On the other hand, positronics are used as brain prosthetics in DS9 "Life Support". We don't know exactly what would be replaced by positronics, and the heroes don't agree on whether poor Vedek Bareil would actually still be there after even a successful procedure, but Norman's folks might have gotten that part down pat: the organic brain might be gradually "fossilized" into a machine one, still formally satisfying the pitch that sold the concept to Uhura.
Ruk's masters seemed to have quite a range of products: Ruk had strength and thinking power, but the spinning table could also make frailer things that benefited from mind or at least memory transfer. We never quite learn whether Ruk would have been "lifelike", that is, if he could ever have passed for one of 'em Ancients; we also don't know if he was a product of the spin machine or not. The range seen, produced by an inept illegal user no less, suggests the sky would not have been the limit. Which is nice: make the androids technology-agnostic, and you still get the classic slaves-overthrow-and-kill-masters plotline, suggesting it's inevitable whenever one species creates another. At least in the Trek universe, and at least when the created species is initially made to serve, or perceives itself as having been made so. OTOH, make the range of created life wide enough, and you can steer away from a simplistic Freudian-patricidal model...
Timo Saloniemi
