The Return of Data? (spoilers)

[bok2384]

I've just finished the excellent reading Strange New Worlds 10 and was mightily impressed with the majority of short stories contained in the volume, and must say that it's a pity there won't be anymore.

Anyway, my query is related to the TNG short story, "The Very Model" by Muri McCage. In this excellent story, Picard and La Forge encourage the memories of Data to resurface in B-4, and by the end we have a brand new Data, with all of his collected memories and personality.

My query is, will this story have any bearing on the TNG Relaunch, or a similar retooling of events so that Data's memories resurface and B-4 and we essentially have him back?

Another question to the posters would be if it were possible, would we like to have Data back on the bridge of the Enterprise as first officer?

I regard Data's death in Nemesis as a similar situation to what happened with Trip, albeit more heroically . If it was possible to bring Trip back, why not Data.

 

[Christopher]

We already know the fate of B4 for the first year following NEM, at least, thanks to Articles of the Federation. It is made clear in Chapter 23 of that book that the memory download into B-4 did not turn him into Data (any more than the download of Lal's memory into Data turned Data into Lal), and that B-4 simply did not have the cognitive capacity to ever function at anything close to Data's level.

 

[Ronald Held]

IMO B4 should remain that way.

 

[bok2384]

I haven't gotten around to reading Articles of the Federation yet, its on the list somewhere behind rereading the Titan series and the upcoming relaunch books.

But it does make sense that B-4 wasn't as advanced as Data as seen in Nemesis. But what I liked about the story was that it followed from a glimpse of Data poking through, as it were, in Nemesis, and that he continued on in a similar manner in the story, with limited awareness of his surroundings and breaking into song. It took a meeting with a hologram of Lal that made Data reinstate himself.

What was also good is that Data couldn't bear to kill of B-4's personality, so just added him into his own programming.

 

[JWolf]

Of course, why could not Geordi not build a new Data and insert all Data's memories (from B-4) into the new Data?

 

[Trent Roman]

JWolf said:
Of course, why could not Geordi not build a new Data and insert all Data's memories (from B-4) into the new Data?

The series itself established on a number of occasions that they couldn't figure out how to build new versions of Data. Data himself could not replicate Soong's positronic brain, as the experiment with Lal demonstrated. Of course, that's now; perhaps in the future...

Sigh. I miss Data. If there was ever a character I'd want to resurrect, I'd drop Tucker like dead weight and go for Data. It bugs me that a character who had the potential to live on for centuries or more inside-the-box was killed off for outside-the-box reasons.

Oh well... there's always the alternate Data that'll pop out of the Guardian of Forever at the beginning of the 25th century, if Imzadi is to be believed.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[captcalhoun]

no resurrections. bad enough when comic books do it, without Trek doing it again.

(hello Spock, McCoy and Scotty)

 

[Broccoli]

I hope Pocket Books doesn't do this. I have issues enough

Spoiler: Ent relaunch

with bringing Trip back

that if bringing Data back might become a slippery slope where writers will start to "revise" anything they don't particularly like or agree with. It could make it look even more like fan-fiction.

 

[Technobuilder]

Please, I remember sitting in the theater during Data's death scene in Nemesis and coming up with at least 2 obvious ways for Data to if not be resurrected, then at least to not have died in the first place.

"Temporal Agent" Data in the 29th (and-a-half) century!

 

[Defcon]

Data should remain where he is. Reviving him would be like taking a step backwards. I prefer if that the authors create new interesting characters, instead of clinging to the past to much. That's why I don't agree with the Trip revival, no matter how stupid TATV was.

 

[Admiral_Young]

They shouldn't have killed Data in the first place. I understand that Brent Spiner no longer wanted to endure the makeup process and felt he was getting too old to play an immortal android. I think they should've promoted Data as the new first officer and then have Next Gen end. I miss Data as well...


Admiral Young

 

[Steve Roby]

bok2384 said:

My query is, will this story have any bearing on the TNG Relaunch

I don't think anyone addressed this specifically, but: the stories in SNW have no bearing whatsoever on anything the other books do.

As for the issue of killing off Data... it was unnecessary, because if Spiner wanted to leave, there were other ways to accommodate that. It was, I thought, a sad attempt at swiping from Star Trek II. Introducing B4 not only made an unbelievably contrived plot more ridiculous, it undercut the impact of the loss of Data.

