Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a phaser?

The guy was a walking super-computer. Didn't he have a tri-corder already built into his system?

I was taling about this to a friend of mine and I mentioned that a phaser should have been built-in as well. My friend suggested that the phaser should be built into Data's tongue, so anytime he needed to fire at someone he could just stick his tongue out at him.

Now that would have made for good TV!

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

Hmm. Data had no extra senses built into him. And his eyesight or hearing was never indicated to be better than human. Apparently, the only thing physically superhuman about him was muscle strength and motoric control.

Why? Well, Data was the (brain)child of Dr Soong. And no matter how much a father may wish his son to do right what he himself once did wrong, no father honestly stomachs the idea of the son being so obviously superior to his dad. Especially physically.



Timo Saloniemi

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

Data did have a form of superior hearing. He was able to pick out minor imperfections in musical performances, for example, that humans would not be able to hear.

He was also able to pick out the specific number of conversations in a jumble of comm chatter from the Enterprise's communication system.

We also know that he can run faster and further than a human (or a Borg) from "Descent".

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

Data was never meant to be a weapon, he was intended to be the first (ok hes the 3rd really) of a race of cybernetic people not a war machine.

As for a Tricorder, maybe but that would still indicate a purpose as a machine, not a person which I think was Soong's vision

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

Even if you accept the idea that Data's 5 senses are far more sensitive than a Human's, he still needs a tricorder, because he still only has 5 senses. A tricorder is equiped with many more sensors that detect stuff in the Em and sub-space sprectra, as well as many subatomic particles and energetic phenomena. Plus, tricorders can record that info and readily upload it to other devices wirelessly, while the information in Data's brain can only be uploaded to another device via an optical data link, which is not practical under field conditions.

As to the phaser, well... Soong could have built Data with all sorts of additional devices, from phasers to tractor beams to long-range communicators to wireless interface capability that would have allowed him to remotely hack into other computers. But Soong didn't do this; his goal was to produce a living android that emulated it's Human progenitor in most respects (while correcting a few fundamental flaws in the Human condition such as aging, physical vulnerability, and comparitively weak senses). He didn't give Data any abilities that Humans don't have, he simply improved the performance of those abilities that Humans have.

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

Yeah, he could just pull out his 'fully functional' phaser and shoot the bad guys.

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

Why would he need a phaser built in anyway? When he was built Dr. Soong didn't intend for him to join Starfleet so he didn't really need one. That was Data's choice. Plus if he were to ever turn evil like Lore it would be very bad for him to have a weapon no one could confiscate. And Data is still mostly limited to whatever a human can do, only he can do it better and faster.

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

There is a scene from an episode I can't remember now, but it was on a wrecked ship or station. Worf couldn't open some hatchway, but Data opened it with ease. I remember several instances where Data's much superior strength was used, but can't pin point them to a specific episode.

One of these days I really am going to have to start watching all my TNG DVDs again.

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

But think about poor Tasha Yar and Jenna D'Sora...

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

That's not related to the ears, that's related to the cognitive processing (i.e., in the brain) of what the ears are picking up.

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

Set phasers to tickle baby!

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

Some girls like it rough

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

Who said Data wasn't a walking tricorder? He, after all, could scan things by just touching them. This skill shown in First Contact. He just choosed not to employ such non-human traits very often to appear more human. Which was of course what he endevoured to be. The fact that he used his strength of a 100 men was to save the lives of others. He didn't walk around entering arm wrestling contests just because he knew he could win.

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

Data wasn't "scanning" the Phoenix; he was using his sense of touch (a sense that all Humans have), but his sense of touch is far more sensitive than a Human's, and as AJBryant said, his brain was capable of superior cognitive processing of said sensory input, giving him those various details he told Picard.

Hell, even our pitiful Human senses would be way more effective if our pitiful Human brains could process and analise their input better. How many times have you been looking through a crowd to spot someone you know, only to miss them, even though you looked directly at where they were standing? It's not that they were not within the range of your visual perception, it's that the facial recognition software in your brain couldn't process all those faces at once and compare them with the stored image in your memory.

In other words, you SAW the person, you just didn't NOTICE them. Data, on the other hand, notices just about everything.

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

And the next unit (the replica of Juliana Tainer) was essentially human. It could bleed, cry, it even had a built in device that made it appear human to sensors.

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

Which is supposed to be better, Data's eyes or Geordi's VISOR?

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

The VISOR, definitely. Data has never seen things a human eye couldn't see if said human stared and concentrated enough. He has never demonstrated much in the way of night vision, and he squints noticeably in bright light in for example "Descent".

Data is stronger; Data is faster; Data is smarter in certain number-crunching types of thinking. Data has nifty sockets for interfacing with computers. Data stops bullets and selectively either floats in water, or walks submerged without a need to breathe or regulate temperature or anything. But Data doesn't fly or spit fire or see through walls.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

I specifically remember Data saying "My eyes are not as good as Geordi's VISOR" or something like that in an episode.

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

He had superior hearing as we learned in, "The Schizoid Man."

"I can hear you coming, Captain. My ears are better than the average dog's, you know"

 

Re: Why did Data need to carry aeound a tricorder? Or a pha

Yep, it was in one of the first season episodes (I think Encounter at Farpoint).