| Data | |
|---|---|
| Star Trek character | |
Lieutenant Commander Data
| |
| First appearance | "Encounter at Farpoint" (TNG) |
| Portrayed by | Brent Spiner |
| Information | |
| Family | Noonien Soong (father) Juliana Soong (mother) |
| Children | Lal |
| Species | Soong-Type Android |
| Affiliation | United Federation of Planets Starfleet |
| Posting | USS Enterprise-E (FCT, INS, NEM) USS Enterprise-D (seasons 1–7, GEN) |
| Position | Chief Operations Officer |
| Rank | Lieutenant Commander |
Data (/ˈdeɪtə/ DAY-tə) is a character in the fictional Star Trek franchise. He appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) and the feature films Star Trek Generations (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). Data is portrayed by actor Brent Spiner.
Data was found by Starfleet in 2338 as the sole survivor on Omicron Theta in the rubble of a colony left after an attack from the Crystalline Entity. He was a synthetic life form with artificial intelligence and designed and built by Doctor Noonien Soong in his own likeness (likewise portrayed by Spiner). Data is a self-aware, sapient, sentient and anatomically fully functional android who serves as the second officer and chief operations officer aboard the Federation starship USS Enterprise-D and later the USS Enterprise-E.
His positronic brain allows him impressive computational capabilities. He experienced ongoing difficulties during the early years of his life with understanding various aspects of human behavior and was unable to feel emotion or understand certain human idiosyncrasies, inspiring him to strive for his own humanity. This goal eventually led to the addition of an "emotion chip" created by Soong, to Data's positronic net. Although Data's endeavor to increase his humanity and desire for human emotional experience is a significant plot point (and source of humor) throughout the series, he consistently shows a nuanced sense of wisdom, sensitivity, and curiosity, garnering respect from his peers and colleagues.
Data is in many ways a successor to the original Star Trek's Spock (Leonard Nimoy), in that the character offers an "outsider's" perspective on humanity.
Development
Gene Roddenberry told Brent Spiner
that over the course of the series, Data was to become "more and more
like a human until the end of the show, when he would be very close, but
still not quite there. That was the idea and that's the way that the
writers took it." Spiner felt that Data exhibited the Chaplinesque characteristics of a sad, tragic clown. To get into his role as Data, Spiner used the character of Robby the Robot from the film Forbidden Planet as a role model.
Commenting on Data's perpetual albino-like appearance, he said:
"I spent more hours of the day in make-up than out of make-up", so much
so that he even called it a way of method acting. Spiner also portrayed Data's manipulative and malignant brother Lore (a role he found much easier to play, because the character was "more like me"), and Data's creator, Dr. Noonien Soong. Additionally, he portrayed another Soong-type android, B-4, in the film Star Trek: Nemesis, and also one of Soong's ancestors in three episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise. Spiner said his favorite Data scene takes place in "Descent", when Data plays poker on the holodeck with a re-creation of the famous physicist Stephen Hawking, played by Hawking himself.
Spiner reprised his role of Data in the Star Trek: Enterprise series finale "These Are the Voyages..."
in an off-screen speaking part. Spiner felt that he had visibly aged
out of the role and that Data was best presented as a youthful figure.
Depiction
Television series and films
Actor Brent Spiner portrayed Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Dialog in "Datalore" establishes some of Data's backstory. It is stated that he was deactivated in 2336 on Omicron Theta before an attack by the Crystalline Entity,
a spaceborne creature which converts life forms to energy for
sustenance. He was found and reactivated by Starfleet personnel two
years later. Data went to Starfleet Academy
from 2341–45 (he describes himself as "Class of '78" to Riker in
"Encounter at Farpoint", but that may refer to the stardate and not the
year that he graduated) and then served in Starfleet aboard the USS Trieste. He was assigned to the Enterprise under Captain Jean-Luc Picard in 2364. In "Datalore", Data discovers his amoral brother, Lore, and learns that he was created after Lore. Lore fails in an attempt to betray the Enterprise to the Crystalline Entity, and Wesley Crusher beams Data's brother into space at the episode's conclusion.
