I agree, he was waiting until the right ship came along, one that would suit his purposes.
Why did Dr. Korby commit suicide?
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I agree, he was waiting until the right ship came along, one that would suit his purposes.
Or then he was still undergoing the treatment that would restore him to life.
His last signal was sent five years prior to the episode, and mentioned the discovery of underground caverns (are there other sorts?). We don't know if this coincided with him meeting with disaster and nearly dying, or if it was simply his last call before he engaged in a long study of those caverns, not wishing to report back until he had his discoveries neatly sorted and filed. The disaster would then come at the end of that study, shortening the time he would be missing.
Now, Crater was required to suffer a Starfleet visit every year. So Korby, too, supposedly would have to go missing within a year of his last message at the latest, still leaving four years during which he would be nowhere to be seen. But the first search mission would obviously be conducted at the one-year mark already. So it's a matter of choosing whether the second one followed so soon thereafter that Ruk was still wondering how to best revive Korby. Or Korby was wondering whether he had the guts to face the world again. (Well, he didn't, factually. But ultimately he decided he had something better inside his tummy, and answered the hail.)
Korby himself is a splendid example that the border between man and machine is too vague to actually be believed in. Would Kirk have shot Picard at sight for his disgusting artificial heart, and knocked down LaForge for the abomination he was? Both had their behavior modified by becoming part cyborg - they couldn't help it. Korby may have changed with the transition to machine existence, too, but so what? Many invalids kill themselves because they fear the loathing of their friends and neighbors. Ira Graves did that, too, despite not really changing at all in transition (we have canon proof of him being quite a piece of work even before dying for the first time). But many don't.
Timo Saloniemi
His last signal was sent five years prior to the episode, and mentioned the discovery of underground caverns (are there other sorts?). We don't know if this coincided with him meeting with disaster and nearly dying, or if it was simply his last call before he engaged in a long study of those caverns, not wishing to report back until he had his discoveries neatly sorted and filed. The disaster would then come at the end of that study, shortening the time he would be missing.
Now, Crater was required to suffer a Starfleet visit every year. So Korby, too, supposedly would have to go missing within a year of his last message at the latest, still leaving four years during which he would be nowhere to be seen. But the first search mission would obviously be conducted at the one-year mark already. So it's a matter of choosing whether the second one followed so soon thereafter that Ruk was still wondering how to best revive Korby. Or Korby was wondering whether he had the guts to face the world again. (Well, he didn't, factually. But ultimately he decided he had something better inside his tummy, and answered the hail.)
That's what he himself hoped to achieve, though. A race of machines was his latest wild idea for serving mankind, and he was trailblazing this personally. And it was this race that our heroes so vehemently rejected.
Korby himself is a splendid example that the border between man and machine is too vague to actually be believed in. Would Kirk have shot Picard at sight for his disgusting artificial heart, and knocked down LaForge for the abomination he was? Both had their behavior modified by becoming part cyborg - they couldn't help it. Korby may have changed with the transition to machine existence, too, but so what? Many invalids kill themselves because they fear the loathing of their friends and neighbors. Ira Graves did that, too, despite not really changing at all in transition (we have canon proof of him being quite a piece of work even before dying for the first time). But many don't.
Timo Saloniemi
As an android, he had all the time in the world.
An idea is not a race, nor are the automatons of this episode. Korby, Andrea, Brown & Ruk were all manufactured, and were no more a race than the drive which controls a "smart home's" functions. It is not your "racism" for Chapel to reject a thing--an object skimming the surface of a human personality, but has no true human elements discussed throughout this thread.
And that's all bullshit. Korby was being just as human as anybody else down on the planet, Kirk and Chapel definitely included. His dialogue was Turing-fluent, his emotions running high, his ambitions and motivations, delusions and vanity all human indeed. If he doesn't qualify, then Kirk is an epic fail, too.
It's not up to you to decide what is race and what is not, either. Many tried to define blacks as being something and not being something else, against obvious evidence. Here we have another case of "a difference that makes no difference is no difference". Korby was manufactured, but so was Kirk (the real one). Korby would go on to manufacture others, and so would Kirk (actually, he had already done his bit by this time, unless there's something exotic about the way David aged). The exact mechanics and hydraulics of the processes differ, but perpetuation of the race is still what factually takes place.
Timo Saloniemi
It's not up to you to decide what is race and what is not, either. Many tried to define blacks as being something and not being something else, against obvious evidence. Here we have another case of "a difference that makes no difference is no difference". Korby was manufactured, but so was Kirk (the real one). Korby would go on to manufacture others, and so would Kirk (actually, he had already done his bit by this time, unless there's something exotic about the way David aged). The exact mechanics and hydraulics of the processes differ, but perpetuation of the race is still what factually takes place.
Timo Saloniemi
Chapel didn't drop Korbot because he was physically distinct, it was because he wasn't the real Roger Korby, nor even a human anymore. That's no different from dropping your net date when it turns out he's a golden retriever instead of human.
Your gross use of real people in order to continue pushing this nonsensical, unsubstantiated "android is a race" crap, is astoundingly inapplicable--and patently offensive. It cannot drop below the rock bottom position it occupies. Race is not applied to artificial objects or a device--at least not in this, the real world.
A classification of human beings does not extend to a device, mannequin, hard drive, doll, or any other pile of materials shaped and/or programmed device merely copying impressions of a human.
It is no wonder that in the 49 years since the episode's debut, after endless articles and TV segments have been produced about it, there's no swelling opinion supporting your claim.
