At what point does Starfleet decide Data is too risky for service?

[enterprisecvn65]

So I openly acknowledge that having an android like Data around does possess many advantages including his strength, quickness, memory, intelligence and several times the fact he was and android served as a handy plot convenience device to save the day.

But at some point don't you think Starfleet would think that he's had one too many instances where his actions have endangered the crew?

I mean he's had malfunctions where he's hijacked the Enterprise, gone on dangerous rogue missions, given his loyalty to an enemy and tortured a fellow crewman, froze at key moments in battle.....and more.

Plus when he does get possessed by some alien force the attributes that make him valuable as a crew member, make him an extremely dangerous enemy. I mean Troi got possessed a lot it seemed, but it generally didn't turn her into a super powerful enemy.

At what point does Starfleet say "You know the cons seem to be outweighing the pros here and we can't take the risk of Data being on a starship" Or does he just get a free pass for life?

 

[Karzak]

I don't know. Does Geordi get a "free pass for life" too? By your logic, Geordi should also be removed from duty and placed somewhere that is low-priority and not as strategically sensitive or vulnerable as the engineering deck of the flagship after what the Romulans did to him in "The Mind's Eye" and then Soran in Generations.

The answer, I think, would be a resounding "no."

Regarding Data, I think it is mitigated by a couple of factors.

• Data is not, by his own nature, a malevolent being.

• Data has the very vocal and strong support of Picard and the rest of the crew, so even if Starfleet tried to cashier him out of service, it likely wouldn't be easy. We've seen on at least two occasions Picard standing up for Data's rights.

• Nothing happened to Data during his tour of duty that wasn't ultimately resolved.

 

[BillJ]

I don't know. Does Geordi get a "free pass for life" too? By your logic, Geordi should also be removed from duty and placed somewhere that is low-priority and not as strategically sensitive or vulnerable as the engineering deck of the flagship after what the Romulans did to him in "The Mind's Eye" and then Soran in Generations.

When I saw the title of this thread, I immediately thought LaForge was far riskier to have on the ship.

 

[Mojochi]

I can count just as many variables wherein the other crew were just as compromised as Data has ever been. In one instance (Power Play) Data is actually compromised in the exact same way as two humanoid officers, Troi & O'Brien. In The Game, the entire crew is hijacked except Data. Geordi is brainwashed to turn against his crew. Picard's entire mind is consumed & used by the Borg. Barclay is hijacked by aliens who use him to take control of the ship, no different than when Data did it. Hell, Sarek can't even be in a bad mood without the crew trying to kill each other

They're all vulnerable. In space, shit happens

 

[enterprisecvn65]

Yeah but as I pointed out when another member of the crew loses it they don't have the advantages Data does as an android that make him so dangerous.

Yeah I know LaForge is suspect too but he's generally a pawn whereas is much more formidable.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah but as I pointed out when another member of the crew loses it they don't have the advantages Data does as an android that make him so dangerous.

Counterbalanced by all the cases where his special advantages make him the only one who can save the ship when the other 1,011 people on board succumb to some space disease or mind control or whatever. Every individual has both advantages and disadvantages. Lots of species have special abilities that potentially make them "dangerous" -- Vulcans and Betazoids have telepathy, Vulcans and Klingons have superstrength, etc. But those abilities can also let them do great good. Dangerous abilities and beneficial abilities are two sides of the same coin, just different ways of using the same potential. Look at a warp reactor. It's the most dangerous thing on the ship, but it's the very thing that makes the ship possible.

 

[BillJ]

They're all vulnerable. In space, shit happens

+1

 

[Timo]

If anything, Data is the one asset I would pick for rebelling against me, as he's the only crew member equipped with a surefire off switch!

Vulcans and Klingons have superstrength

Where does that Klingon superstrength thing come from, though? The only particularly strong Klingon on screen was Kruge, and his muscular antics impressed his own Klingon crew! Worf had "warrior fierceness", but the only situation where his "strength" came up in dialogue or plot was in practical considerations of copulation with more fragile species...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The prevailing opinion among the Starfleet brass (with Maddox being the lone dissenting vote) was that Data is a fully sentient being, so he must have come across as a trustworthy one.

