Data is Questor and other borrowings...

[Ghel]

So I picked up a copy of The Questor Tapes. For those who don't know, this was a failed TV Pilot by Gene Roddenbery and adapted into a novel by Dorothy Fontana. I was very interested to find that both the general plot and the specifics of Questor were lifted directly from this and added to TNG for Season 1 and 2 Data. Full disclosure, I haven't finished the novel yet, but found this to be interesting enough to post "early."

--Questor is assembled by a team of scientists who really don't know how he works and are simply following the instructions of Questor's genius creator (Emil Vaslovik)--Think Starfleet finding and rebuilding Data without really understanding how he works.
--At the start of The Questor Tapes, Vaslovic is missing and presumed dead (like Soong). A substantial part of the plot is that Questor kidnaps one of the scientists and goes in search of his creator based upon his programming. (Think "Brothers.") The other scientists in the project are attempting to stop him from completing this mission.
--Questor doesn't require it, but is capable of eating and does so on multiple occasions. An odd ability for an android and one Data shared in early TNG.
--Questor, like Data, is able to have sex and uses almost the exact phrase as Data "If vital to an information exchange, I am fully functional. Is that required?"
--Finally, there is a full gambling "scene" in The Questor Tapes where Questor has calculated how to throw dice at a casino to win. The casino gives Questor loaded dice at one point, and he reshapes and redistributes the weight of the dice in his hands "Unobtrusively, as he scanned the table, he clenched the two cubes in his hand, exerting immense pressure on them." (Think "The Royale")

I may add more if anything else comes up, but it got me thinking. GR used a lot of Phase 2 material for TNG (Decker is Riker, Troi is Ilia etc.). GR also wrote a number of different pilots and scripts throughout the 1970s. Aside from Phase 2 and Questor tapes, is there any earlier work by Gene Roddenberry during that era that ended up getting rolled into TNG? Are there any characters or themes from GR's other work that you would have liked to see incorporated into TNG?

 

[Christopher]

So I picked up a copy of The Questor Tapes. For those who don't know, this was a failed TV Pilot by Gene Roddenbery and adapted into a novel by Dorothy Fontana.

It's long been my favorite of Roddenberry's post-Trek pilots, largely because Gene L. Coon co-wrote the teleplay. Here's my review on my blog:

https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/gene-roddenberrys-the-questor-tapes/

--Questor is assembled by a team of scientists who really don't know how he works and are simply following the instructions of Questor's genius creator (Emil Vaslovik)--Think Starfleet finding and rebuilding Data without really understanding how he works.

Well, they didn't rebuild Data. According to "Datalore," they found him complete and dormant next to a "signal device" that activated him when it sensed their approach. You're probably thinking of the Enterprise crew finding Lore disassembled and rebuilding him.

--At the start of The Questor Tapes, Vaslovic is missing and presumed dead (like Soong).

In fact, the original intention was even closer to Questor; Data was to have been built by mysterious advanced aliens in order to preserve the memories and personalities of the colonists (not just their collective knowledge as in the final version). I never understood why they changed it to a human inventor.

--Questor doesn't require it, but is capable of eating and does so on multiple occasions. An odd ability for an android and one Data shared in early TNG.

There has actually been some research into giving robots the ability to burn organic matter as an energy source. And since advanced robots would probably be made largely out of carbon compounds and polymers, it would make sense to use the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. in food as building materials for self-repair.

--Finally, there is a full gambling "scene" in The Questor Tapes where Questor has calculated how to throw dice at a casino to win. The casino gives Questor loaded dice at one point, and he reshapes and redistributes the weight of the dice in his hands "Unobtrusively, as he scanned the table, he clenched the two cubes in his hand, exerting immense pressure on them." (Think "The Royale")

Yep, that was pretty much a direct lift.

I may add more if anything else comes up, but it got me thinking. GR used a lot of Phase 2 material for TNG (Decker is Riker, Troi is Ilia etc.). GR also wrote a number of different pilots and scripts throughout the 1970s. Aside from Phase 2 and Questor tapes, is there any earlier work by Gene Roddenberry during that era that ended up getting rolled into TNG?

The "Post-Atomic Horror" stuff in "Encounter at Farpoint" seems to be cribbed from the Genesis II/Planet Earth backstory. And Planet Earth featured warlike, bumpy-headed mutants called Kreeg, who may have been an influence on the Klingon redesign in ST:TMP and afterward.

