Doctor Bashir did it. So the concept was in place.
Spoilers Picard 1x1, "Remembrance"
- Thread starter The Old Mixer
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Doctor Bashir did it. So the concept was in place.
Indeed, the technology would no doubt emerge from a twisted kind of mercy project: give brain prosthetics to bodies in need. It's just that when you go 100% prosthetic, it's no longer you, Ira Graves' best efforts notwithstanding... But who cares when the tech works?
I certainly wasn't expecting this sort of connectivity to past Trek from PIC. Maddox, of all people... But the concept sounds like great fun. Even if it may take me forever to gain access to the practical execution...
Timo Saloniemi
I certainly wasn't expecting this sort of connectivity to past Trek from PIC. Maddox, of all people... But the concept sounds like great fun. Even if it may take me forever to gain access to the practical execution...
Timo Saloniemi
There was once a conspiracy to prevent a peace conference with the klingons because they hated klingons and didn't want them roaming around federation space. Wouldn't surprise me if someone in starfleet wasn't too fond of the idea of having hundreds of millions of romulan refugee's in federation space and manipulated the tal shiar into thinking the rescue fleet was actually an invasion fleet.
Would they name drop Ariam re: this kind of cybernetic upgrade? Her records might have been classified after the whole Control mess, but turned up later.
I think Ariam should be one of those things that are just swept under a rug and forgotten about. I don't just mean for how it breaks canon, and seemingly invalidates all the awe associated with Data and cybernetic beings in general that we saw on TNG. (They can classify it all they want, but if the science to build Ariam exists in the 23rd century then there's exactly zero chance it could stay proprietary and hidden for the next 120 years.) But beyond that, just on the silliness scale, the necessity to manually manage one's memories is right up there with Spock asking the Enterprise computer to determine the last digit of π. Truly stupid, clearly written by people who have no idea how either the human brain or a computer works. The scientific literacy of TOS was low, but that is somehow understandable given budget constrains and audience expectations in the 1960s. The fact that the scientific literacy of Discovery is even lower is inexcusable.
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But, that's been true since Data was conceived given the variety of androids shown in TOS.
And what awe?
Data was never considered awesome. Nobody was interested in Data after he was found and (re)activated. He drifted, until on his own account joined Starfleet, which showed no interest in the freak machine and stuck him in insignificant jobs...
...Until apparently Starfleet decided to assign all its freaks to the new Federation Flagship for PR purposes, so the Only Android joined the First Klingon, the Ambassador's Daughter and the Blind Helmsman in a show of IDIC. And even then, none of Picard's heroes were particularly in awe; even LaForge's VISOR got more attention.
In the expert opinion of Ira Graves, Data was a trinket. A folly of Soong's, it seems, perhaps such a blatant one that nobody initially believed that this toy created in Soong's image was actually Soong's own handiwork...
Timo Saloniemi
Data was never considered awesome. Nobody was interested in Data after he was found and (re)activated. He drifted, until on his own account joined Starfleet, which showed no interest in the freak machine and stuck him in insignificant jobs...
...Until apparently Starfleet decided to assign all its freaks to the new Federation Flagship for PR purposes, so the Only Android joined the First Klingon, the Ambassador's Daughter and the Blind Helmsman in a show of IDIC. And even then, none of Picard's heroes were particularly in awe; even LaForge's VISOR got more attention.
In the expert opinion of Ira Graves, Data was a trinket. A folly of Soong's, it seems, perhaps such a blatant one that nobody initially believed that this toy created in Soong's image was actually Soong's own handiwork...
Timo Saloniemi
Sure, canon violations are nothing new. But if you are making a new show, this seems like a particularly odd choice to make, given the history of Data.
That's just patently false. Data was frequently an object of intrigue and technological marvel, both for us as the audience and for those he interacted with in-universe. It's true that he was also used as a symbol for "the other", and made to contend with the prejudices associated with that, e.g. as expressed by Dr. Pulaski or Ira Graves, but that doesn't undermine the first point.
I disagree. TOS regularly showed androids in several different capacities, including making full replicas of existing people. Data's uniqueness is not because he is an android. It was his positronic matrix. Having other cybernetic characters doesn't take away from Data and its a ridiculous artificial limitation to put on the storytelling when other episodes demonstrate a variety of cybernetic beings are present in the Trek universe.
Indeed, it was rather disappointing when VOY "Prototype" featured the line establishing Data as not just the only android in Starfleet but also "the only sentient artificial lifeform in our society"*! Given the disinterest Data received in that society, we can but deduce that AIs are uninteresting as a thing, have been exhaustively experimented on during TOS already, and have been found wanting and are no longer being manufactured.
Really, Riker got way more awe than Data, both from the universe around the heroes, and from the audiences...
Timo Saloniemi
* Except of course for the holograms, which Torres in that episode strangely omits. Perhaps she was lying to begin with?
Really, Riker got way more awe than Data, both from the universe around the heroes, and from the audiences...
Timo Saloniemi
* Except of course for the holograms, which Torres in that episode strangely omits. Perhaps she was lying to begin with?
I know they are saying that Dahj is a product of Data, but Data looked pretty much vaporized at the end of Nemesis. That leaves Lore and B4 around. What if this is a misdirect and they are the children of Lore? Doesn’t a synth attack feel more like something Lore would do? And if they are looking for Maddox, how do we know it’s not Lore’s brain in Maddox’s body? Which might explain why it was necessary to create the twins?
Don't most of the androids end up breaking down? From Ruk and Corby, to Norman, to Reyna. Data was unique because he was stable.
We think of the automobile as a 20th Century phenomenon, but Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, a French engineer, invented the Fardier à vapeur in 1769. That was basically the first car. It was a steam-powered engine. Here's a nice webpage about it. Most technology is older than people realize. It just takes a long time for it to become sustainable, marketable, and successful. I see androids being much the same way.
Data's much more advanced than anything we see in TOS or the films or even Airiam, who isn't actually an android. She's a cyborg. She was born human and has cybernetic augments. She seems a lot more robotic than Data ever did. The whole point of Data is that he doesn't seem like a machine the way someone like Airiam would or that Robot Cop toward the beginning of the 2009 Film. Doctor Corby was an early attempt at a lifelike android, but it didn't work and, to quote Kirk, "Doctor Corby was never here."
Even after Data was discovered, it took decades before Androids started to be used the way they were in the lead-up to Picard.
Data's much more advanced than anything we see in TOS or the films or even Airiam, who isn't actually an android. She's a cyborg. She was born human and has cybernetic augments. She seems a lot more robotic than Data ever did. The whole point of Data is that he doesn't seem like a machine the way someone like Airiam would or that Robot Cop toward the beginning of the 2009 Film. Doctor Corby was an early attempt at a lifelike android, but it didn't work and, to quote Kirk, "Doctor Corby was never here."
Even after Data was discovered, it took decades before Androids started to be used the way they were in the lead-up to Picard.
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I mean, Mudd was left on a planet full of them so apparently the breakdown wasn't too quick
I mean, Mudd was left on a planet full of them so apparently the breakdown wasn't too quick
Yeah, but outside of Norman, they seemed to be about on par with B-4.
But I wonder if part of that was Mudd's tinkering.
Regardless, androids and cybernetic beings don't take away from Data.
Kinda does, when Data was supposed to be the first. It is sloppy that supposed superfans flubbed it.
But, Ariam isn't an android.