And that's the core of the whole thing: trust. Data didn't give Starfleet a reason not to trust him, despite his abilities, so why not let him proceed?

 

[MacLeod]

I'd echo what others have said, ou could say the same for many crew members, does Data have strength sure, but so do Klingons and Vulcans when compared against say Humans.


to quote Q

If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid.

 

[Timo]

Well, we explicitly saw that Klingon strength is no match for Data's... But neither is it a match for Riker's, or Archer's, or even Quark's.

And having strength is a good thing, because then it becomes easier to apply force against Data and not have to fear for actually fatal results. If LaForge hijacks the ship, we know from the "Samaritan Snare" example that a couple of phaser hits at stun will kill him while anything less might fail to stop him. With Data, you can cut him in half with a chainsaw to restrict his movements, reroute the warp core through his head to shake some sense to him, or beam him out to space for a few decades to cool down.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Disco]

Rerouting the warp core through Data's head and chainsawing him in half sound pretty fatal.

 

[Ithekro]

I'm pretty sure he's had worse.

 

[Timo]

The thing is, they did that already - see "Disaster" for the former and "Time's Arrow" for something much worse than the latter... No lingering ill effects, it seems!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Karzak]

Also worth mentioning:

Geordi's VISOR gets accessed and manipulated and ultimately leads to the destruction of the goddamn ship in Generations.

I'd say Data is not the only person who may pose a potential risk/threat to the crew/starship.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ About that, though...non-canon though this may be, in the novels, Geordi's VISOR actually is deemed a security risk and he's ordered to get the cloned eye implants that we would later see in the films.

But that was just due to hacking, really - Klingon sabotage. As far as we know, Data could not be hacked. I'm not aware of any instance where he was.

 

[Mojochi]

Lore hacks into Data's behavioral programming with use of the emotion chip, but to be fair, who the hell else is as capable of doing that besides Lore. He has a more intimate knowledge of the systems than anyone in existence. He also paid for that shit, with his life


Geordi's VISOR is a much more common tech, as is the ship itself, which is hacked more than once. Plus, they are just tech. Data is determined by law to be more than tech. He is a being, & nothing he has ever had happen has been more extreme in nature to safety & security than things that have happened to others

The question the OP is asking really boils down to does Data's supreme nature & abilities make him something which is too big a risk? I say no, because they are already over that line, in that they allow telepaths in Starfleet. That is some stuff that poses a much greater potential threat than Data's strength or computational supremacy. Somehow they came to grips with telepaths being among them. They can also cope with Data's mechanical strength, & vast computational skill, being used against them

Supernatural types of abilities are already commonplace in the Federation. Data's are somewhat unique but certainly not of a nature which would preclude him from service. Now maybe if a Q wanted to join Starfleet or something, they ought to give pause

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The real answer, of course, is "It's television".

Data has demonstrated himself dangerously hackable. In the real world, they'd at the very least force him to prove that is no longer the case before allowing him access to secure information. But in the Star Trek world, inclusiveness and trust in the individual are sacred, and it just goes against their identity as a culture to bar somebody from service for things that happened beyond his control.

 

[Christopher]

^And how many flesh-and-blood Trek characters have had their brains hacked by some alien force or other? The whole crew got taken over in "The Game," and Data was the only one immune to it. The whole crew also had their memories suppressed in "Conundrum." And let's not forget the time Picard was taken by the Borg and used to destroy 39 starships, or the time Picard had his mind taken over by an alien probe that dumped 50 years' worth of memories into him. Back in the original series, crewmembers had their minds altered by the Psi 2000 virus, Redjac, the Beta-XIIA entity, the Triacus children, etc. Surely it's been made clear by now that any humanoid brain is "dangerously hackable." Singling out Data would be pure racism.

 

[Timo]

Also, as the ship itself would be subject to hacking, there is no safe element aboard, no means of securing this Starfleet asset against takeover - except for diversity.

By taking aboard "exotic" folks like Data, LaForge or Troi, and not just "regular" humans, Starfleet actually improves its odds quite a bit: the enemy now has to hack not just the ship, not just the human crew, but also several other types of defender, all of them simultaneously. That poses quite an obstacle to the bad guy, who may have a dirty trick up his or her or its sleeve, but now needs more sleeves than your average octopus...

Timo Saloniemi