Poll Should Data Have Ever Joined Starfleet?

[Mojochi]

Notice I didn't ask if Data "belongs" in Starfleet, so to avoid the usual, overly rehashed debate of whether he, as an android, is valid for entrance, etc...

I'm more interested in this broader ethical aspect.

I am the culmination of one man's dream. This is not ego or vanity, but when Doctor Soong created me he added to the substance of the universe. If by your experiments, I am destroyed, something unique and wonderful will be lost. I cannot permit that, I must protect the dream.

Should not this motivation, in itself, have precluded him from ever having joined Starfleet in the 1st place? I suppose one could suggest that he hadn't quite weighed it in that way, until his rights were in question, in that very episode's circumstances...

But shouldn't he have? At the time of Data's entrance into Starfleet, he was to date the only known example of his particular kind of life form. I can think of no other life form, present in their ranks, where the same is true. By his own admission, he is essentially a woefully endangered species, & Starfleet service is unquestionably a very precarious endeavor, replete with incalculable life threatening dangers.

It seemed in Brothers, that even Soong himself was befuddled & perhaps disappointed by Data's choice to enter Starfleet, & given what actually ends up happening to Data, in his final act of service to his crew, isn't the question even more valid?

Isn't joining a service like Starfleet in fact a rather unsound pursuit, for someone who is possibly the last of his kind, & a fairly irresponsible way to "Protect the dream" & such a precious uniquity of the universe?

So in essence, perhaps this should have been Maddox's counterpoint to Data's statement. If protecting your specialness is your motivation, then why are you in Starfleet at all? Isn't the point of Starfleet that we risk ourselves through service, toward the betterment of ourselves & each other, learning more about ourselves, the universe, & life? & isn't what Maddox is doing, as dangerous as it might be to Data, arguably a similar risk, & in that respect, no more unreasonable, than serving a crew in deep space?

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Interesting quandary.

He may have felt some sense of obligation after having been rescued by Starfleet, but he could repay this "debt" through numerous roles in the Federation (such as working at the Daystrom Institute, dealing with pure research and development), but at the same time he wanted to learn about humanity and may have taken a page from the works of Shan Yu: "Live with a man 40 years. Share his house, his meals. Speak on every subject. Then tie him up, and hold him over the volcano's edge. And on that day, you will finally meet the man."

That he can only learn what it truly means to be human to see them pushed to the limits and risk his own "mortality" in order to start to understand them.

 

[Orphalesion]

He's an individual and so he has the right to live his life as he chooses.
To me it doesn't conflict with what he says in "Measure of a Man". That was about the right not to be cut up into pieces and studied, which every sapient lifeform ought to have, to me that doesn't mean he now has to move into a plastic bubble and avoid all danger always.
Compare this idea: say Betazed blows up and Deanna Troi and Tam Elbrun are the only two Betazoids left in the entire universe, they are the last of their kind but Starfleet or the Federation has no right to put them into a safety habitat or force them to reproduce just because if they die the Betazoids disappear from the universe. They have rights as individuals first, and the same is true with Data.

The bigger problems I see with Data in Starfleet is his potential immortality. How do you promote a being like that? How do you insure that he doesn't become the immortal ruler of Starfleet eventually?

 

[Mojochi]

I'm not arguing his rights. I'm presenting a point about his obligation, an obligation which he himself claimed was more important than Starfleet interests. I didn't force him to make that claim. He could've just said what any other person in his position might say, in a similar circumstance, that his life & rights were not deniable upon demand. He was the one who went a step further & made the argument about his singularity being an additional priority. I'm just holding him accountable for that claim a bit.

 

[Timo]

Data didn't know he was the culmination of Soong's dreams when he enrolled.

Indeed, he was probably wrong on that issue in "Measure of the Man", too: Soong never considered Data the culmination of his work, and indeed refused to publish this half-baked creation until it was too late, and then moved on to far more complicated works such as the replacement wife. But that, too, would be knowledge only later revealed to Data.

As of the aftermath of the "Datalore" backstory, Data apparently would have had no idea who he was and why he was. He might notice he had the face of Noonien Soong, but apparently nobody thought this would connect him to Soong in any concrete fashion: perhaps making androids with funny faces is a common prank? Apparently, the mere face was enough to trigger the urge in Bruce Maddox to study the life and times of Noonien Soong, Maddox not yet possessing the knowledge that Data was a genuine Soong himself!

