Question regarding Data

[chris32482]

Hey everyone, I was thinking about something and wanted to pose this question just out of curiosity...

I'm a fan of TNG and DS9 who just got into trek literature a few months ago. I've been reading the DS9 relaunch books (currently on MG # 3) and plan on going into the TNG relaunch books and the Titan series, and am really looking forward to the new Destiny trilogy everybody's talking about.

Anyway, I know that at the end of Nemesis they kind of left the possibility open of bringing Data back by having his memories preserved via B4. So my question is: has this subject been touched upon in any of the books yet? Is there a chance we could see Data back in future Star Trek lit?

Just a simple yeah, no, maybe answer will be fine. I'm actually guessing the answer is NO, but I'm just wondering...

THanks

 

[Christopher]

The books have made it pretty clear that Data cannot return through B-4. For one thing, only memory was transferred, not personality (precedent: Data didn't take on Lal's personality when he downloaded her memories). For another, B-4 has a much more primitive neural net and isn't capable of processing at anywhere near Data's level.

More generally, most of the folks involved in plotting the novels feel that resurrection has been overused in ST and would prefer to avoid it.

 

[KRAD]

B-4 has Data's memories. But Data had the memories of the Omicron Theta colonists and of Lal. That doesn't make him any of those people. B-4 is not Data. His disposition was dealt with briefly at the beginning of Resistance, as one of the many subplots of Articles of the Federation (where B-4's sentience was the subject of a Federation Council hearing, this time with Bruce Maddox arguing against disassembling him because it violates his rights, and the EMH from Voyager testifying for Maddox), and briefly again in a scene in Greater than the Sum, where La Forge muses over the decision made in Articles.

Anyhow, there are no plans to resurrect Data.

 

[ryan123450]

Simple answer: No, Data's gone forever, unfortunately.

More detailed, but still spoiler free answer, if you want

Spoiler: B-4's condition

B-4 contains Data's memories, in the same way that Data contained the memories of several other people (Lore, Lal, Soong, and other's but I'm not for sure on exactly who if any of those). But Data didn't become those people. And particularly because B-4 is less advanced that Data, he isn't even capable of becoming Data.

At any rate, B-4's fate is explored in Articles of the Federation and the TNG Relaunch.

EDIT: Dang, beaten to the punch by the pros.

 

[chris32482]

Thanks guys. Those are pretty much the answers I expected. I do hope, though, that at some point in the future they may consider bringing him back. I'm not even worried about how. I'm sure they'd think of a way if they wanted to.

 

[Christopher]

It's easy to bring Data back for a new book: Just write a book set prior to Nemesis. There are still plenty of untold Enterprise-E missions in that period.

But in terms of moving forward with the continuity, no. In real life, dead people stay dead. So they should stay dead in fiction too, unless there's a damn good reason for bringing them back. Resurrection is a cheat and a copout. It's giving into easy sentiment, pushing a reset button rather than letting the characters move forward and change and adapt to loss the way real people have to.

Personally, I think Data was kind of played out as a character anyway. The emotion chip had the potential to send his character in new directions, but each successive movie undermined that transition more and more and reset him back to his old status quo. And after that, what more was there to say? Where could you take him as a character from that point?

So I don't see any purpose in bringing Data back so far as evolving or advancing his character goes. The only purpose is nostalgia, getting to see more adventures of the familiar, established character we knew, with growth and change not being an issue. And that need could be fulfilled easily enough with pre-Nemesis tales of "untold voyages."

 

[Stevil2001]

Personally, I think Data was kind of played out as a character anyway. The emotion chip had the potential to send his character in new directions, but each successive movie undermined that transition more and more and reset him back to his old status quo. And after that, what more was there to say? Where could you take him as a character from that point?

Didn't you just answer your own question by saying there was unutilized potential?

 

[Mysterion]

But in terms of moving forward with the continuity, no. In real life, dead people stay dead. So they should stay dead in fiction too, unless there's a damn good reason for bringing them back. Resurrection is a cheat and a copout. It's giving into easy sentiment, pushing a reset button rather than letting the characters move forward and change and adapt to loss the way real people have to.

If they'd only had you around before they made ST3. I've always thought all the great dramatic impact of ST2 was totally destroyed in the next movie by bringing Spock back to life. Think about how dramatic ST3 would have been if we saw Kirk go looking for Spock only to fail, and the story we could have had about Kirk delaing with that.


Data should stay dead, too, otherwise his sacrifice in Nemesis is meaningless.

 

[Trent Roman]

Data should stay dead, too, otherwise his sacrifice in Nemesis is meaningless.

That, it already is...

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[nx1701g]

^ I don't think that Data's death in Nemesis was meaningless.

 

[MMCL]

Sometimes people die.

To bring him back in B-4 would be a discredit to the character of Data, a discredit to the sacrifice he made, and a cheap copy of TWOK/TSFS in my opinion.

Data had reached a peak in his evolution by the time of Generations and gradually (film by film) the writers seemed unable to cope with it - they just didn't know what to do with him. By 'resetting' his evolution back in B-4 it would have given the character 'an angle' again for the writers and would have been a creative outlet for them. But we've seen Data grow as a person already - so as an audience it's not new and it's not interesting.
EG We don't need to see him learn about comedy again or have a relationship with a crewmember again, or build a daughter again, or...

