While I've followed the comics and novels that have featured Data's return, as far as official material is concerned, Data is dead.
So Data Becomes the Captain of Enterprise E?
- Thread starter Praxius
- Start date
Thats what I was refering to. And after that read "The Light Fantastic", which continues Datas story.
In the IDW comics continuity, yes. In the Pocket novelverse, Data 2.0 (who looks human) isn't even in Starfleet. In canon Trek, Data died in Nemesis and that's as far as it goes. Had Brent Spiner's "Justice League of Trek" Nemesis sequel been made, he'd supposedly have been beamed off the Scimitar a second before it's destruction.
As Praxius said, I can accept Data returning easier than Spock due to his nature.
I do wonder why they never bothered to back up his Positronic brain into the ship's computer core and just had a spare body ready. Lore is supposedly still disassembled and stored somewhere, B-4 might be just one of a number of Soong prototypes skattered around...
It is Data's software that became a member of Starfleet, not the chassis or hardware.
I do wonder why they never bothered to back up his Positronic brain into the ship's computer core and just had a spare body ready. Lore is supposedly still disassembled and stored somewhere, B-4 might be just one of a number of Soong prototypes skattered around...
It is Data's software that became a member of Starfleet, not the chassis or hardware.
The comic doesn't explain how Data is alive. He nobly sacrificed himself on the Scimitar, leaving behind a dim-witted brother who can only sing show tunes.
If, by some crazy-assed miracle, B-4 did embody 'Data' wouldn't he need to be studied, tested and certified for duty? They would have to see if it was actually Data, an upgraded B-4 (Data 2.0) or some amalgam of the two of them (Beta?).
Seeing as how B-4 was an enemy agent wouldn't it be doubtful he'd just pick up where Data's career left off? The closest analogy would be with Trills, Jadzia wasn't appointed the new UFP Ambassador to Qo'noS when she became Dax, she had to work for her own position--despite holding all the knowledge and experience of Curzon.
Also, Data 2.0/Beta/whatever-you-want-to-call-him would have his status and rights called into question again. The ruling in "Measure of a Man" was for Data only, not all artificial life-forms, and given this new ones origins, I think even Picard would have a hard time arguing for his right to be classed as a fully-sentient and autonomous being in the eyes of Federation law.
Not to mention, anything about Data suddenly being alive cheapens his death and the moment he was as close to humanity as he had ever been.
If, by some crazy-assed miracle, B-4 did embody 'Data' wouldn't he need to be studied, tested and certified for duty? They would have to see if it was actually Data, an upgraded B-4 (Data 2.0) or some amalgam of the two of them (Beta?).
Seeing as how B-4 was an enemy agent wouldn't it be doubtful he'd just pick up where Data's career left off? The closest analogy would be with Trills, Jadzia wasn't appointed the new UFP Ambassador to Qo'noS when she became Dax, she had to work for her own position--despite holding all the knowledge and experience of Curzon.
Also, Data 2.0/Beta/whatever-you-want-to-call-him would have his status and rights called into question again. The ruling in "Measure of a Man" was for Data only, not all artificial life-forms, and given this new ones origins, I think even Picard would have a hard time arguing for his right to be classed as a fully-sentient and autonomous being in the eyes of Federation law.
Not to mention, anything about Data suddenly being alive cheapens his death and the moment he was as close to humanity as he had ever been.
Tbh I've never liked the closed-mindedness of the idea of Data simply "resurrecting" inside B-4, nor of the widespread assumption that had further TNG movies been made then this would be the obvious inference taken from the last scene of NEM.
It'd have been far more interesting, certainly more in keeping with Star Trek, for Data's transference of engrams to B-4 to have led to the other Android starting to develop and grow as his own individual. Given that Data had no idea he was going to later sacrifice himself when he first did the memory upload to B-4, and that it would have been uncomfortable to have had two identical Data's walking around, IMO the logical assumption is that B-4 should still be B-4, it's just that Data's memories and other parts of the data upload help him to overcome his shortcomings and start growing within himself.
I'm still kind of pissed that the comic and Star Trek Online took the easy solution and simply restored Data whole inside B-4's body. It seems such a lazy assumption to make.
It'd have been far more interesting, certainly more in keeping with Star Trek, for Data's transference of engrams to B-4 to have led to the other Android starting to develop and grow as his own individual. Given that Data had no idea he was going to later sacrifice himself when he first did the memory upload to B-4, and that it would have been uncomfortable to have had two identical Data's walking around, IMO the logical assumption is that B-4 should still be B-4, it's just that Data's memories and other parts of the data upload help him to overcome his shortcomings and start growing within himself.
I'm still kind of pissed that the comic and Star Trek Online took the easy solution and simply restored Data whole inside B-4's body. It seems such a lazy assumption to make.
Let's not forget that the original Son of Soong may never have died to begin with. Thalaron radiation only destroys living tissue, as amply shown, and Data isn't living tissue.
Starship explosions might kill Data, but they also might not: he is bulletproof and all. Going to fetal position might have been enough to protect the android from harm, leaving him floating harmlessly in space among all the other shrapnel from the explosion. Of course, floating harmlessly at high speed within a shrapnel cloud inside the Bassen Rift would make it more or less impossible for our heroes to locate him, unless he gave off as strong positronic radiation as his dimwit brother-thing (and we have every reason to believe the radiation intensity was unique to B-4). Lore, subjected to nothing but harmless transporting in "Datalore", remained undetected as well, after all.