The main story of "Datalore" is pretty blatantly the first time Data realizes he is a Soong creation; it also is the first time Data's coworkers begin to suspect Data might be a working positronic machine, and potentially also the first time Data himself suspects this. The alternate interpretation would be that Data has kept these things secret from everybody, and is now continuing the lying by pretending that he is gradually recovering from memory loss. But this does not solve any problems of story logic, and creates the needless complication of establishing Data as a shady liar when the ensuing adventure will prominently feature his evil twin...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[at Quark's]

What if Data joining Starfleet is simply a result of an android's version of Stockholm Syndrome, identifying with those people that 'rescued' him (and then brainwashed him with silly Starfleet propaganda)

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Starfleet was the ideal venue by which Data could realize Soong's dream.

 

[matthunter]

Starfleet's mission to meet new life isn't just a neat punchline for Picard at the end of Measure, but it very likely did play into Data's decision to join - how better to understand your own state of being than by experiencing as many cultures and species as possible?

A better question would be why Data focused on becoming "more human" rather than "more Bolian" (Spock alluded to this in Unification).

 

[Timo]

Indeed! Odo became sorta-Bajoran because he had an influential Bajoran benefactor early on. Did Data have a human one?

Data does not look like a Bolian. But if we approximate him as looking like human, we can approximate him as looking like any number of species that have these relatively characteristic-free faces and bodies. Then again, the connection between Data's face and Soong's might be obvious even if the implications were not, and Soong was known to be human, this perhaps narrowing down Data's choice. For convenience, that is - it would not create an obligation, but Data would have to choose a target of idolatry if he went for idolatry.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[matthunter]

Lal's change of appearance might imply Data could rework his appearance (albeit with difficulty) if he chose. Certainly, he was able to be cosmetically transformed into a Romulan, and there's nothing to suggest alteration to mimic a Klingon (as per Sisko and co in Apocalypse Rising or any other "human with play-doh attached" species would be beyond the pale. Oddly, making him NOT pale was never considered, nor changing his eye colour.

 

[Oddish]

I think Starfleet served him well, though he might have accomplished more elsewhere. He could have contributed a great deal to the study of artificial intelligence and robotics.

I think that most of us could have accomplished far more than we did, had we made different choices. I know I could have. But we choose what we choose.

 

[Farscape One]

I think he did make the right choice, if for no other reason than what he said to Lal about being a positive contributor to society. Look at what he did while being a Starfleet officer...

1. He was key in stopping the 'Manheim Effect', which if it kept going could very well have destroyed the fabric of time and space.

2. He was able to very quickly verify the weird Starfleet orders over the previous 6 months that led to Picard going to Earth and stop the parasites. No other officer could have done this so quickly, and time was a factor.

3. He brought back and helped revive three 20th century humans. He didn't just save their lives, but he gave Federation historians living witnesses of the past.

4. His positronic brain found the solution to the Iconian probe scan. This stopped the Enterprise from being destroyed, saving over 1,000 lives.

5. His communicating with Sarjenka led Picard to decide to save their world, and basically her entire species.

6. He figured out how to find the lost Mariposa's descendants. This led to the Bringloidi from getting burned to death by their sun AND the clone people from literally fading away.

7. He convinced the 15,000 humans on Tau Cygna V to vacate, which saved their lives because the Sheliak would have massacred them. He was the only one who could go down there without dying from radiation.

8. He was a conduit ambassador, for lack of a better term, for a new race of intelligent nanites. This led to an understanding that not only saved the crew but got the nanites a new home.

9. His behavior, example, and saving Q's life when he was attacked led Q to offer himself up to the Calamarain. This had the effect of Q pushing the moon away and saving that planet's population.

10. His connecting with Locutus was what ultimately saved Earth. And quite likely the Federation and eventually the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.

11. Being the only one who doesn't sleep, he was able to keep things going and help with the solution for getting out of the Tyken's Rift, saving the crew.

12. His temporary command of the Sutherland provided the proof of Romulan interference in the Klingon civil war. And when they got exposed, the Romulans backed off, causing Gowron's side to win and restoring order in the Empire.

