Data's previous assignments

[Discofan]

...

And how did he grow so much more in seven years than he did in his first few decades? In Encounter At Farpoint, Data seems like he was just activated and never tried to blend in socially before.

...

I think the writers had no choice there. They had to make Data obviously robotic in Nature so he could then show some character growth. If they had shown him as someone with thirty years of experience then he would have been pretty much like the Data of the future from "All Good Things..." that was so close to being human that you could hardly tell the difference so they had to cheat and make him like he had been activated a couple of years before.

What's ironic is that his brother Lore had functioned for a much shorter amount of time and yet he sounded much more human than Data ever did, likely because he was evil and full of malice and we see much more of these around than people like Data.

 

[Mojochi]

And how did he grow so much more in seven years than he did in his first few decades?

I like to think it's because this is his 1st posting where he's a member of a tight knit command crew. Maybe even his first bridge command post altogether. These people began treating him like he was family right from the start (except Pulaski)

That may have been the 1st time anyone had ever befriended him like that. You NEVER hear him talk about old shipmates or academy pals the way Riker & Geordi do. He might not have had any. He didn't know how to socialize, so no one engaged him. They just stuck him in a lab & assigned him banal tasks that he was perfectly suited for, & because he has hardly any emotional depth, it never really bothered him

In fact, I imagine that it's very likely someone without emotions would go a long time without advancing, because ambition is an emotion, the need to feel less stagnant.

But when Picard took a chance on him, he blossomed, and almost immediately began forming bonds with people. Starting a new chapter in his life & career, where he was really comrades on a crew

I imagine that it's just as easy for people to blend into the woodwork in their universe as it is in ours. Look at Barclay, or any number of barely named people scuttling about every week, like Gates & Jae or Martinez. Maybe his formative career years were full of people like Hobson, who just never saw him being worth paying any mind to

 

[Nakita Akita]

I think if any of us looks at our own past, there were people that nobody spoke to.
The forgotten kid in the back of the class, overlooked during the party invetations etc.
I kind of looked at him like that.
In the first or so episode, Riker goes and finds him inside the Holodeck and tells him something and seems to make it clear to Data (the viewer ) that he doesn't think of Data as a machine or part of the ship but as a crew mate. (Or something like that, don't beat me up over the specifics)

 

[Mojochi]

In the first or so episode, Riker goes and finds him inside the Holodeck and tells him something and seems to make it clear to Data (the viewer ) that he doesn't think of Data as a machine or part of the ship but as a crew mate. (Or something like that, don't beat me up over the specifics)

Yup. I was thinking about that very same scene myself. Riker goes out of his way to befriend Data there. Geordi obviously goes out of his way to do the same, & Picard is literally taking him under his wing. These people might be the 1st people to treat him like family, & invite him to explore those kinds of interactions with them. It also makes me think he might never have been on a tight knit command crew like this before either. You never hear him talk about other command experiences, & you can barely ever shut him up about himself or his experiences. So I have to think maybe there isn't much to tell, except perhaps one amazing tale of how he got promoted to Lt.Cmdr, & won a bunch of medals

 

[bigglesworth]

Yup. I was thinking about that very same scene myself. Riker goes out of his way to befriend Data there. Geordi obviously goes out of his way to do the same, & Picard is literally taking him under his wing. These people might be the 1st people to treat him like family, & invite him to explore those kinds of interactions with them. It also makes me think he might never have been on a tight knit command crew like this before either. You never hear him talk about other command experiences, & you can barely ever shut him up about himself or his experiences. So I have to think maybe there isn't much to tell, except perhaps one amazing tale of how he got promoted to Lt.Cmdr, & won a bunch of medals

In the EaF novelization as well as one of the early TNG novels, the authors imply that Riker doesn't think of Data as anything more than a fancy tool. I seem to recall Picard encouraging Riker to take Data to explore the Farpoint station tunnels, and Riker dismissing it saying that Data wouldn't be able to provide any more help on the away mission than a tricorder. Riker obviously relents and takes Data, Troi and Geordi as seen in the actual episode.

I'm wondering if this was one of the "items" in the early TNG bible that was never really used onscreen except for certain episodes like Maddox in Measure of a Man or Kolrami, somewhat, in Peak Performance.

Anyway, I'm guessing, like most people here, that in most of Data's assignments before Enterprise, he was treated like we would treat Siri or Alexa.

 

[Mojochi]

In the EaF novelization as well as one of the early TNG novels, the authors imply that Riker doesn't think of Data as anything more than a fancy tool. I seem to recall Picard encouraging Riker to take Data to explore the Farpoint station tunnels, and Riker dismissing it saying that Data wouldn't be able to provide any more help on the away mission than a tricorder. Riker obviously relents and takes Data, Troi and Geordi as seen in the actual episode.

I'm wondering if this was one of the "items" in the early TNG bible that was never really used onscreen except for certain episodes like Maddox in Measure of a Man or Kolrami, somewhat, in Peak Performance.

Sounds more like what they did with Pulaski too

 

[bigglesworth]

Sounds more like what they did with Pulaski too

Great point...

