Why didn't the Zhat Vash target Data and Lore?

Gingerbread Demon said:

Going back to Picard season 1 if the Zhat Vash have been around a long time enough to learn about things like they have why did they never target Starfleet before and try and get Data or Lore to destroy them? Wouldn't those two androids represent their fear?

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FredH said:

Maybe since there were only two, long-term surveillance of them would give the Zhat Vash more and better knowledge about AI, the better for destroying or preventing it in the long run? (And that’s why there were “a host of Romulan cyberneticists” who would’ve loved to get their hands on Data — but paradoxically, actually abducting him would have drawn attention and lessened the amount of intelligence they could gather from his operation in place.)

And Lore probably just killed any who tried.

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DGCatAniSiri said:

The uniqueness of Data was almost certainly a factor, and I’d also argue that Commodore Oh only (presumably) reaching her place in Starfleet after his death played a factor, that inserting an operative in Starfleet Intelligence and having them rise through the ranks takes time.

With the Romulans having been in isolation for fifty-ish years prior to TNG’s first season, Data’s discovery and joining Starfleet might have been off their priority list, and while inserting an operative into Starfleet, getting them to a position of being able to order him into the waiting disassembly team of Zhat Vash agents would then gain focus, it would take time, time in which Data ended up sacrificing himself on the Scimitar before it could come to fruition.

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