13. He figured out how to commumicate with the Crystalline Entity. Unfortunately, Dr. Marr used the opportunity to destroy it. It did, however, save countless future lives from being killed.

14. He was essential in getting Engineering up and running after the Enterprise was struck by a quantum filament. The crew saved. (Team effort, but he was the only one who would have been able to stop the antimatter containment breach quickly enough.)

15. He was able to, with Spock's help, stop the Romulan soldiers from going to Vulcan. (Yes, it was a team effort, but his actions were instrumental.)

16. His rapport with Timothy got him the solution needed to save the ship. 1,000 lives saved again.

17. He was key in stopping the temporal loop. Crew saved again. (And again...)

18. His disembodied head led to the Enterprise stopping those aliens from continuing to eat humans from the past.

19. He was instrumental in discovering the intelligence of the exocomps.

20. His dreams were key in getting rid of the infestation of organisms eating the crew. Crew saved.

21. He stopped the radiation poisoning of an entire village.

22. He created a cure for Barclay's Protomorphosis Syndrome. 1,000 lives saved again.

23. He was instrumental in buying enough time to stop the Borg Queen from taking over the Enterprise and assimilating Earth.

24. He helped uncover a plot to kill of the Ba'ku, saving their lives.

25. He sacrificed his life to destroy a deadly thalaron weapon.


And those are just the big things he did. Never mind all the times he helped solve other mysteries or helped uncover new life. Plus, who knows what else he accomplished before joining the Enterprise.

So, did Data do the right thing in joining Starfleet? The answer... ask any of the millions of people across his career he saved.

 

[DonIago]

I am rather curious as to whether, objectively speaking, serving in Starfleet (wars excepted) is inherently significantly more or less dangerous than anything else. While it seems to have settled down a bit in the 24th century, how many TOS episodes involved planetary destruction or other forms of crises?

There's variables there too of course - serving on an SCE or science vessel is likely generally less dangerous than being on a border patrol ship.

 

[Timo]

...Unless she's the SCE vessel or science vessel. And it's debatable whether the da Vinci and the Discovery are exceptional examples of their type, or run into an average number of hair-raising adventures only.

But a starship probably still has more failure modes than a planet, and faces a crisis more often. So Data could pick any planet and any starship, and would find life on the planet safer on the average, when it comes to external crises.

Whether planets, with their high populations, offer internal challengers to pale-faced machine men that would not be found aboard starships... Well, Soong did seem to worry a lot about the reaction of the Omicron Theta colonists to his inventions, even though this supposedly was a colony of oddball reclusive scientists to begin with. The average citizen might be constantly plotting to behead, crush and grind, memory-wipe or reprogram Data!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Oddish]

I think he did make the right choice, if for no other reason than what he said to Lal about being a positive contributor to society. Look at what he did while being a Starfleet officer...

1. He was key in stopping the 'Manheim Effect', which if it kept going could very well have destroyed the fabric of time and space.

2. He was able to very quickly verify the weird Starfleet orders over the previous 6 months that led to Picard going to Earth and stop the parasites. No other officer could have done this so quickly, and time was a factor.

3. He brought back and helped revive three 20th century humans. He didn't just save their lives, but he gave Federation historians living witnesses of the past.

4. His positronic brain found the solution to the Iconian probe scan. This stopped the Enterprise from being destroyed, saving over 1,000 lives.

5. His communicating with Sarjenka led Picard to decide to save their world, and basically her entire species.

6. He figured out how to find the lost Mariposa's descendants. This led to the Bringloidi from getting burned to death by their sun AND the clone people from literally fading away.

7. He convinced the 15,000 humans on Tau Cygna V to vacate, which saved their lives because the Sheliak would have massacred them. He was the only one who could go down there without dying from radiation.

8. He was a conduit ambassador, for lack of a better term, for a new race of intelligent nanites. This led to an understanding that not only saved the crew but got the nanites a new home.

9. His behavior, example, and saving Q's life when he was attacked led Q to offer himself up to the Calamarain. This had the effect of Q pushing the moon away and saving that planet's population.

10. His connecting with Locutus was what ultimately saved Earth. And quite likely the Federation and eventually the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.