 

[Christopher]

Steve Roby said:
I don't think anyone addressed this specifically, but: the stories in SNW have no bearing whatsoever on anything the other books do.

As a rule, no, but there have been a couple of SNW stories that have been alluded to in other Trek fiction. Dayton Ward's "The Aliens Are Coming!" was alluded to in one of Greg Cox's Gary Seven books, and a couple of Scotty-centric SNW tales were referenced in Steve Mollmann & Michael Schuster's SCE story The Future Begins.

So it's optional, really. The novels and eBooks aren't required to acknowledge anything from SNW stories (naturally, since a lot of SNW stories contradict each other anyway), but they aren't forbidden to either. However, in this case, "The Very Model" simply takes B-4 in a different direction from what had already been decided for him in the main novel continuity.

 

[JD]

As much as I miss Data, I really hope that they don't ressurect Data. I don't mind them doing it with Trip, because I hated that death, and there was enough of a loophoole with the holodeck thing. Yes I know there is the B4 loophole, but two resurecttions would just be pushing it IMO.

 

[Vic Sixx]

If the Shatner books could brink back Kirk, I see no reason the TNG books could not bring back Data. As has been pointed out to us many times, books are not canon. I doubt the studio even notices what goes on in the books.

 

[Christopher]

It's not a question of whether the books would be allowed to bring back Data; if it were, that SNW story couldn't have been published anyway, because SNW is still published by Pocket and approved by CBS. It's simply that the choice has been made to go in a different creative direction.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Steve Roby said:

As for the issue of killing off Data... it was unnecessary, because if Spiner wanted to leave, there were other ways to accommodate that. It was, I thought, a sad attempt at swiping from Star Trek II. Introducing B4 not only made an unbelievably contrived plot more ridiculous, it undercut the impact of the loss of Data.

Indeed, and they took the wrong lessons from Trek II as well. Spock's death was related to the themes of the movie, and helped to punctuate Kirk's character arc. Data's death just seemed tacked on at the last minute and B4 a lame attempt to give us, the audience, some hope that Data will return ala Spock's coffin/"Remember" mind-meld.

Even Kirk's death was at least tied to Picard's arc of "it isn't how you die, but how you've lived that counts;" though it was on a slim thread.

 

[Christopher]

^^Actually Data's death was tied to the themes of the movie, themes of change, life transitions, and mortality. Unfortunately, the Picard-Data discussion that laid the groundwork for that thematic connection was cut out of the film completely because the director and editor didn't want to waste time on thought-provoking dialogue that they could be spending on a gratuitous dune-buggy chase instead.

 

[Mysterion]

middyseafort said:
Indeed, and they took the wrong lessons from Trek II as well. Spock's death was related to the themes of the movie, and helped to punctuate Kirk's character arc. .

Sadly, though, this is totally negated by bringing Spock back in the next movie!

If you got the cahones to kill off a main character, have the cahones to LEAVE THEM THAT WAY!

Ahem.

Thank you.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Christopher said:
^^Actually Data's death was tied to the themes of the movie, themes of change, life transitions, and mortality. Unfortunately, the Picard-Data discussion that laid the groundwork for that thematic connection was cut out of the film completely because the director and editor didn't want to waste time on thought-provoking dialogue that they could be spending on a gratuitous dune-buggy chase instead.

A slim thread at best, but the inclusion of that cut scene (I have seen it) would have gone a long way; however, the scene of his death and the scenes afterward fell flat and didn't have quite the impact, thematically, that Spock's death had.

Also, the B-4 subplot even though a mirror of the Picard/Shinzon plot, was a mcguffin that should've been cut in the rewrite stage. It felt like they thought too hard on what can be done to ensure that Data could possibly come back in another movie; only to come up with, once again, another Soong android... Surprise!

But I do agree, the priorities of the film were all in the wrong places. At least they dropped some of the more sillier concepts that were more like TWOK. For example, Shinzon being Picard's long-lost son and not his clone.

Mysterion said:

middyseafort said:
Indeed, and they took the wrong lessons from Trek II as well. Spock's death was related to the themes of the movie, and helped to punctuate Kirk's character arc. .

Sadly, though, this is totally negated by bringing Spock back in the next movie!

If you got the cahones to kill off a main character, have the cahones to LEAVE THEM THAT WAY!

Ahem.

Thank you.

I've always been fascinated by what Trek would've been like had Spock stayed dead. For an example of this, I recommend the first seven issues of DC's first series of Trek comics.