Norrin Radd
Vice Admiral
Why is the concept of Data as a unique living, thinking machine so incredible in TNG when you have all these sentient, self aware holograms running around on Voyager (most noteworthy being the Doctor) like it's no big deal?
Data vs. The Doctor
- Thread starter Norrin Radd
- Start date
Norrin Radd
Vice Admiral
Yeah, but at least at first that seemed like a freak occurrence...then it all became commonplace to the point where you have all these holographic AIs popping up left right and centre.
Data was first. After that, the holograms are no big deal anymore.
I don't really see Data ever having been a "big deal". If he were, surely somebody would have shown interest in him. But no, he's allowed to languish in some menial Starfleet job for more than a decade before Cmdr Maddox makes his halfhearted attempt at doing some further poking on him.
Data was the only sentient android at the time of TNG, but that only need mean that there was no demand for sentient androids at that time. There could have been artificial sentiences galore, occupying other media such as holodecks or computer cores - but only Soong was mad enough to insert one into an android body.
It's even possible that he chose the android form to showcase his true brainchild, the positronic brain: this technology might have been superior to existing computers only in its compactness, and it would then be a dramatic demonstration indeed to show that humanlike sentience could now for the first time be packaged in a humanlike skull.
Alternately, sentient androids were old news, long since proven useless, and nobody but the old fool Soong would consider using them as part of their high tech experiments.
Really, while Data admittedly was unique, Starfleet or Federation science only expressed interest in him when he caused unique trouble. Apart from that, he only held curiosity value to Kivas Fajo, a dedicated collector of generally useless curiosities.
Timo Saloniemi
Data was the only sentient android at the time of TNG, but that only need mean that there was no demand for sentient androids at that time. There could have been artificial sentiences galore, occupying other media such as holodecks or computer cores - but only Soong was mad enough to insert one into an android body.
It's even possible that he chose the android form to showcase his true brainchild, the positronic brain: this technology might have been superior to existing computers only in its compactness, and it would then be a dramatic demonstration indeed to show that humanlike sentience could now for the first time be packaged in a humanlike skull.
Alternately, sentient androids were old news, long since proven useless, and nobody but the old fool Soong would consider using them as part of their high tech experiments.
Really, while Data admittedly was unique, Starfleet or Federation science only expressed interest in him when he caused unique trouble. Apart from that, he only held curiosity value to Kivas Fajo, a dedicated collector of generally useless curiosities.
Timo Saloniemi
Well, it seems that Data's intelligence seems to be more hardware derived while the Doctor's intelligence seems to be derived from software.
I think the Binars are responsible for the federations A.I. improvement in holograms as Minuette seemed to be a breakthough in that technology. The Enterprise computer may have created Moriarty using Minuette as a template.
I think the Binars are responsible for the federations A.I. improvement in holograms as Minuette seemed to be a breakthough in that technology. The Enterprise computer may have created Moriarty using Minuette as a template.
Then again, Data seemed to create Lal by performing a software dump, admittedly on a rare and exotic positronic matrix. But yeah, it would seem that Data is more hardware-dependent, and a bit less likely to survive a transfer from one medium to another. (In contrast, something like Vic Fontaine can be easily written to operate on a Cardassian/Ferengi holodeck; I wonder how much of a custom job Vic really was...)
As for Minuet being a novelty, we might argue she was a novelty for a shipboard Starfleet holodeck, even if standard fare for the more refined civilian planetside setups. Janeway in "Flashback" seems to draw some sort of a limit between the supposedly crude TAS holofacility and the systems on which she herself enjoyed the adventures of Flotter as a child, not acknowledging the former as a holodeck at all. So something of a drastic improvement in holosimulation quality had already taken place before Minuet was introduced.
I like the idea that the Bynar improvements made the holodecks of the E-D specifically the worst deathtraps in the Fleet or in the Federation, explaining why nobody could foresee things like Moriarty or the "Emergence" lifeform. Civilian machines originally built to the same (or better) specs would have been more limited and thus safer.
Timo Saloniemi
As for Minuet being a novelty, we might argue she was a novelty for a shipboard Starfleet holodeck, even if standard fare for the more refined civilian planetside setups. Janeway in "Flashback" seems to draw some sort of a limit between the supposedly crude TAS holofacility and the systems on which she herself enjoyed the adventures of Flotter as a child, not acknowledging the former as a holodeck at all. So something of a drastic improvement in holosimulation quality had already taken place before Minuet was introduced.
I like the idea that the Bynar improvements made the holodecks of the E-D specifically the worst deathtraps in the Fleet or in the Federation, explaining why nobody could foresee things like Moriarty or the "Emergence" lifeform. Civilian machines originally built to the same (or better) specs would have been more limited and thus safer.
Timo Saloniemi
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