In Descent, Data deactivates Lore and, I think, disassembles him. But Lore, dangerous as he is, is a sentient being. He should have the same rights as Data. He should've been put on trial and imprisoned. I would say deactivate only if he was given the death sentence, which TOS established the Federation doesn't do except only in one circumstance.
What does everyone else think? I know why it was done from a TV show point of view, but did Data have the right to do what he did?
Yes, Data (and, ultimately, Picard as captain) had every right.
The
Enterprise operates at and beyond the edge of the frontier. It is not, as Jack Aubrey would say, "a little piece of England," but it is a little piece of the Federation, and Picard, as the one responsible for the safety of his ship and the lives of the thousand people aboard, will have to make decisions of a life-and-death nature. Lore was an active and ongoing threat to his ship and those lives. If destroying Lore was necessary to protect those lives, the decision to destroy Lore was justified.
Now, there might be a Board of Inquiry when the
Enterprise puts in at a starbase. Sailing captains faced questioning when putting into port after hanging mutineers. (See, for example, the aftermath of
the mutiny aboard the USS Somers.)
It's a pity that Lore, with the
Enterprise being a starship and not a masted rig, couldn't be hanged from the yardarm as a warning to every last manjack.
Point is, if
Star Trek is "Horatio Hornblower in space," then destroying Lore without trial is on point. Nelson, Cochrane, Aubrey, Hornblower, none of them would have had a second thought about destroying Lore.
