I suggested a different origin (in ode form). https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/lauras-fiction-contest-entries.313279/
Stuff that make you wonder but not own thread worthy
- Thread starter JesterFace
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Why did Wilton Knight build KITT from the ground up instead of reprogramming KARR? Building entirely new models of was just a thing among the genius scientist set, apparently. At least Soong disassembled Lore. Wilton Knight just stuck KARR in a garage.
He planned to get back to Lore. Said so himself. He planned to get back to all of them... eventually. He needed one that worked right first lol... and even Data was still in the experimental stages of operating without fully emotional function. (Which took a lifetime) Then everything went bad. The wife died. Sh*t hit the fan, & he went off the rails for a while
But if he had the resources to build all the parts, & eventually all of them would need all of their parts, & those parts were apparently already made as well as they could be, then why would he repurpose their parts? They're their parts. He hadn't given up on any of them. He just didn't know WTF to do with them, at the moment. They were still going to be people he'd made, and had a right to their bodies
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Imagine thinking your strange symptoms are due to the anomaly/tech/disease of the week and it turns out to be a much more pedestrian tea OD.
I wonder - perhaps more of an issue early days - why they make Data sharp as a tack one moment, them dumb the next for humour.
Second time playing poker in The Emissary and he said "bend" instead of fold. It's stupid as he'd already played poker, and would have heard fold. Fold is not a synonym of bend... you fold paper, you fold clothes, you don't bend them. And he's got all the encyclopaedias in his head no one would say bend.
it's meant to be cute, but it's just a bit daft.
Second time playing poker in The Emissary and he said "bend" instead of fold. It's stupid as he'd already played poker, and would have heard fold. Fold is not a synonym of bend... you fold paper, you fold clothes, you don't bend them. And he's got all the encyclopaedias in his head no one would say bend.
it's meant to be cute, but it's just a bit daft.
Maybe he's playing dumb to give his opponents a false sense of security. We know from "Peak Performance" that he can be strategic.
And we know from "The Most Toys" that he can lie, or what was it strategically omit facts?
I imagine he used that tactic to roll the card sharps in Time's Arrow too. By then, he seems to have not only improved in playing, but in reading his opponents & if he's also good at not tipping his hand (or revealing his advantage) then he might've also figured out they were trying to cheat him, & at that point, rather than call them out on it, he cheated them back... which I imagine he'd be quite adept at.
^ They may not have even been cheaters. Just very skilled card players.
I think 16 cups of anything is too much.
Data not getting common idioms does wind me up to no end. It's obviously just done in a fun "robot glitches out" kind of way, but what the hell do you mean you don't get the phrase "the early bird gets the worm", Data.
"But there are no avian life forms in this sec-tor! Beep boop!" You're meant to be doing billions of calculations a second man, come on.
I like when he does the "accessing info" thing too, when he's meant to be searching his "databanks" and Spiner flits his eyes left and right, jerkily moves his head, and looks confused for a second before going "ah yes, hockey, a common Earth sport" or whatever. Most advanced robot in the universe and he locks up like an old mechanical hard drive when he tries to look up common terms. Holodeck characters never do that!
"But there are no avian life forms in this sec-tor! Beep boop!" You're meant to be doing billions of calculations a second man, come on.
I like when he does the "accessing info" thing too, when he's meant to be searching his "databanks" and Spiner flits his eyes left and right, jerkily moves his head, and looks confused for a second before going "ah yes, hockey, a common Earth sport" or whatever. Most advanced robot in the universe and he locks up like an old mechanical hard drive when he tries to look up common terms. Holodeck characters never do that!
Well, Dr. Soong deliberately made Data less than human emotionally. Maybe he put other limits on him, including idiom comprehension and contractions, to make him seem more... robotic.
That's true, but they were noted sharks in the community, at a time & place where cheating at cards would've been more common, & less easily caught. (and something of an old west trope in tv/movies) So, that they might cheat people is very possible, especially someone who presents as much like a naive sucker as Data looks & sounds. Up to that point, Data hadn't been shown as an especially incredible card player, among the crew. He's actually still rather easily beaten, under legit circumstances, because poker is a game of social aptitude & prowess. That they underestimate him could give him a slight advantage, for a while, but it wouldn't be enough of one, that he'd be able to run them all broke, legitimately, with just a gold pin he'd staked.
The only way I can imagine Data having such an amazing turnout against them, is that HE was cheating them, and I can't imagine he'd do such an unscrupulous thing without that he'd already determined that they were cheating too, & because of his dire need for money, made a moral exception, in order to cheat the cheaters back, something he would be way better at, than any human ever could be.
It's just my theory, & arguably seems like the show's implication, but Data won all their money (& stuff) not because he outplayed them at cards, but because he out-cheated them at cheating, and spotting their scams, that ordinarily "bleed a man dry" who doesn't have his superhuman abilities, to turn the tables.
I've always maintained this. I also think Data is, in large part, held back by self-fulfilling prophecy. He thinks and claims he's just an unemotional android, hemmed in by faulty design & the appearance of having limited social attributes, compared to humans. So, people consider him that way & his assumption is confirmed, making him less prone to push beyond those limitations, potentially placed on him deliberately by Soong, as a means to address the Lore debacle, by forcing Data to evolve the humanity that Lore had thrust upon him.
The accidental discovery of the dream program seems to confirm this. Everybody, including Data, thinks Data can't dream or feel, or act/speak like humans, but maybe he could all along, in some reduced, limited or yet unrealized ways, that were as yet undiscovered or unachieved, because of programming blocks, that he's meant to overcome.
This is why I find what Jenna D'Sora did to him truly tragic. She ultimately reinforces that he's somehow incapable of growth or true caring, just because her immediate needs weren't being met. It's hogwash, that undermines his development. We already know Data is capable of those things, & is likely to improve at them. Jesus, Pulaski ended up being a better influence on him than she was. Man, everybody was sooooo worried about what emotional damage he'd do to her, but in the end, she's the one who caused real harm to his character IMHO.
I blame Troi, for giving Data bad advice.
To be fair, didn't everybody give him bad advice?
Geordi: Maybe this, maybe that. Try someone else.
Worf: Klingons take what they want, but she works for me, so I'll kill you
Riker: Screw it. YOLO. Just get that dipstick wet.
Troi: Don't f*ck the poor girl up, you boob.
Picard: Don't even try it. We ain't going there
There are a load of ways you might cheat at cards using 24th Century tech that perhaps the card decks on the E-D are "hardened" against but Twain-era cards AREN'T? Data's eyes probably have high enough resolution to spot minor imperfections in the card edges that he could memorize when the deck is shown/shuffled?
Didn't Shinzon do it deliberately to bait Picard?This has probably been discussed elsewhere but I’m still baffled by the whole B4 subplot in “Nemesis”.
Is there any general consensus as to who and why he was put where Enterprise could find him etc..?
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