And Questor itself was pretty much Roddenberry's third stab at Assignment: Earth, after the standalone 1966 half-hour version and the backdoor-pilot Trek episode. Questor had the same mission Gary Seven would've had, subtly shepherding humanity through its turbulent adolescence by influencing people and events behind the scenes, and was the same kind of cool, Spock-like superhuman paired with a more empathetic human partner. GR just swapped out "descendant of humans abducted and bred by advanced aliens to be their agents on Earth" for "descendant of androids built by advanced aliens to be their agents on Earth."

I suppose "Angel One" bears some similarity to the plot of Planet Earth, but stories about societies where women ruled over men were a pretty standard sci-fi trope back then, so it doesn't prove direct influence.

 

[Ghel]

Well, they didn't rebuild Data. According to "Datalore," they found him complete and dormant next to a "signal device" that activated him when it sensed their approach. You're probably thinking of the Enterprise crew finding Lore disassembled and rebuilding him.

Yep. I was thinking of Lore on that one.

There has actually been some research into giving robots the ability to burn organic matter as an energy source. And since advanced robots would probably be made largely out of carbon compounds and polymers, it would make sense to use the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. in food as building materials for self-repair.

This is funny, perhaps because I have a hard time juxtaposing 1970s and 80s "futuristic" technology which included things like data tapes with an android with the capability to eat and perform self repair. Yet Gene Roddenberry and Gene Coon used this for both Questor and Data so good on them. I do wonder, however, if the suspension of disbelief factor in the mid 1980s is why after early TNG, we really didn't see Data eat or drink again (at least as far as I remember).

Regarding Gene Coon, I would absolutely agree that his writing is definitely some of the best, and he was most decidedly one of my favorite writers in early Trek.

Now that I'm almost through with the novelization, I will have to find the DVD as you recommended. I have only seen small clips on YouTube which is why I grabbed the book. One of the things I look forward to seeing how it translates to the Pilot (which also reminded me of Data) is the android's head twitch. On several occasions Fontana states that when processing, Questor would twitch his head to the right. Spiner uses this twitch quite frequently in TNG. I'll be interested to see the Questor if/how/how much this quirk is used in the pilot.

 

[Christopher]

I do wonder, however, if the suspension of disbelief factor in the mid 1980s is why after early TNG, we really didn't see Data eat or drink again (at least as far as I remember).

I think it was more just failure of imagination on the producers' part, falling back on cliched "robot" makeup/prosthetic tropes. The concept of synthetic humanoids indistinguishable from humans internally as well as externally had been around long before TNG -- look at Blade Runner's replicants from 1982, for instance. If the concept was on screen by then, that means it had been around in the literature for decades already. I believe it goes back at least to Edmond Hamilton's Captain Future pulp stories in the early 1940s. He was the one who codified the difference between "robot" as a visibly mechanical automaton like C-3PO as one that mimicked a flesh-and-blood human. Then there's Andrew Martin from Isaac Asimov's 1976 story "The Bicentennial Man," who started out as a metallic robot but had himself progressively altered with more and more humanlike parts until he's essentially indistinguishable from human (though he isn't allowed to be legally defined as human until he makes himself mortal, foreshadowing Jean-Luc Picard's current status).

Regarding Gene Coon, I would absolutely agree that his writing is definitely some of the best, and he was most decidedly one of my favorite writers in early Trek.

I feel Coon had a knack for writing close, compelling friendships between men, and that's as evident in Questor and Jerry as in Kirk and Spock.

 

[Ghel]

I think it was more just failure of imagination on the producers' part, falling back on cliched "robot" makeup/prosthetic tropes. The concept of synthetic humanoids indistinguishable from humans internally as well as externally had been around long before TNG -- look at Blade Runner's replicants from 1982, for instance.

Interesting point. I read quite a bit of Philip K Dick, Asimov, and a number of early 20th century science fiction. With a lot of 20th century science fiction, I always saw a bit of a divide between robots, androids, and synthetics.

I always thought of replicants (or other sci-fi humanoid synthetics) more as genetically engineered lab grown humanoids more than traditional androids, hence the inability to tell them apart without very specific testing. In this way, they may be modified to be somewhat smarter, stronger, or (in the case of replicants) shorter lived than humans, but they are still fundamentally biological.

Comparatively, I imagined Andrew Martin closer to a Data type android character at the end of Bicentennial Man. He may look human on the outside but if you cut open the skin, you would find that he is still more traditionally technological on the inside. Hence, he can upgrade parts on an individual basis to get ever closer to his goal of being seen as human. His true humanity is expressed in his self-awareness, and his ability to care for and even love others.
Similarly, Questor doesn't have a stomach; he has a furnace and apparently a small nuclear reactor. As he puts it, matter is matter and so when he ate, he ate chicken bones and all. Questor's skin is also a plastic material that he can melt and patch with a heat gun. Even when shot, he has damaged servos that need to be manually replaced.

