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Data dismantling Lore post-"Descent"

RonG

RonG

Captain
Captain
I was thinking about how Lore was dismantled and the Emotion Chip removed and "returned" to Data (as intended by Soong, but never actually installed).

After Lore was stopped by Data, why wasn't he put on trial?
If one Soong-type android had "human" rights, per The Measure of A Man, why was another treated as.. a machine?
It seems to me that it's either an oversight by the writers or an unlawful (and immoral) action by the ENT-D crew. In addition to dismantling Lore, the emotion chip was basically harvested from Lore without consent.

Any thoughts on that?
 
Well, different lifeforms absolutely require different rights. Dismantling a Soongian android for a few years is probably best compared to giving a human being a pair of handcuffs for the duration of transport to a holding facility - which is where Lore no doubt ended up as well, just like B-4.

But while Starfleet still believes in jails and sentences and probably floggings as well, civilian courts don't send criminals to be punished: they get treated. Lore is not Starfleet, and no doubt would be sent to therapy, too. Only, it wouldn't be Dr. van Gelder Jr. at Tantalus V treating him, but Dr Jurati at Daystrom Institute, most probably. And while van Gelder's patients get treated in a locked-up outpost surrounded by moats and forcefields, Jurati's patients may well get treated while disassembled: while van Gelder has a couch with leather restraints for a body, Jurati has a pedestal for a head.

(Oh, and as for the chip, Data's word is that it's his property, as lawfully donated to him by daddy. Lore may hold a different opinion, but word-against-word is likely to be resolved in Data's favor here. Not only thanks to character witnesses, but also because Jurati probably can rewind the two androids and check out what Soong actually said...)

Timo Saloniemi
 
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If Data and others dismantled Lore, did they put him back together after a journey to a courtroom? Just putting him into pieces isn't what 'The Measure of a Man' was about. If law was to be the same with Data and Lore, Lore would have to be put on trial for his crimes, not just shut down?

I think Data had the right to take back the emotion chip, it was stolen from him.
 
As said, dismantling doesn't preclude or even much inconvenience a trial. If anything, it facilitates one. Splitting a Soongian into six pieces is supposed to be nondestructive and indeed is more or less what the manufacturer recommends in "Datalore".

We don't know what the findings of the trial might be. Lore attacked Starfleet folks, but basically everybody does that, and basically everybody is outside UFP jurisdiction. (Is Lore a citizen? We get no hint that the inhabitants of Omicron Theta would be.) Also, Kirk was happy to drop charges on that when his pal Khan ceased to be a direct threat. Picard could pardon Lore on most of his antics, although the dead on Ohniaka III might not be included there.

Timo Saloniemi
 
RonG said:
I was thinking about how Lore was dismantled and the Emotion Chip removed and "returned" to Data (as intended by Soong, but never actually installed).

After Lore was stopped by Data, why wasn't he put on trial?
If one Soong-type android had "human" rights, per The Measure of A Man, why was another treated as.. a machine?
It seems to me that it's either an oversight by the writers or an unlawful (and immoral) action by the ENT-D crew. In addition to dismantling Lore, the emotion chip was basically harvested from Lore without consent.

Any thoughts on that?
Click to expand...
By my way of looking at it, the rulings in The Measure of A Man pertain to Data because he was an officer in Starfleet & Federation citizen (As was arguably Lal a citizen). Lore was not. Lore wasn't treated as a machine by Starfleet. He was treated to a judgement by Data, the only other person of his kind to be able to make that judgement, which is essentially an internal cultural matter, not to be adjudicated by Starfleet, under the Prime directive.

Think of it like this. If Kurn had done things comparable to what Lore did, & Starfleet thought him guilty of crimes. They might get overruled by the Klingon high counsel for those crimes... let's say if Worf were running it (For the sake of similarity), who might decide a harsher death penalty punishment.

Point being, If we assume Lore is thereafter relegated to nonexistence forevermore, then it was Data alone who consigned him to it, & in the strictest sense, rightfully so, based on Starfleet's prime directive.
 
FWIW, Lore was brought out of nonexistence forevermore by Data (and Chief Argyle and a few others)... Such back-and-forth might not amount to much in the end.

Timo Saloniemi
 
RonG said:
In addition to dismantling Lore, the emotion chip was basically harvested from Lore without consent.
Click to expand...

Lore stole the chip from Soong, so he can suck it. I applaud Data for not only disassembling Lore but also for rightfully taking the chip, which would have been his had not Lore stolen it.
 
He attacked and killed Starfleet personnel, not just in those episodes but in his introduction in "Datalore".

He got his colony killed, and I'm pretty sure they were Federation citizens.

By every measure, he was a big threat. Data did the right thing.

I don't think a trial would have changed the outcome, only on who performed the actual dismantling.
 
The interesting, and possibly crucial, point is that dismantling Lore isn't an execution in the normal sense, as it was reversible.
Leads to a question of how you would execute a Vulcan, if they could transfer their katra before the sentence. Possibly why they've tried to keep it secret (though prior to Spock returning a katra to a living body is something that has only happened in legend, if at all).
Basically, in a multi-species Federation, a death penalty might be complex. Hence they pretty much don't have one.
 
