Poll Why did Data fire?

Do you think he evolved to feel rage over Varria's death or Fajo's taunting? That seems to me the only reason why he would lie about pulling the trigger afterwards. Unless that line about something happening in the transporter was simply a device for "the powers-that-be" to keep his firing "ambiguous," as the writer said.

 

Because it's a lie that he has no feelings.

 

I think he did it for logical reasons. Fajo was unstable and a lunatic, and he flat-out said he was going to kill someone else. Data could not let someone like that run loose.

 

I agree with this, to some extent. I certainly feel that whilst Data often said he was incapable of emotional behaviour, I thought that a few times this certainly wasn't true.

This episode was one of those times. I think his interactions with the young girl in Pen Pals is was another. And certainly I think his interactions with Armus after he killed Tasha were very interesting.

I don't know if it was an early-TNG thing, as I struggle to think of examples from later in the show's run. I found it all very intriguing.

 

...to get to the other side?

 

Wasn't he only going to kill someone else if Data didn't comply with his demands, though? If he had gone back to the chair and entertained Fajo's guests, wouldn't everyone have been spared?

 

^ I doubt it. Fajo was so unhinged that he would have killed for whatever reason he felt like (or none at all). People like that rarely remain stable for long. Sooner or later they'll snap.

 

That's the funny thing about emotional reactions - you can find logic in them if you work hard enough. Data has no emotion just like the cowardly lion has no courage.

 

I still disagree with the assumption that he definitely fired, but I know I'm in an extreme minority.

 

He was programmed to grow. I think he was sufficiently inspired in the moment to have a flash of anger, similar to fleeting moments of clarity in our lives that make sense but don't last.

 

I voted No. Data was acting under his own authority to defend life. Fajo was a threat to life, so Data was attempting to remove that threat. Data would surely have used a non lethal method if that was available to him, but he didn't have any other means at hand beside the disruptor.

 

Ethical calculation and really not that hard a one. Fajo was a rabid dog, he needed to be put down, and Data is not under any compulsion not to kill, just a guideline really.

Data's programming is so sophisticated that it can leave the impression that he has emotions, is my take. He HAS been practicing being human, so that would be bound to pay off sometimes, and that coupled with his hardware and software (especially the first) make us think he has emotion. Data does write his own software routines, and he probably wrote some subtle ones for a number of circumstances. But he is, in any human sense, as emotionless as a door.

Although honestly who's to say the "emotion chip" is such a big deal? Ok it is hugely more effective and sophisticated in the area of emotion than anything built into Data at the start, but it is still just the work of Soong and no doubt draws on the same heuristic complexities and positronic net design that make Data what he is already. It's nothing magical, just better work by Soong in one particular aspect of his android building.

 

And that's the thing the writers fumbled. Data, uniquely among the hero crew, is full of means - failing everything else, he could rip a hole in the side of Fajo's ship with his bare hands and use that as a bargaining tool. There is nothing in the situation at hand that would place Data in any disadvantage. Essentially, he is in absolute control, while Fajo has nothing left but his thoroughly faulty understanding of what makes Data tick.

So there isn't an ethical choice to be made. There's a law enforcement procedure to follow, and those deliberately steer clear of ethical choices ITRW.

It's just that when Starfleet officers enforce the law, they apparently are entitled to kill as part of the procedure, even when there is no immediate threat to anybody...

Timo Saloniemi

 

He has no emotions but his ethical program probably forced itself into some kind of feedback loop of some sort to where the morally wrong thing became the correct thing to do under the circumstances. That's my take on it.

 

I won't answer this poll although I love the question. I see it as an open question that's essentially unknowable.

I think it does demonstrate that Data is more than the sum of his parts, he has by some intangible quality, a sentimental side which is also reflected in his capacity to develop and sustain friendships.

 

Data calculated that killing Fajo was the least of evils available to him. His big realization was higher order principles and real world consequences were sometimes more important than simple moral imperatives.

 

Someone once suggested to me that he fired because despite valuing all life, he could see no redeeming trait in the man whatsoever - he was a purely negative force in the universe. I'm not sure Data would have fired even then TBH.

 

The writers didn't fumble anything - they injected a rare moment of real drama into the thing.

 

I see it as making an adjustment to his default moral equation. His moral equation was leading him to the conclusion that it was wrong to kill Fajo. His system identified that this equation did not lead him to the optimal result, so it adjusted the equation based on the new information available.

 

Data could have argued that it would be inherently immoral to let Fajo run loose, given Fajo's obvious instability and stated intention to kill others. I'd have a hard time disagreeing with him on that point.