And of course, robots like C-3P0 or R2D2 are never intended to look like or pass as human. They can mimic the human form in the most basic sense, and perhaps even be self-aware, but will always be primarily if not fully technological.

Bringing up Picard is interesting because I wonder if a Picard type android was the original intent for Data but was later abandoned as a concept for him or if, as with Questor, Data was simply designed to pass as human if you don't look too closely. (And you are right, a Picard like android definitely blurs the line between technological and biological).
We see Data get "drunk" and state that if he gets shot he will "leak" in The Naked Now, but within just a few seasons, he is shot with an arrow in Qpid and shot with a machine gun in First Contact with no apparent leaks or ill effects. By then, we also saw Geordie open Data's head on multiple occasions to show traditional "computer" gizmos including blinking lights and input jacks.
Comparatively, Picard is definitely more a type of synthetic you describe above in which he is more robust than the average 90 year old, but still got injured by a car, "bled" (leaked?!?), and was indistinguishable from a human by a 2024 doctor. Although they existed to a degree in science fiction, I can't help but think that an android being indistinguishable from a human down to the nano-level like Picard is a relatively new concept.

Ultimately, I would have actually loved to see Data as a more Picard-esque synth and where that would have lead. However, I tend to believe that Data was always intended to be a bit more of a technological android vs a biological one.

 

[Phoenix219]

It's long been my favorite of Roddenberry's post-Trek pilots, largely because Gene L. Coon co-wrote the teleplay. Here's my review on my blog:

https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/gene-roddenberrys-the-questor-tapes/




Well, they didn't rebuild Data. According to "Datalore," they found him complete and dormant next to a "signal device" that activated him when it sensed their approach. You're probably thinking of the Enterprise crew finding Lore disassembled and rebuilding him.




In fact, the original intention was even closer to Questor; Data was to have been built by mysterious advanced aliens in order to preserve the memories and personalities of the colonists (not just their collective knowledge as in the final version). I never understood why they changed it to a human inventor.




There has actually been some research into giving robots the ability to burn organic matter as an energy source. And since advanced robots would probably be made largely out of carbon compounds and polymers, it would make sense to use the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. in food as building materials for self-repair.




Yep, that was pretty much a direct lift.




The "Post-Atomic Horror" stuff in "Encounter at Farpoint" seems to be cribbed from the Genesis II/Planet Earth backstory. And Planet Earth featured warlike, bumpy-headed mutants called Kreeg, who may have been an influence on the Klingon redesign in ST:TMP and afterward.

And Questor itself was pretty much Roddenberry's third stab at Assignment: Earth, after the standalone 1966 half-hour version and the backdoor-pilot Trek episode. Questor had the same mission Gary Seven would've had, subtly shepherding humanity through its turbulent adolescence by influencing people and events behind the scenes, and was the same kind of cool, Spock-like superhuman paired with a more empathetic human partner. GR just swapped out "descendant of humans abducted and bred by advanced aliens to be their agents on Earth" for "descendant of androids built by advanced aliens to be their agents on Earth."

I suppose "Angel One" bears some similarity to the plot of Planet Earth, but stories about societies where women ruled over men were a pretty standard sci-fi trope back then, so it doesn't prove direct influence.

I've never heard about the standalone half hour version of Assignment: Earth before. Is it available anywhere? Does it use any of the footage used in the episode?

 

[Christopher]

I always thought of replicants (or other sci-fi humanoid synthetics) more as genetically engineered lab grown humanoids more than traditional androids, hence the inability to tell them apart without very specific testing. In this way, they may be modified to be somewhat smarter, stronger, or (in the case of replicants) shorter lived than humans, but they are still fundamentally biological.

Either biological or something synthetic that mimicked biology -- it wasn't clear on that. But the point is that the idea of artificial humanoids whose innards were closer to human anatomy than mechanical parts had been around in fiction long before TNG; see also Ash and Bishop in the Alien franchise, androids whose innards consisted of soft tubing and bulbs and gooey white fluid rather than metallic, mechanical parts as in the usual cliche. The original conception of Data was apparently closer to that, and the makers of TNG ended up abandoning it in favor of the more cliched approach.

Comparatively, I imagined Andrew Martin closer to a Data type android character at the end of Bicentennial Man. He may look human on the outside but if you cut open the skin, you would find that he is still more traditionally technological on the inside.

I just checked my copy of the story. The android body is "organic," with almost no metal, though I think that probably meant organic in the sense of being based on carbon compounds like polymers. Over the years, Andrew installed artificial organs that were prototypes for prosthetic organ replacements used in humans, like an artificial heart, liver, digestive system, and so forth. They may not have looked exactly like human organs, but they functioned analogously to them.