Farscape One said:
He got his colony killed, and I'm pretty sure they were Federation citizens.
Click to expand...

Actually, both of those claims could be contested.

Lore's contribution to the death of the colonists was claimed to be that he was in communication with the beast and somehow invited it to feast. But the events of "Datalore" seem to establish that Lore cannot communicate with the crystal beast. While impersonating Data, he sends a message in which he outlines how the entity could eat the E-D crew: it would need to move in when shields drop. But then Lore commandeers a transporter console, which he clearly intends to use for dropping the shields - and Data and Wes Crusher then use that console to beam Lore out, supposedly indeed dropping the shields (because we later learn Lore wasn't shredded). What does the crystal monster do? It moves away.

So apparently Lore didn't speak Crystal after all, but was merely delusional. And nothing he said to the entity back at the colony would have made a difference, either: the entity did not need any information or any communication or indeed any signal, but merely came, saw and ate. Hiding underground would hardly have helped, as we later learn in "Silicon Avatar"... There is no "way to the colonists" for Lore to reveal.

As for citizenship, Soong apparently went to Omicron Theta to escape from the UFP and its scientific community. And he succeeded in disappearing, which rather suggests the colonists weren't part of any UFP census.

The Soongs, who may well both have been UFP citizens themselves, de facto denounced their android children. Would Lore be a citizen de jure due to being their offspring? I mean, he isn't, not really - he's just a toy Noonien cobbled together.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Regarding Lore being beamed into space, it's possible he was beamed in the space between the shields and the ship. We've seen there being a gap between the two.

He clearly was able to communicate because it recognized him as Data when he told it to, and he did lure it to the ship.

The Crysyalline Entity might have decided a starship was more trouble than its worth, especially since its only source of intel suddenly went silent.

And Soong and the others... they might have fled to another world, but they were still technically Federation citizens. Especially since Dr. Marr's son was with them when they were killed.
 
the novelisation has Data rending Lore inoperative on a permanent basis on the planet when he shoots him then later dis-assembles him.

Probably not quite the ending they would want to show on tv hence Lore being shot then deactivated.
 
diankra said:
The interesting, and possibly crucial, point is that dismantling Lore isn't an execution in the normal sense, as it was reversible.
Click to expand...

I think the closest analogy to our 'real' world would be to put a criminal under sedation for an indefinite period of time. And not even that would be a perfect comparison, as the criminal under sedation would still age. Reversible cold storage would fit better as an analogy, but we can't do that (yet).

diankra said:
Basically, in a multi-species Federation, a death penalty might be complex. Hence they pretty much don't have one.
Click to expand...

There are many countries even today (in fact, a steadily growing number of them) that have abolished the death penalty for more fundamental reasons, I always assumed the Federation had a similar philosophy, at least in the 24th century (there still seems to have been some form of death penalty in the 23rd, even if very rare). But yeah, perhaps they also had such mundane, 'logistical' reasons :)
 
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Farscape One said:
Regarding Lore being beamed into space, it's possible he was beamed in the space between the shields and the ship. We've seen there being a gap between the two.
Click to expand...

The mystery there is, why did our heroes assume Lore was gone?

The mystery deepens when Pakleds find Lore. If they can do it, why couldn't our heroes?

"Datalore" concludes satisfactorily if our heroes have reason to believe Lore is dead, and mere transporting into vacuum won't kill a Soongian android, as Data himself very well would know.

Beaming through raised shields might result in Lore getting shredded - at which point the question becomes, why did that fail?

Beaming at a lethal setting, "Wolf in the Fold" style, would work, too - but why would that fail?

We're left scratching our heads here. But the Crystalline Entity wasn't: it chose to leave. Which is not in line with the plan outlined by Lore: the CE is waiting for a cue, and either has not gotten it but arbitrarily chooses to leave, or has gotten it but chooses not to act. This isn't evidence of it having comprehended Lore's plan - but if Lore factually was able to communicate, he would have made sure to get the CE to confirm it comprehended. It seems Lore just chose to interpret random noises as confirmation, delusional as he was.

He clearly was able to communicate because it recognized him as Data when he told it to, and he did lure it to the ship.
Click to expand...

Neither would seem to involve communication in any way. The CE did not do anything amounting to "recognizing": Lore stating he is Data resulted in no action or inaction or anything. And there is no evidence of luring, either: the CE just homes in on food, and E-D carried food.

The Crysyalline Entity might have decided a starship was more trouble than its worth, especially since its only source of intel suddenly went silent.
Click to expand...

But that did not happen - Lore did not suddenly go silent.

And Soong and the others... they might have fled to another world, but they were still technically Federation citizens. Especially since Dr. Marr's son was with them when they were killed.
Click to expand...

But the toaster they built would not become a citizen through this.

Timo Saloniemi
 
30 + years of wear and tear.

Data should have at the very least have replaced his feet with Lore's feet if he didn't have the acumen to create his own replacement limbs and appendages.
 
There may have been a trial. There isn't any evidence that there wasn't. They could have had a trial while Lore was still deactivated.
 
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