements to stay aboard as a civilian. However it played out, he's not forced to work for Starfleet. He's forced to do things the Starfleet way, if he agrees to work for them.

Back on the OP topic... You know, Maddox was kind of an idiot too, in bringing the official litigation to begin with. By the end, everybody knows what his game was, & he not only loses out on his claim, but his defeat leads him to rescind the transfer orders too... possibly because he began to see the wrongness of his actions

The much more sinister move would've been to just order Data transferred under his command, which he couldn't refuse without resignation. However, Data only resigned when he found out the scope of Maddox's research, which as a commanding officer, he's probably not compelled to divulge to subordinates. So he could've just not told Data anything. Data would've been too clueless to know he should resign, & once he was serving under Maddox, then he could've incrementally pressured him with more infringements. The black & white line of liberty is then blurred more.

That's how the real world dirtbags work it.

 

[Trekker4747]

Maddox also in his rant to the JAG asks about his "right" to not have his life's work ruined by Data's refusal. I'm guessing he was being melodramatic and that's not an actual right guaranteed to him by The Federation, or Earth's Constitution. Which is a silly way to behave in front of a judge.

 

[Timo]

Well, Data is also claiming rights that might not exist, esp. were he ruled to be a toaster. Polemicizing might well be a good move there. But Maddox' legal counsel is a dilettante, perhaps more so than Data's. Or at least the latter is a veteran of more courts martial...

Timo Saloniemi