11. Being the only one who doesn't sleep, he was able to keep things going and help with the solution for getting out of the Tyken's Rift, saving the crew.

12. His temporary command of the Sutherland provided the proof of Romulan interference in the Klingon civil war. And when they got exposed, the Romulans backed off, causing Gowron's side to win and restoring order in the Empire.

13. He figured out how to commumicate with the Crystalline Entity. Unfortunately, Dr. Marr used the opportunity to destroy it. It did, however, save countless future lives from being killed.

14. He was essential in getting Engineering up and running after the Enterprise was struck by a quantum filament. The crew saved. (Team effort, but he was the only one who would have been able to stop the antimatter containment breach quickly enough.)

15. He was able to, with Spock's help, stop the Romulan soldiers from going to Vulcan. (Yes, it was a team effort, but his actions were instrumental.)

16. His rapport with Timothy got him the solution needed to save the ship. 1,000 lives saved again.

17. He was key in stopping the temporal loop. Crew saved again. (And again...)

18. His disembodied head led to the Enterprise stopping those aliens from continuing to eat humans from the past.

19. He was instrumental in discovering the intelligence of the exocomps.

20. His dreams were key in getting rid of the infestation of organisms eating the crew. Crew saved.

21. He stopped the radiation poisoning of an entire village.

22. He created a cure for Barclay's Protomorphosis Syndrome. 1,000 lives saved again.

23. He was instrumental in buying enough time to stop the Borg Queen from taking over the Enterprise and assimilating Earth.

24. He helped uncover a plot to kill of the Ba'ku, saving their lives.

25. He sacrificed his life to destroy a deadly thalaron weapon.


And those are just the big things he did. Never mind all the times he helped solve other mysteries or helped uncover new life. Plus, who knows what else he accomplished before joining the Enterprise.

So, did Data do the right thing in joining Starfleet? The answer... ask any of the millions of people across his career he saved.

Fond as I normally am of arguing, your point is pretty much irrefutable. "Best of Both Worlds", where he saves the whole Earth, is reason in itself.

 

[Mojochi]

Fond as I normally am of arguing, your point is pretty much irrefutable. "Best of Both Worlds", where he saves the whole Earth, is reason in itself.

Well... It's reason for why Starfleet should want Data to be in it, but it's less so a reason why Data should risk being in Starfleet, if his own singularity is to be preserved as a priority.

Albeit, it would be somewhat slightly pointless for him to preserve the dreamwork of being an artificially made man... If all mankind were to be extinct... maybe lol

 

[EmoBorg]

Taking about Data, Bret Spiner did a short film, playing himself.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Taking about Data, Bret Spiner did a short film, playing himself.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Just saw that myself. FYI, NSFW. Brent being funny as always.

 

[Qonundrum]

I think he did make the right choice, if for no other reason than what he said to Lal about being a positive contributor to society. Look at what he did while being a Starfleet officer...

1. He was key in stopping the 'Manheim Effect', which if it kept going could very well have destroyed the fabric of time and space.

I'm just glad lots of people aren't at the same point in time and space to attempt it or else we'd all be doomed.

2. He was able to very quickly verify the weird Starfleet orders over the previous 6 months that led to Picard going to Earth and stop the parasites. No other officer could have done this so quickly, and time was a factor.

^^this

3. He brought back and helped revive three 20th century humans. He didn't just save their lives, but he gave Federation historians living witnesses of the past.

^^this. Picard would merely have told everyone to chill.

4. His positronic brain found the solution to the Iconian probe scan. This stopped the Enterprise from being destroyed, saving over 1,000 lives.

Dr Soong had done so, via his programming a failsafe. All Data did was reboot after applying the latest backup (full+incremental), noting he makes a lot of backups and used just the right one on the very first try. There's obviously a checksum that got skewed at just the right moment, but the frequency of the backups also begs some questions.

5. His communicating with Sarjenka led Picard to decide to save their world, and basically her entire species.

^^this. It ties in with his actions in "The Neutral Zone" as well.

6. He figured out how to find the lost Mariposa's descendants. This led to the Bringloidi from getting burned to death by their sun AND the clone people from literally fading away.