In "Brothers",
Data reunites with Dr. Soong. There he meets again with Lore, who
steals the emotion chip Soong meant for Data to receive. Lore then
fatally wounds Soong. Lore returns in the two-part episode "Descent", using the emotion chip to control Data and make him help with Lore's attempt to make the Borg entirely artificial lifeforms. Data eventually deactivates Lore, and recovers, but does not install the damaged emotion chip.
In "The Measure of a Man",
a Starfleet judge rules that Data is not Starfleet property. The
episode establishes that Data has a storage capacity of 800 quadrillion bits (100 PB or 88.81784197 PiB) and a total linear computational speed of 60 trillion operations per second.
Data's family is expanded in "The Offspring",
which introduces Lal, a robot based on Data's neural interface and whom
Data refers to as his daughter. Lal “dies” shortly after activation.
Later, his mother Julianna appears in the episode "Inheritance"
and reunites with Data, though the crew discovers she was an android
duplicate built by Soong after the real Julianna's death, programmed to
die after a long life, and to believe she is the true Julianna, unaware
of the fact she is an android. Faced with the decision, Data chooses not
to disclose this to her and allow her the chance to continue on with
her normal life.
In "All Good Things...", the two-hour concluding episode of The Next Generation,
Captain Picard travels between three different time periods. The Picard
of 25 years into the future goes with La Forge to seek advice from
Professor Data, a luminary physicist who holds the Lucasian Chair at Cambridge University.
In "The Child" (because 'data' is a heterophone) Data clarifies to the newly arrived ship's chief medical officer, Dr. Katherine Pulaski, that the correct pronunciation of his name is Day'ta, not Dah'ta.
Although several androids, robots, and artificial intelligences were seen in the original Star Trek
series, Data was often referred to as being unique in the galaxy as
being the only sentient android known to exist (save the other androids
created by Soong).
In the film Star Trek Generations,
Data finally installs the emotion chip he retrieved from Lore, and
experiences the full scope of emotions. However, those emotions proved
difficult to control and Data struggled to master them. In Star Trek: First Contact, Data has managed to gain complete control of the chip, which includes deactivating it to maintain his performance efficiency.
In the film Star Trek: Nemesis, Data beams Picard off an enemy ship before destroying it, sacrificing himself and saving the captain and crew of the Enterprise. However, Data previously copied his core memories into B-4,
his lost brother who is introduced in the movie. This was done with the
reluctant help of Geordi La Forge who voiced concerns about how this
could cause B-4 to be nothing more than an exact duplicate of Data.
In "The Chase",
after being briefly attacked by a Klingon officer to test his strength,
Data reveals to his attacker that his '...upper spinal support is a
poly-alloy, designed to withstand extreme stress, and his skull is
composed of cortenide and duranium.'
Characteristics
Data
is immune to nearly all biological diseases and other weaknesses that
can affect humans and other carbon-based lifeforms. This benefits the Enterprise many times, such as when Data is the only crew member unaffected by the inability to dream and the only member to be unaffected by the stun ray that knocked the crew out for a day. One exception, however, was in the episode "The Naked Now" where Data was also a victim of the Tsiolkovsky polywater virus. Data does not require life support to function and does not register a bio-signature. The crew of the Enterprise-D
must modify their scanners to detect positronic signals in order to
locate and keep track of him on away-missions. Another unique feature of
Data's construction is the ability to be dismantled and then
re-assembled for later use. This is used as a plot element in the
episode "Time's Arrow"
where Data's head (an artifact excavated on Earth from the late 19th
century) is reattached to his body after nearly 500 years. Another
example is in the episode "Disaster",
where Data intentionally damages his body to break a high-current
electrical arc, and then Riker takes his head to engineering to solve an
engine problem. Data's officer's quarters is unique in that it does not
contain any form of bed or bunk, nor bathing facility or bathroom,
instead containing a work station with seats, eventually becoming also
occupied by Spot, Data's cat.
Data is vulnerable to technological hazards such as computer
viruses, certain levels of energy discharges, ship malfunctions (when
connected to the Enterprise main computer for experiments), and
shutdowns whether through remote control shutdown devices or through use
of his "off switch", located on his lower back near where a human
kidney would be. Besides Data, very few members of the Enterprise crew
are aware of this switch's existence for reasons of security, including
Captain Picard, Commander Riker and Chief Engineer La Forge. Dr.