And that's what i'm saying Data was originally envisioned to be. Not identical to humans on the inside, but closer to human anatomy than the Ken-doll detachable limbs and blinky lights the show ended up using.

And of course, robots like C-3P0 or R2D2 are never intended to look like or pass as human. They can mimic the human form in the most basic sense, and perhaps even be self-aware, but will always be primarily if not fully technological.

Which is why, in the terminology codified by Hamilton, C-3PO is a robot, not an android, despite Lucas's misuse of "droid" as a term for all robots regardless of shape.

There was an early episode of the Nelvana Droids cartoon that featured a type of automaton called an android as distinct from a droid, and was apparently more humanlike in appearance, because this particular "android" turned out to be a humanoid alien in disguise.

Bringing up Picard is interesting because I wonder if a Picard type android was the original intent for Data but was later abandoned as a concept for him

Yes, that's what's I've been saying all along, that Data was originally meant to be more humanlike on the inside (though probably not exactly humanlike) but the makeup/prosthetic designers went for the more conventional cliche.

Although they existed to a degree in science fiction, I can't help but think that an android being indistinguishable from a human down to the nano-level like Picard is a relatively new concept.

Hardly. Heck, it isn't even new to the Trek universe -- see the Ilia probe in ST:TMP. "Even the smallest body functions are exactly duplicated. And every exocrine system is here, too, even eye moisture."

And then there were the humanoid Cylons in the Battlestar Galactica reboot, who were impossible to distinguish from humans even on a cellular level, despite having features like glowing spines.

I'm sure there are even earlier prose examples, though none come to mind. I have hardly ever seen a concept in film or television science fiction that wasn't already well-established in prose science fiction for at least a decade or two before it hit the screen. Screen science fiction is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the literature.

I've never heard about the standalone half hour version of Assignment: Earth before. Is it available anywhere? Does it use any of the footage used in the episode?

It was a rejected pilot script that was never filmed. Again, it was the first version, written in 1966, and when it was rejected, Roddenberry reworked it into the Trek episode as a backdoor pilot, basically using his Trek budget to get it made when he couldn't get anyone to pay for it to be filmed as a standalone pilot.

The script can be read here: https://www.assignmentearth.ca/files/661114-ae-script.pdf

 

[Vger23]

Riker and Troi are obvoius ones (for Decker and Ilia)

I think the idea of Picard being an "older, wiser" captain, with a more action-oriented first officer (Riker) who would do the away-missions was taken from the Phase 2 structure as well, particularly as they were trying to find a way to reduce Shatner's role for cost reasons, and hence why they created the role of Decker.

 

[Christopher]

Riker and Troi are obvoius ones (for Decker and Ilia)

And it was decades before I realized there's probably a Troy/Ilium pun in there.

I think the idea of Picard being an "older, wiser" captain, with a more action-oriented first officer (Riker) who would do the away-missions was taken from the Phase 2 structure as well, particularly as they were trying to find a way to reduce Shatner's role for cost reasons, and hence why they created the role of Decker.

Exactly. Picard as the veteran captain who'd already achieved greatness during his command of an earlier ship (the Stargazer) was meant to parallel the more mature Kirk taking Decker under his wing and passing along the wisdom of his experiences. I think I read that they weren't sure they could keep Shatner for more than a season, so the idea was to groom Decker as his potential replacement.


And Data is based as much on Phase II's Xon as he is on Questor. Xon was a fully Vulcan science officer who aspired to learn how to be more human so he could relate better to his crewmates.

 

[Ghel]

I just checked my copy of the story. The android body is "organic," with almost no metal, though I think that probably meant organic in the sense of being based on carbon compounds like polymers. Over the years, Andrew installed artificial organs that were prototypes for prosthetic organ replacements used in humans, like an artificial heart, liver, digestive system, and so forth. They may not have looked exactly like human organs, but they functioned analogously to them.

And that's what i'm saying Data was originally envisioned to be. Not identical to humans on the inside, but closer to human anatomy than the Ken-doll detachable limbs and blinky lights the show ended up using.

I stand corrected on Andrew. I will admit I haven't read that novel in quite some time (and don't have a copy handy.)

To be clear, I'm not disagreeing about Data. I would have definitely loved to have seen a more humanoid-synthetic Data in TNG. It could have opened up a number of different ideas and possibilities to play including a more reasonable reason why he would age along side Brent Spiner.