 

[Marynator]

Remember that even as enlightened as Captain Picard is, he himself still overlooked Data in "Redemption" for command. Data had to assert himself for the request, and Picard did agree, but it wasn't his initial line of thought. If it could happen to the greatest captain in the starfleet, we can reasonably assume that others had been routinely overlooking Data for his entire career, so it really does feel like a fair hypothesis to me.

 

[Discofan]

Remember that even as enlightened as Captain Picard is, he himself still overlooked Data in "Redemption" for command. Data had to assert himself for the request, and Picard did agree, but it wasn't his initial line of thought. If it could happen to the greatest captain in the starfleet, we can reasonably assume that others had been routinely overlooking Data for his entire career, so it really does feel like a fair hypothesis to me.

Remember also that as talented and courageous as Captain Picard is, he couldn't get a captaincy without first being stabbed in the back by a Nausicaan. For most people that would be too high of a price to pay.

 

[Herbert]

Remember also that as talented and courageous as Captain Picard is, he couldn't get a captaincy without first being stabbed in the back by a Nausicaan. For most people that would be too high of a price to pay.

You're assuming that the events in Tapestry were real and not simply some kind of a dream. Even Picard is unsure which and he admits to that at the end of the episode

 

[Discofan]

You're assuming that the events in Tapestry were real and not simply some kind of a dream. Even Picard is unsure which and he admits to that at the end of the episode

I took this episode as meaning that becoming a captain is tough and needs a great deal more than just being talented, knowledgeable and work long hours.

 

[MacLeod]

Why is it in the show we never really learned about anything that happened to Data between his decision to enter Starfleet Academy and Encounter At Farpoint? We learn vaguely how long he spent at each rank, and that's pretty much it. How come he never ran into previous crewmates, or discussed his previous attempts trying to blend in?

And how did he grow so much more in seven years than he did in his first few decades? In Encounter At Farpoint, Data seems like he was just activated and never tried to blend in socially before.

What were his first assignments like, as an Ensign and Lieutenant? Did he take that long just to get to the point he reached in Encounter at Farpoint? Might it have been better and made more sense for the development we saw if Data had begun as an Ensign?

Starfleet is a fairly large organisation so it isn't impossible not to run into former crew. Don't we often complain about small universe syndrome where people are always running into people that they know.

It can vary from place to place of course

But how often do you run into people you went to school with?
How about former work colleagues how often do you run into them?
How often do you talk about former work colleagues with current work colleagues?

 

[Levi]

Starfleet is a fairly large organisation so it isn't impossible not to run into former crew. Don't we often complain about small universe syndrome where people are always running into people that they know.

It can vary from place to place of course

But how often do you run into people you went to school with?
How about former work colleagues how often do you run into them?
How often do you talk about former work colleagues with former work colleagues?

This explains it.
If you move away from the city you went to school in, how often do you really run into someone from school? How often would you really run into someone if you were exploring the whole Galaxy?
It certainly is possible to run into someone you know, but also very possible to spend your whole career and just not! Even in regular military service today, highly unlikely to run into someone from your grad class as it is.
However, the longer you serve, the more chances you have of running into someone. Especially if people from your class stay in service as well. We see Captain Picard run into other Captains he knows from years and years of service, and even then its still a rare occasion. We dont know if anyone from Datas previous assigments are even still serving in Starfleet. So who knows. Maybe the writers just never bothered to follow the idea :P

 

[Farscape One]

Or another possibility... a lot of his previous assignments, the ships may have met an unfortunate end after he transferred. Perhaps a majority of his old colleagues are dead or missing.

 

[bigglesworth]

Or another possibility... a lot of his previous assignments, the ships may have met an unfortunate end after he transferred. Perhaps a majority of his old colleagues are dead or missing.

Lt. Cmdr Data: The Harbinger of Doom

 

[Discofan]

Or another possibility... a lot of his previous assignments, the ships may have met an unfortunate end after he transferred. Perhaps a majority of his old colleagues are dead or missing.

Given that all the colonists from the place where he was built are all dead... Maybe that would be too many catastrophes for one android.

 

[Mojochi]

It's also possible that he'd never even developed the appropriate programs for the kind of interpersonal relations he has on Enterprise. Remember, he literally had to write a program for how to proceed with Jenna D'Sora, & those initial responses were as awkward as anything he ever had with friends & coworkers

 

[Dukhat]

What people tend to forget is that Data was originally envisioned to have been an android built by an unknown alien civilization. That's where most of the awkwardness-around-humans thing originated during the first half of season one, which then didn't make much sense once it was established that Data was built by a human and spent quite a lot of time around them even before being posted to the Ent-D.

 

[Discofan]

What people tend to forget is that Data was originally envisioned to have been an android built by an unknown alien civilization. That's where most of the awkwardness-around-humans thing originated during the first half of season one, which then didn't make much sense once it was established that Data was built by a human and spent quite a lot of time around them even before being posted to the Ent-D.

So when did they decide to make him an Asimovian type of robot?

 

[Farscape One]

I only put the possibility because he may have only served on 2 or 3 ships before Picard. He was in Starfleet for 18 years before the Enteeprise, and he was there for over 7 years. It's not a stretch to think he served on a small amount of ships.