The Offspring: Happy Birthday to Lal!

What's funny is that "Data's mother" was a much more complex, stable android than either Data or his daughter... And yet she was basically forgotten after that one episode.

 

Data presumably never told anyone of her true nature. When he died, the secret died with him. And since Data's mom died a "natural" death, there was no autopsy. She might still be buried somewhere, with no one having any idea of the lost technology in that casket.

 

However, Picard & crew knew too. Presumably once she's dead/offline there's really no reason why they shouldn't study what was the most advanced Soong model, complete with having gotten a synaptic scanning dump similar to the Ira Graves technique.

 

What's funny is that as far as we know Soong made four androids one (b4) that was so dumb he made packleds sound like geniuses, the second with a full set of emotions but a murdering psychopath, the third one without emotion or any understanding of how people interact and the fourth one only a few months later that was perfect in every respect... So perfect in fact that she was married to a man who never suspected a thing. What's wrong with this picture?

 

Actually there were 3 before Lore, according to Julianna, among which we can assume B4 was one, & the other 2 were not much more operational than him. I also don't think Data was built without emotions, he just had restricted access to what was a natural trait for the model, which is why Julianna's model was a naturally achieved next progression, that didn't necessarily have to come quickly. There's no mention of how long her coma lasted after the Crystalline Entity attack, while he constructed her android, & perfected his synaptic scanning technique. He could've spent a year doing it

Now for all we know, Data's emotion chip was just a tuner that dialed up a Soong android's emotions, which is why it seemed to further exaggerate Lore's, when he'd stolen it. That's kind of how I diagnose Lore's condition to begin with, an uncontrollably distorted emotional state, like pseudobulbar affect.

Prior to Julianna, Soong designed all of them to have superhuman capabilities, & in some way that possibly extended to their emotions too. They had a tendency to undergo heightened reactions, which is maybe why when Data 1st activated his, that was his experience too, uncontrollable laughing & fear etc... Note that Lal had the same failure, as a fearful panic attack that derailed the system, because she was based on, as well as built from, Data's design.

Frankly, the only failure he'd seemingly had was cognitive in nature, & specifically emotional. It's probable that the success he'd made in making Julianna was what paved the way for his ability to create Data's chip, which in turn might have allowed for some kind of fix as well for both Lore & Lal (Who Data had incorporated into his own matrix)

That's sort of my head canon anyway. His ultimate research breakthrough came out of the necessity of her invention... necessity being the mother of invention, so to speak

 

Let's not forget that Lore was a mass-murdering psychopathic scumbag long before he got the emotion chip. He was responsible for the death of four hundred colonists by allying himself with the crystalline entity and then tried to do the same to the entire crew of the enterprise. So the emotion chip was not why he continued on his path to major scumhood.

 

Lore had presumably seen or heard of B-4 and his predecessors, and knew Data was being built. Lore could easily intuit that he was going to be replaced by the next model, as in fact he was. Surely you agree Lore was sentient / sapient and yet his "parents" disassembled and abandoned him. That they could do that to him (treat him as a thing) must have revealed itself to Lore a thousand different ways. Why should he have valued the treacherous organics when none of them valued him?

If Lore was a psychopathic scumbag, so were Noonien and Julianna. Let's not forget they washed their hands of Lore, leaving him effectively dead on a shelf, and never made any further effort on his behalf. Mom and Dad then mindwiped (killed) Data v1 and ditched Data v2 to a *very* uncertain fate.

 

You'd think Soong would have at least left a sign: Psychopathic Android; Do Not Activate.

 

Anyone else think killing Lal was a bit of a cop out?

Like they did it to fully clean up the mess and not have to address the real consequences.

 

Do we have proof Data's mom is dead in 2399?

Her natural lifespan gives her a few decades more.

 

Well, obviously. The only other options would be for Haftel to successfully seize her, which would likely result in Data leaving the show, or for Lal to stay on the E-D, which would practically necessitate her becoming a regular character.

 

Lal asked one too many fundamental questions:: "Why am I me instead of someone else?" It overloaded her circuits. Metaphysics is dangerous.

 

No more regular than Alexander.

Or if he seized her, Data probably wouldn't have been allowed to follow and there could be a throughline about a legal battle.

It just feels lazy and cheating to introduce a concept that requires follow up and then get out of it by blowing it up.

 

^That's most of the franchise for you.

 

I think they managed to kill two birds with one stone. Have their obnoxious Admiral making all sorts of threats against Data, his Dauther, and Picard and by causing the Daughter's death (she was obviously traumatized by all that crap) making her a one-episode character. And so the Admiral is now ashamed for what he was about to do and Picard won't be court-martialled.

 

Great job by Hallie Todd playing Lal. I could totally belive she was a real robot. I haven't seen her in anything else outside a couple of episodes of Murder, She Wrote.

 

The funny thing is that normally she's blond but in the episode, you can't tell.

 

Happy Birthday