Crusher, who is bound by her Hippocratic Oath forbidding her from
divulging this to anyone without Data's express permission, was the
first member of the crew to be made aware of its existence in the
first-season episode "Datalore".
Data has also been "possessed" through technological means, such as Ira
Graves's transfer of consciousness into his neural net; Dr. Soong's
"calling" him; and an alien library that placed several different
personalities into him. Data cannot swim unless aided by his built-in
flotation device, yet he can perform tasks underwater without the need
to surface. Data is also impervious to sensory tactile emotion such as
pain or pleasure. In Star Trek: First Contact the Borg Queen grafted artificial skin to his forearm. Data was then able to feel pain when a Borg
drone slashed at his arm, and pleasure when the Borg Queen blew on the
skin's hair follicles. Despite being mechanical in nature, Data is
treated as an equal member of the Enterprise crew in every regard. Being a mechanical construct, technicians such as Chief Engineer La Forge
prove to be more appropriate to treat his mechanical or cognitive
function failures than the ship's doctor. His positronic brain becomes
deactivated, repaired, and reactivated by Geordi on several occasions.
Data is physically the strongest member of the Enterprise
crew and also is, in ability to process and calculate information
rapidly, the most intelligent member. He is able to survive in
atmospheres that most carbon-based life forms would consider
inhospitable, including the lack of an atmosphere or the vacuum of space
for certain periods of time, though he appears to breathe. As an
android, he is the most emotionally challenged and, with the addition of
Dr. Soong's emotions chip, the most emotionally unstable member of the
crew. Before the emotions chip, Data was unable to grasp basic emotion
and imagination, leading him to download personality subroutines into
his programming when participating in holographic recreational
activities (most notably during Dixon Hill and Sherlock Holmes
holoprograms) and during romantic encounters (most notably with Tasha Yar and Jenna D'Sora).
Yet none of those personalities are his own and are immediately put
away at the conclusion of their usefulness. Also, the abilities of
Data's hearing are explained in the episodes "The Schizoid Man" and "A Matter of Time";
his hearing is more sensitive than a dog's and that he can identify
several hundred different distinct sound patterns simultaneously, but
for aesthetics purposes limits it to about ten. Throughout the series,
Data develops a frequently humorous affinity for theatrical acting and
singing. This is most definitively demonstrated in Star Trek: Insurrection where Picard and Worf distract an erratically behaving Data by singing two parts of A British Tar, compelling Data to sing the third part.
Because of Julianna Soong's inability to conceive children, Data has at least five
robotic siblings (two of which are Lore and B-4). Later on, his
"mother" is revealed also to be his positronic sister as the real
Julianna Soong died and was replaced with an identical Soong-type
android, the most advanced one that Dr. Soong was known to have built.
Data constructed a daughter, which he named "Lal" in the episode "The Offspring".
This particular android exceeded her father in basic human emotion when
she felt fear toward Starfleet's scientific interests in her.
Eventually, this was the cause of a cascade failure in her neural net
and she died as a result.
Non-canon works
In the comic book miniseries Star Trek: Countdown (the official prequel to the reboot Star Trek film), Data, having successfully transferred his positronic pathways and memories into B-4, now commands the Enterprise-E in 2387 in its mission to stop the Romulan Nero. Spock compares Data's "resurrection" with his own death and return years earlier.
In the novels published by Pocket Books and set after Nemesis,
Data returned in 2384 by having his memories and neural net transferred
from B-4 into a new body which contained the memory engrams of Data's
creator Doctor Noonien Soong after he was dying and being attacked by
Lore years earlier. Data then takes control of the body after Soong
deletes himself. After a tearful reunion with his old shipmates, Picard
offers to reactivate Data's commission and to rejoin the crew but Data
declines as he says he requires time. Several months later, with the
help of the Enterprise crew, he is able to obtain the help necessary to resurrect his daughter, Lal. The novel The Buried Age, set between the destruction of the USS Stargazer and Picard being appointed captain of the Enterprise-D, depicts Data's first meeting with Picard, during a mission where the two also work with then-Lieutenant Kathryn Janeway,
which depicts Picard encouraging Data, who has prior to this been stuck
in relatively menial roles because he was uncertain how to express
ambition, to push himself and specifically request assignments, which
leads to Data receiving a promotion and commendation when he uncovers a
plan to sabotage the design of the still-in-development Galaxy-class ships, with the admiral overseeing Data's promotion assuring Data that there will be a place for him on a Galaxy-class ship when they are completed.