^^this

7. He convinced the 15,000 humans on Tau Cygna V to vacate, which saved their lives because the Sheliak would have massacred them. He was the only one who could go down there without dying from radiation.

A sequel could have explored the results, of which two prominent possibilities exist.

8. He was a conduit ambassador, for lack of a better term, for a new race of intelligent nanites. This led to an understanding that not only saved the crew but got the nanites a new home.

^^this.

9. His behavior, example, and saving Q's life when he was attacked led Q to offer himself up to the Calamarain. This had the effect of Q pushing the moon away and saving that planet's population.

Data was often said to the most human character, a joke aimed at the show since 1987...

10. His connecting with Locutus was what ultimately saved Earth. And quite likely the Federation and eventually the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.

He was just a convenient tool. Picard gave him the answer anyway.

11. Being the only one who doesn't sleep, he was able to keep things going and help with the solution for getting out of the Tyken's Rift, saving the crew.

^^this. But in TOS they'd just inject everyone with stimulants

12. His temporary command of the Sutherland provided the proof of Romulan interference in the Klingon civil war. And when they got exposed, the Romulans backed off, causing Gowron's side to win and restoring order in the Empire.

Too contrived an episode, especially by mid-era TNG standards.

13. He figured out how to commumicate with the Crystalline Entity. Unfortunately, Dr. Marr used the opportunity to destroy it. It did, however, save countless future lives from being killed.

^^The episode's one moment of interest. Also, how to turn taps on its shoulder into "Please stay away from anywhere that you can eat" was clearly the elephant on the room being sidelines for the sake of "silly feelz". Data also put words into dead colonists' mouths as he knew of the experiences but not the emotional or other nuances. It's another example of TNG going downhill starting with season 5.

14. He was essential in getting Engineering up and running after the Enterprise was struck by a quantum filament. The crew saved. (Team effort, but he was the only one who would have been able to stop the antimatter containment breach quickly enough.)

^^this

15. He was able to, with Spock's help, stop the Romulan soldiers from going to Vulcan. (Yes, it was a team effort, but his actions were instrumental.)

^^this

16. His rapport with Timothy got him the solution needed to save the ship. 1,000 lives saved again.

Data's real name is "Marty" and his surname is really "Stu".

17. He was key in stopping the temporal loop. Crew saved again. (And again...)

Just being a useful tool, again...

18. His disembodied head led to the Enterprise stopping those aliens from continuing to eat humans from the past.

^^this

19. He was instrumental in discovering the intelligence of the exocomps.

ugh

20. His dreams were key in getting rid of the infestation of organisms eating the crew. Crew saved.

^^this. A new program that interfaces with existing ones with unpredictable yet positive results.

21. He stopped the radiation poisoning of an entire village.

A day in the life...

22. He created a cure for Barclay's Protomorphosis Syndrome. 1,000 lives saved again.

Naturally. Who needs Beverly or any other human when they should just make a lot of clones.

23. He was instrumental in buying enough time to stop the Borg Queen from taking over the Enterprise and assimilating Earth.

He appeared to enjoy it too!

24. He helped uncover a plot to kill of the Ba'ku, saving their lives.

In the most convoluted plot ever...

25. He sacrificed his life to destroy a deadly thalaron weapon.

"Computer, parse this pseudocode":
10 LOAD INTO WORDPROCESSOR ST2TW0K
20 GOSUB GRANDFILE
30 COPY SUB GRANDFINALE
40 LOAD INTO WORDPROCESSOR ST10N3M
50 PASTE SUB GRANDFINALE AT PLACEHOLDER NEAR END
RUN

And those are just the big things he did. Never mind all the times he helped solve other mysteries or helped uncover new life. Plus, who knows what else he accomplished before joining the Enterprise.

For such a hero and he never got promoted to Fleet Admiral, much less got to bed anyone? Wow... Even Picard got busy more often...

So, did Data do the right thing in joining Starfleet? The answer... ask any of the millions of people across his career he saved.

Just like any other officer on cue, or anyone on the ship offering an idea out of the blue or as standard procedure?

 

[Oddish]

Yes, Picard did help out. But Data led the retrieval team that captured him, and used himself to interface with the Borg. Without him, Earth is still a mech-hell with a population of nine billion Borg.

He should have been promoted to commander for that alone.