I also didn't mean to imply that nano level synthetics didn't exist at all (especially in novels since they can remain far ahead of TV and films due to a more targeted audience). Rather, that characters like Ilia are far more rare as opposed to the more traditional type of android. Honestly, even the Ilia probe was given a reverb to her voice that was different from the original character which undercuts the entire "exact" duplicate thing--this may have been done to avoid audience confusion, but it's still there. Hence when G.R. gives you two androids both capable of eating in the late 1970s and mid 1980s, it seems a bit more than coincidental. Also, sadly, when I mention "modern" science fiction on television, I think of the last Battlestar Galactica as part of that category. Looking at when it came out, it's really not. . .

Riker and Troi are obvoius ones (for Decker and Ilia)

I think the idea of Picard being an "older, wiser" captain, with a more action-oriented first officer (Riker) who would do the away-missions was taken from the Phase 2 structure as well, particularly as they were trying to find a way to reduce Shatner's role for cost reasons, and hence why they created the role of Decker.

That would have been wild to see in Phase II. Had Kirk remained, would Shatner really have been able to pull off the whole "commanding from the bridge" vibe while Decker went on missions?!? All I can think of is Scotty's line in Generations, "Is there something wrong with your chair, sir?"

 

[Vger23]

And Data is based as much on Phase II's Xon as he is on Questor. Xon was a fully Vulcan science officer who aspired to learn how to be more human so he could relate better to his crewmates.

Yes indeed....I forgot about the Xon/Data parallels.

 

[Christopher]

I stand corrected on Andrew. I will admit I haven't read that novel in quite some time (and don't have a copy handy.)

It's a novelette, actually. I think they had to expand it a fair amount for the Robin Williams movie.

I also didn't mean to imply that nano level synthetics didn't exist at all (especially in novels since they can remain far ahead of TV and films due to a more targeted audience). Rather, that characters like Ilia are far more rare as opposed to the more traditional type of android. Honestly, even the Ilia probe was given a reverb to her voice that was different from the original character which undercuts the entire "exact" duplicate thing--this may have been done to avoid audience confusion, but it's still there.

Even if audiences at the time were less familiar with the idea, saying "They didn't use it to avoid confusing people" is getting it backwards. The way to avoid confusing people with an idea is to show it to them, to give them experience with it so they get used to it. Confusion is merely the result of lacking information, so you cure it by providing that information. Even if it's confusing the first time it's shown to an audience, all you have to do is continue showing it until they catch on.

I mean, heck, in 1966 the concept of warp drive was probably confusing to a lot of viewers. Very little screen sci-fi acknowledged that the speed of light was a thing or that you needed something more than conventional rockets to get to other star systems. But TOS used warp drive regularly and got audiences used to the concept.

So there's no reason they couldn't have committed to the idea of Data having a more pseudo-organic interior. The Alien films did so, after all. It's just that TNG's makers fell back on cliche instead.

That would have been wild to see in Phase II. Had Kirk remained, would Shatner really have been able to pull off the whole "commanding from the bridge" vibe while Decker went on missions?!? All I can think of is Scotty's line in Generations, "Is there something wrong with your chair, sir?"

Well, to be fair, the plan to keep Picard in the background while Riker remained the action/romantic lead didn't last that long either.

 

[Phoenix219]

And it was decades before I realized there's probably a Troy/Ilium pun in there.



Exactly. Picard as the veteran captain who'd already achieved greatness during his command of an earlier ship (the Stargazer) was meant to parallel the more mature Kirk taking Decker under his wing and passing along the wisdom of his experiences. I think I read that they weren't sure they could keep Shatner for more than a season, so the idea was to groom Decker as his potential replacement.


And Data is based as much on Phase II's Xon as he is on Questor. Xon was a fully Vulcan science officer who aspired to learn how to be more human so he could relate better to his crewmates.

Heh. So after a couple seasons, Shtner would have been taken by the phase ii version of the Borg and Decker would have become Captain, haha. (Just making a joke, I know it wouldn't have played out that way.)

 

[Mojochi]

I do wonder, however, if the suspension of disbelief factor in the mid 1980s is why after early TNG, we really didn't see Data eat or drink again (at least as far as I remember).

He gives Lal drinking lessons in The Offspring (Even though we don't see him drink)

Long conversation with Timothy in Hero Worship about their drinks

Data disguised as a Romulan, "Enjoying" soup in Unification

And of course Data's double sampling of Guinan's beverage in Generations, basically to reassure himself that it is indeed "Revolting"

...just off the top of my head

 

[Ghel]

Ok, so apparently my memory is shot.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

And it was decades before I realized there's probably a Troy/Ilium pun in there.

*mind blown*