In the prologue to the novel adaptation for Encounter at Farpoint by David Gerrold, Data chose his own name, due to his love for, and identification with, knowledge.
Data also appeared in the crossover graphic novel series Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation2, set in 2368, in which the Borg Collective joins forces with the Cybermen when the latter invade their universe. Data and the crew of the Enterprise-D form an alliance of their own with the Eleventh Doctor—who immediately recognizes Data as an android upon seeing him—and his companions, Amy Pond and Rory Williams.
The group later forms a reluctant truce with the Borg, who have been
betrayed by the Cybermen and are in danger of falling to them. Data and
the others manage to restore the Borg Collective and destroy the
Cybermen, but their Borg liaison then attempts to seize control of the
Doctor's TARDIS.
The time machine's intelligence then briefly transfers itself into Data
to escape the Borg's control, and the empowered Data overpowers the
Borg and throws him out into the Time Vortex.
Spot
Spot is Data's pet cat and a recurring character in the show. Spot appears in several episodes during TNG's last four seasons, as well as in the feature films Star Trek Generations and Star Trek: Nemesis. She first appears in the episode "Data's Day".
Despite her name, Spot is not actually patterned with spots. Spot originally appears as a male Somali cat, but later appears as a female orange tabby cat, eventually giving birth to kittens (TNG: "Genesis").
Data creates several hundred food supplement variations for Spot and composes the poem "Ode to Spot" in the cat's honor ("Schisms"). A computer error which occurs later in the series (in the episode "A Fistful of Datas")
causes some of the ship's food replicators to create only Spot's
supplements and replaces portions of a play with the ode's text.
In "Genesis", the morphogenetic virus "Barclay's protomorphosis disease" temporarily mutates Spot into an iguana-like reptile. Spot's kittens are not affected, leading to the discovery of the mechanism and a cure for the virus.
Spot is notoriously unfriendly to most people other than Data. Commander William Riker once received serious scratches while trying to feed Spot ("Timescape"). Geordi La Forge borrowed her to experience taking care of a cat, but she knocked over a vase and teapot and damaged his furniture ("Force of Nature"). When Data asked Worf to take care of Spot, Worf proved to be allergic to her and sneezed in her face, angering her ("Phantasms"). However, she did get along with Lieutenant Reginald Barclay,
so when Data had to leave on a mission at the same time Spot's kittens
were due, he persuaded Barclay to take care of her ("Genesis").
Reception and popular culture
Like Spock, Data became a sex symbol and Spiner's fan mail
came mostly from women. He described the letters as "romantic mail"
that were "really written to Data; he's a really accessible
personality".
Robotics engineers regard Data (along with the droids from the Star Wars movies) as the pre-eminent face of robots in the public's perception of their field. On April 9, 2008, Data was inducted into Carnegie Mellon University's Robot Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Beat Fleet, a Croatian hip hop band, wrote a song called "Data" for their album Galerija Tutnplok dedicated to Data. The release of this album coincided with reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation being shown on Croatian Radiotelevision. In 2005, the nerdcore group The Futuristic Sex Robotz released a song about Data entitled "The Positronic Pimp." Cuban-American musician Aurelio Voltaire has also performed a song about Data entitled "The Sexy Data Tango" on his LP Banned on Vulcan and later his album BiTrektual. Punk rock group Warp 11 also has a song, "My Electric Man", from their album Boldly Go Down on Me, as well as numerous other references in other songs.
Spiner himself released an album of old pop standards from the 1930s and '40s entitled Ol' Yellow Eyes Is Back. The title is a parodic reference both to Frank Sinatra's Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back and the Data character, whose eyes are golden yellow.