Also - with Data they would always have a get-out clause if he came back...

Picard: "Quick... there's a really dangerous situation ahead. Mr Data, download your memories into the spare robot we found on planet Randomania and then go and sort it out."
Data: "I would like to remind you that this is the 15th time I've died saving your ass, sir."
Picard: "Shut up Data..."

 

[Claudia]

I don't know but somehow the "not bringing back dead people"-statement is sort of contradicted by the ENT-post TATV-books...

Apart from that, I agree with Christopher. I thought Data's character was handled very poorly in the movies. I mean, why have him choose to implant the emotion chip and establish the fact that once it's implanted he can't control it - to just have him be able to turn it off at will, then to have him leave it behind - and in NEM there's not even a mention about the chip. That's sort of backward-character development.

While I agree that it would have been interesting if Kirk hadn't been successful in retrieving Spock, or it the katra-retransfer had somehow failed, I think that the whole "dying" advanced Spock's character. He wasn't the same afterwards, so STIII wasn't just some sort of reset-button situation.

But both "what ifs" IMO warrant exploration: a different handling of the emotionchip, and thus a different development of Data as a character - and the situation of Kirk had Spock not survived (or been revived).

 

[Christopher]

Personally, I think Data was kind of played out as a character anyway. The emotion chip had the potential to send his character in new directions, but each successive movie undermined that transition more and more and reset him back to his old status quo. And after that, what more was there to say? Where could you take him as a character from that point?

Didn't you just answer your own question by saying there was unutilized potential?

There was potential, but it was negated by the movies' progressive retconning of Data back to an emotionless, static being. NEM had Data state outright that he felt nothing. The books' explanation for that was that he had the emotion chip removed in the year before NEM. I really don't see much that could be done with the character after that. Well, maybe if you jumped forward and explored how he dealt with outliving all his friends, but there have been a couple of excellent SNW stories that did that, and it isn't really a viable basis for storytelling within the regular TNG context.

I don't know but somehow the "not bringing back dead people"-statement is sort of contradicted by the ENT-post TATV-books...

Every rule has its exceptions. The death of Trip was so ineptly handled onscreen that it required reinterpretation simply in order to make sense of what we saw. Trip's behavior in the holodeck simulation Riker watched was totally illogical; the threat he sacrificed himself for was ridiculously minor, there was an inexplicable lack of security personnel around, and he should've been able to devise a less lethal way of stopping the pirates. Also the chronology of the episode is confused because it was originally written to take place in the current season but was hastily reworked to be six years later once the show was cancelled, so there are inconsistencies that needed to be addressed. Plus there's the fact that we didn't actually see him die, even in the simulation; the last time we saw him, he was alive and being rolled into the medical chamber, and after that we only see characters talking as if he were dead. And of course the whole thing was a piece of historical fiction/reconstruction being watched by someone over 200 years later. So the way it was presented virtually compels the notion that there's a hidden truth underlying what we were shown.

Personally, maybe I would've done it in such a way that Trip did die, but in a way that made more sense and had more purpose than what we saw. But given that it pretty much had to be a major and deliberate obfuscation of the truth (since I don't think Riker would've chosen such an inept reconstruction of history if there'd been a more accurate one available), it's logical that there's a big secret behind it, and having the allegedly dead guy actually be alive works in that context -- especially when we only got hearsay evidence of his death to begin with.

No such mitigating factors apply in Data's case. We saw him standing right next to the thalaron generator only a couple of seconds before it went up in a monumental explosion. That's cut and dried. It would take a massively convoluted and implausible retcon to establish his survival in any form. Unlike in Trip's case, where it's the onscreen version that's massively convoluted and implausible.

 

[Lonemagpie]

It's easy to bring Data back for a new book: Just write a book set prior to Nemesis. There are still plenty of untold Enterprise-E missions in that period. ... And that need could be fulfilled easily enough with pre-Nemesis tales of "untold voyages."

Always assuming those will be allowed/wanted/fashionable/saleable

Which they probably will be, I dare say

 

[Claudia]

@ Christopher,

I didn't mention the ENT-relaunch to argue. Especially since I only know the basic facts but have not yet read the books - and probably never will.

And about logical behaviour... well, the ENT-characters mostly didn't act logically, therefore I didn't find their behaviour or the lack of security personnel etc. in TATV especially noteworthy.

 

[Clawhammer]

Well, we can always retrieve his head in the second loop.

 

[Stephen!]

They could bring Data back as a hologram, transfer his memories back from B4, then give it a mobile emitter

 

[Clawhammer]

Hmmm sounds less complicated.... I admit, I would not be a good writer.... lol

 

[William Leisner]

There's surely some believable, or semi-believable, or pseudo-semi-believable way of bringing back Data.

The real question is... then what? What possible reason would anyone have for going through all the trouble of resurrecting Data? What's the payoff, and how do the ends justify the means, story-wise?

 

[TerriO]

It's easy to bring Data back for a new book: Just write a book set prior to Nemesis. There are still plenty of untold Enterprise-E missions in that period. ... And that need could be fulfilled easily enough with pre-Nemesis tales of "untold voyages."

Always assuming those will be allowed/wanted/fashionable/saleable

Which they probably will be, I dare say

Hey, worked for me.