Or referring to a pull-string toy baby as your child, simply because it has the general appearance of a human, and produces a few, recorded messages.
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Heh. Make no mistake, what I am speaking about is history and future. Present - pfft! This is science fiction, and to miss/dismiss the one single implication of the science fiction story at hand is the "astoundingly inapplicable" reaction and approach.
Machine life is here today. Many people are partially machines already. Some continue to behave like people; some never did or never will. (But the latter is also true of many who have no machine parts.) Tomorrow, things will be different. And tomorrow, alas, things will be the same.
All this nonsense about Korby lacking what it takes to be human is past, just like the intellectual apologism for slave trade. Naturally, TOS is storytelling of the past, and Kirk is a man of the past - but that doesn't stop (some of) us from looking objectively at what is being shown and told and realizing that factually, Korby lacks nothing that Kirk would have (except perhaps a starship).
Reading these exchanges today is interesting (if that) for Trekkies only. Reading them a few decades on would be when they begin to look painfully similar to those older writings about how certain creatures for darkest Africa cannot be considered human, lack essential qualities, must be treated accordingly, yadda yadda.
Timo Saloniemi
Machine life is here today. Many people are partially machines already. Some continue to behave like people; some never did or never will. (But the latter is also true of many who have no machine parts.) Tomorrow, things will be different. And tomorrow, alas, things will be the same.
All this nonsense about Korby lacking what it takes to be human is past, just like the intellectual apologism for slave trade. Naturally, TOS is storytelling of the past, and Kirk is a man of the past - but that doesn't stop (some of) us from looking objectively at what is being shown and told and realizing that factually, Korby lacks nothing that Kirk would have (except perhaps a starship).
Reading these exchanges today is interesting (if that) for Trekkies only. Reading them a few decades on would be when they begin to look painfully similar to those older writings about how certain creatures for darkest Africa cannot be considered human, lack essential qualities, must be treated accordingly, yadda yadda.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo, it's clear how strongly you believe in your racial analogy, but don't expect us to fall in line. Korby's nature, or his specs if we prefer, are still open to fan interpretation. 
After making the most wild, irrational accusations imaginable, you have failed (in spectacular fashion) to support any of it by demonstrating how a manufactured object programmed to make human impressions is a race. Not once. Several have asked you to prove this (and the incredibly offensive comparison to a group of real human beings), and all we get is some convoluted notion of how the future will look at the episode/writers. Whether it is 1966, or 2015, the view of a drive shoved into a piece of manufactured, inorganic material sculpted to appear human has not changed to be classified as a living being--a race, and all that it means.
Some will argue Data makes any sort of difference--as if Data was (somehow) a life form, but it cannot be denied that this perception probably stems from Data being a popular main character from TNG, more than anything else. At the end of it all, he--like Korby--is not a living being, and not part of some other guy's utterly inapplicable race fantasy.
Further, answers to the topic--Why did Dr. Korby commit suicide?--settles the matter, because the subject--Korby--reached the only logical answer to the question of his identity (he was not real, born human with a soul), thus the mechanical copy ended the deception used against all he encountered.
Or maybe Korby was real and overcome by grief.
If he was real, he would not arrive at the honest conclusion that he was an artificial thing. He would have challenged the arguments of Kirk & Chapel to prove his human status, but even his programmed "mind" could not sell that.
Lwaxana didn't have any issues with him.
@TrekGod: Data has been proven, in a court of law, to be a sentient life form. Indeed, he wouldn't have been allowed to enter Starfleet if he wasn't one. So the thought that no android can be a life form has already been debunked.
I don't understand Starfleet. First they give Data a rank and a bunch of decorations for valor, over the years. And after all that they start disputing his SENTIENCE!
What the hell? ... It looks like they're a bunch of idiots that have no idea what they are doing.
RUK: "Yes, the old ones. The ones who made us. Bloch, Goldstone, Roddenberry."
KIRK: "And isn't it the spin-offs that are creating the same issues all over again? Unlike you, we humans are full of unpredictable emotions that logic cannot solve. We make new TV shows, ask the same questions, get different answers."
RUK: "Yes. Yes, it had been so long ago, I had forgotten. The old ones here. The ones who made us, yes. Yes, it is still in my memory banks. Bloch, Goldstone, Roddenberry. Your "Next Generation" spinoffs are inconsistent. You cannot be programmed correctly. You are inferior."
I am sorry but killing yourself is not something a machine would do, hell it's not even something an animal would do (Lemmings don't consciously kill themselves). It's typically human (or sapient if you will).
If you are sentient, if you can form relationships with others, I am willing to consider you a life form. I am willing to consider Korby-bot and Data life forms. If a human marries an android and is perfectly happy in her choice, I am certainly not going to tell her she's not married to a person.
But Chapel should not be criticized for not wanting to be with an android. I may decide not to marry someone because she is blonde and not brunette. I may decide I do not wish to be married to a Vulcan or a Klingon or an Andorian or a Horta, and I feel perfectly justified in my decision. If Christine decides she does not want an android, that is a perfectly acceptable exercise of personal choice, not racism, and she does not deserve criticism for it.
But Chapel should not be criticized for not wanting to be with an android. I may decide not to marry someone because she is blonde and not brunette. I may decide I do not wish to be married to a Vulcan or a Klingon or an Andorian or a Horta, and I feel perfectly justified in my decision. If Christine decides she does not want an android, that is a perfectly acceptable exercise of personal choice, not racism, and she does not deserve criticism for it.
I believe Chapel's motives can be questioned. After all people have been sued for breaking up relationships under suspicious circumstances. So why not here?
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