And that aspect of Starfleet's attitude was personified by Maddox, who, if he'd come aboard as a regular with that attitude, would have been just as hated for it...probably moreso, since we never saw any redeeming qualities in him.
But the hearing was to determine whether or not Data could be considered property, which means there'd been no such official ruling as of that point. Starfleet had allowed him to function as an autonomous human being for something like 19 years at that point, which demonstrates that while there may certainly have been those such as Maddox who felt that he was nothing but property, that attitude was not universal. Starfleet is an organization of individual beings, not a collective.
As for Pulaski's "character growth"--yes, given her shift in attitude, it's easiest to fill in the blanks by considering it to be growth. But as an arc that plays out on the screen, there's no satisfying epiphany moment there where we see an event or series of events cause a distinct change in Pulaski's attitude. And it's too bad, because they had more than one obvious opportunity. Her perspective was woefully absent from "The Measure of a Man"; and her experiences with Moriarty, a sentient hologram who was even more convincingly human than Data, could have caused her to see Data in a different light.
Her interaction with Data as of "Unnatural Selection" was just fine...I think they'd hit the right balance of compassion and skepticism. Their big mistake was overselling her attitude in the first couple of episodes, instantly making her contemptable in the eyes of many. First impressions are important. And even if they'd avoided that, there's still the McCoy clone aspect, which became insultingly blatant when they put in the transporterphobia gag.
But the hearing was to determine whether or not Data could be considered property, which means there'd been no such official ruling as of that point. Starfleet had allowed him to function as an autonomous human being for something like 19 years at that point, which demonstrates that while there may certainly have been those such as Maddox who felt that he was nothing but property, that attitude was not universal. Starfleet is an organization of individual beings, not a collective.
As for Pulaski's "character growth"--yes, given her shift in attitude, it's easiest to fill in the blanks by considering it to be growth. But as an arc that plays out on the screen, there's no satisfying epiphany moment there where we see an event or series of events cause a distinct change in Pulaski's attitude. And it's too bad, because they had more than one obvious opportunity. Her perspective was woefully absent from "The Measure of a Man"; and her experiences with Moriarty, a sentient hologram who was even more convincingly human than Data, could have caused her to see Data in a different light.
Her interaction with Data as of "Unnatural Selection" was just fine...I think they'd hit the right balance of compassion and skepticism. Their big mistake was overselling her attitude in the first couple of episodes, instantly making her contemptable in the eyes of many. First impressions are important. And even if they'd avoided that, there's still the McCoy clone aspect, which became insultingly blatant when they put in the transporterphobia gag.
