That dang emotion chip issue is sketchy

[Mytran]

Did you see the chunky thing they crammed into Data's skull in ST7? Clearly extensive repairs had to made to the thing after the events of Descent No wonder there were teething problems! My earlier comment referred to the emotion chip in its original and intended state, as seen in Brothers.

 

[Lance]

If we subscribe to the theory that Data in fact possesses all the emotions that Lore had, but simply has them locked away inside his programming (because Soong was working on a way to make that upgrade to Data without creating another f**k-up like Lore)... and that the emotion chip, rather than being an upgrade to give him the emotions, was in fact simply a chip that shut down the inhibitor inside Data keeping him from experiencing the emotions he's already got hidden deep within him... then it seems reasonable to assume that Lore, having stolen the chip and put it inside himself, discovered that it does NOTHING for him (because it was designed for Data, and Lore's got emotional access already)... then he came up with this plan to use his kind of Wi-Fi connectability with Data to take control of those emotions twist them to his own ends. Maybe the chip is what provided Lore with that power. If the reverse were true, then maybe Data could've used the chip to deactivate the negative emotions within Lore?

 

[Timo]

Data has always been pretty good at acting emotionally. It's just that he doesn't accept it as being "true" emotion - he doesn't get the expected satisfaction out of it.

Is he being overtly critical? Does he have fundamentally false ideas about what emoting should feel like? Or is he emotionally crippled in comparison with humans or Lore, indeed unable to feel the satisfaction that normally would be there? Any and all of these three ideas could be the product of deliberate programming that the chip would reverse, without actually adding anything tangible, or satisfying Lore's expectations.

The connectivity was never connected to the chip in dialogue, but one does wonder. Perhaps it was a variant of the technique Soong used in "Brothers" to summon his sons, appropriated by Lore for more sinister use? And perhaps Soong did involve the chip in the technique somehow?

That is, if the chip merely stores a few lines of programming that open Data's mental locks, it might be considered a mere data container in general - and Soong could have used it to store all sorts of data relevant to his Data-upgrading plan, including his personal notes, the recall program, and a few choice words to his sons?

Timo Saloniemi