Data's Imitation Game

[SpyOne]

To the original topic: are you sure we've seen Data imitate someone?
What I mean is: in Encounter At Farpoint we see Data recount exactly what Q said in Q's voice, so we know he can essentially serve as a recording device.
So he can repeat anything he's heard someone say, in their voice. But is he able to imitate their voice saying something they've never said?

 

[PicardSpeedo]

To the original topic: are you sure we've seen Data imitate someone?
What I mean is: in Encounter At Farpoint we see Data recount exactly what Q said in Q's voice, so we know he can essentially serve as a recording device.
So he can repeat anything he's heard someone say, in their voice. But is he able to imitate their voice saying something they've never said?

Yep. In "Brothers," he uses Picard's voice to manipulate the computer into giving him total control of the Enterprise's bridge, which includes shutting off its life support systems.

 

[Kor]

Data also imitated Picard when under Lore's influence in "Descent, Part 2" to play a prank on Geordi.

Kor

 

[PhotoBoy]

Perhaps Data explains it best himself in Farpoint:

Possibility- a kind of human behaviour I was not designed to emulate.

 

[Timo]

One wonders if Data was "designed to emulate" mastery of the violin, or acquired that skill through exercises similar to his experiments with sneezing.

Given his likely total control over his body, including an ability to reproduce Lore's facial tick for shits and giggles at the conclusion of "Datalore", I'd rather think his sneezing instead would proceed the same way as his violinism: he'd study master sneezers and then mix and match his perfect reproductions of the feats of the masters into what he considers a satisfactory synthesis. Perhaps the "Datalore" sneezing experiment was a bold departure from that well-working modus operandi, though, one Data never dared repeat?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Maybe he blew out a circuit and Geordi suggested he ought not to try it again.

Now I imagine Data walking down the hall of the Enterprise-D with an eyeball hanging out of his socket because he stifled a sneeze.

 

[PicardSpeedo]

Maybe he blew out a circuit and Geordi suggested he ought not to try it again.

Now I imagine Data walking down the hall of the Enterprise-D with an eyeball hanging out of his socket because he stifled a sneeze.

I can see this happening. I'd guess his romantic liason with Tasha Yar may have ended in a similar manner, though the suggestion to 'not try it again' probably came about as a result of Yar being horrified by Data's weird fetishes (external link).