Yet Lore eventually was detected and recovered, so the same could happen to Data.
Timo Saloniemi
Starship explosions might kill Data, but they also might not: he is bulletproof and all. Going to fetal position might have been enough to protect the android from harm, leaving him floating harmlessly in space among all the other shrapnel from the explosion. Of course, floating harmlessly at high speed within a shrapnel cloud inside the Bassen Rift would make it more or less impossible for our heroes to locate him, unless he gave off as strong positronic radiation as his dimwit brother-thing (and we have every reason to believe the radiation intensity was unique to B-4). Lore, subjected to nothing but harmless transporting in "Datalore", remained undetected as well, after all.
Yet Lore eventually was detected and recovered, so the same could happen to Data.
Timo Saloniemi
Well, that was the point of The Measure of a Man: a back-up wouldn't be Data, it would just be a copy of Data's memories. An identical android who had had his memories, but wasn't the same person (or so Data believed back then).
But there in lies the interesting thing... "His Death."
He did not live like normal living beings, not even like a Vulcan (who live for quite a long time) and being an Android, he can not exactly die like normal living beings.
Machines can be repaired and restored, software can be reinstalled.
Because the movie made it a point to explain how pretty much everything about himself was copied into B-4 and the transfer was successful (just the processing of B-4 of that stuff didn't work very well).... Data was backed up and thus, the Data that blew up isn't the actual death of Data, just as he was repaired and sorted out when he lost his head and had it put back on after centuries being lost in a time.
The best comparison I can come up with is that Data is currently in a vegetative state via B-4..... and B-4 singing a little tune of Data's at the end of the movie just jabs that notion right into you and leaves you with a lot of unanswered questions.
Spock's resurrection was a long stretch but people accepted it, even though what he did was pretty much the same thing as what Data did..... Data being copied into B-4 and B-4 becoming Data, or Data being transferred from B-4 into a new Android body is a lot more plausible.
Let's also not forget that Data made Lal while on the Enterprise and thus, one could easily assume that all of his records and specs he used for Lal are still stored on the Enterprise and therefore, someone could make a new Android body like Data did for Lal and transfer his information into that new body.
To sum up the above, it has been pointed out a few times in the series that Life and Death for Data is not the same concept as it is for humans or any other humanoid species..... or for us viewers.
So unless B-4 blows up or otherwise gets destroyed before Data's information can be transferred to another location, he is not yet dead but just in a coma.
And perhaps that's what the show was really trying to get at (maybe)
After Data "Died" Picard took the time to talk to B-4 and tell him about his brother and what he tried to do. In a way, he was trying to reach in there and see if Data was there somewhere in that coma (squeeze my hand) and at the very least, if he wasn't then he had some closure..... but then as he walked away, B-4 sang the tune and Picard smiled as if to hint that there is someone in that coma and not to pull the plug just yet.
While some may think that "Resurrecting" Data cheapens his "Death", others like myself will think that simply saying "Data is Dead" over simplifies the situation and his existence.
My feeling is, if you're going to kill off a beloved character, make sure the death is really well written. If his death was will written I could respect it, but since it seemed tacked on and contrived, I don't respect it at all.
This is true of course......
Interesting points, and I hadn't really thought about it in those terms.
However, I still prefer the idea of B-4 learning to develop on his own terms, but simply with Data's memories and experiences being inside him to help guide the way. I don't like this idea (which many post-NEM fictions have accepted) of Data's actual consciousness being hidden away inside B-4 like a Trojan program waiting to be activated and assert itself over B-4's body.
That still just seems..... morally suspect.
Again, I stress a reminder that when Data actually does the uplink to B-4, he has no inkling of his oncoming death at all (unlike Spock, who inserted the katra into McCoy specifically because he knew the odds were against him). So if the uplink was only going to turn B-4 into Data anyway, that would've been awkward, had the original Data not jumped out of the ship.
To take my above software analogy further, rather than being like a Trojan, I like to think the idea of the uplink was to provide a service pack upgrade to B-4. To give B-4's positronic brain all the algorithms it needed to kick-start his personal development, all of that extra 'growth' programming that Data had and B-4 didn't. I don't know, it just seems more morally 'correct' somehow.
Perhaps it goes like this:
B-4 is involved in a battle and makes some kind of heroic sacrifice, but one that burns out his program, like if he receives an electrical shock or something. So the body is left 'dead'. Data's program is used to reboot the body and bring it back to life. So in a real sense, B-4 sacrificed his life to save his 'brother'.
Data is dead. Kirk is dead. Spock is lost somewhere in a cave on Romulus. Scotty departed alone to somewhere far.
TNG really is depressing when trying to add gravitas to itself.
TNG really is depressing when trying to add gravitas to itself.
Data is my least favourite TNG character, but I don't actively dislike him. I just never found his exploration into The Human Condition to be all that cute, or interesting. It was all too simplistic and spelled-out, for my tastes. Oh, Data doesn't understand a joke. Data doesn't understand an expression. Data's confused about romance. It never appealed to me, that much. However, I honestly feel that the character did not belong as highly ranked in the command structure as he was, precisely because his people skills were so relatively poor. Also, because his undersanding of interpersonal relationships always seemed in the toilet. He should've been Chief Engineer, as far as I'm concerned - no offense to Geordi.
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