Starfleet Command was founded on the mission to seek out new life.
Thousands of starships are dedicated to this goal, pushing past the boundaries of explored
space, delving deeper and deeper into the unknown.
Yet new life is not always discovered beyond the edges of the frontier on some strange
new world.
Across the history of the United Federation of Planets, there have been the rare, special
instances in which life was not discovered at all, but created.
Data was one such creation, an android of remarkable talents and capabilities, but ultimately
unique in his kindness, curiosity, and greatness of spirit
The fifth of six known androids constructed by Dr. Noonian Soong, the Federation’s leading
cyberneticist, Data was intended to be the culmination of his life’s work.
Soong’s previous attempts had largely failed, with Data’s immediate predecessor exhibiting
signs of emotional instability and behavioral issues.
Data represented the perfection of Soong’s androids, an artificial lifeform of unprecedented
sophistication.
As with all of Soong’s androids, Data was constructed to mimic human form.
His physical appearance was modeled on that of Soong himself, resembling an adult male.
Such was Soong’s attention to detail that Data included programs designed to simulate
the ageing of his physical condition, the randomized blinking of his eyes, and even
the appearance of breathing and a pulse.
Data was also capable of ingesting food, yet possessed no sense of taste and incapable
of any kind of intoxication.
While many of these aspects were purely aesthetic in nature, several did serve a functional
purpose, assisting in the distribution of biochemical lubricants and the thermal control
of his internal systems.
Despite the great effort to make Data appear human, Soong felt it important to distinguish
his androids in some way.
Data’s skin appeared very pale by human standards, while his eye color was a bright
gold.
Data’s appearance left him more than capable of blending in with Federation society and
was sometimes misidentified as some other kind of humanoid lifeform.
His physical and mental abilities however, were far superior to almost any organic or
cybernetic being, including Klingons, Vulcans or even the drones of the Borg Collective.
Data possessed a storage capacity of roughly 100,000 terabytes, and a total linear computational
speed rated at sixty trillion operations per second, both would be further improved across
his lifespan.
He was highly resistant to radiation, disease, and mind control, yet still susceptible to
specific environmental conditions, most notably those with a high concentration of ions.
Despite these fantastic capabilities, Data was initially much like a human newborn, struggling
with motor control and sensory input.
Constructed on the planet Omicron Theta in 2336, Soong had to make great efforts to refine
Data’s earliest programming and eliminate certain undesirable behavior.
Initial problems included a disregard for social niceties and customs, including clothing.
Eventually, as a means of giving Data greater context and personal experiences, Soong uploaded
to Data the logs and journals of other colonists on Omicron Theta, while simultaneously erasing
the memories of his early existence.
During this process however, the colony was attacked by a spaceborune entity, leaving
Data deactivated and forgotten.
Starfleet officers from the USS Tripoli recovered and reactivitated Data in 2338, but without
the guiding influence of Soong, and his neural net still developing, Data considered shutting
himself down and starting over.
Eventually, Data instead recontextualized his situation as a challenge to be overcome.
Data’s early connection with Starfleet imparted on him a desire to enter Starfleet Academy.
His application was met with some resistance, mainly from the cyberneticist Bruce Maddox.
Maddox, like others, felt Data was not a sentient being, and should instead be studied and potentially
dissected to recover scientific knowledge that had been lost with the apparent death
of Soong.
Despite this early resistance, Data was accepted to the Academy, performing extremely well
scholastically and eventually graduating in 2345 with honors in exobiology and probability
mechanics.
Nevertheless, his lack of social awareness created obstacles for him, often falling victim
to practical jokes and experiencing great difficulty in social gatherings.
Data’s first assignment as a Starfleet Officer was aboard the USS Trieste.
By 2360 he had achieved the rank of Lieutenant Commander and in 2364 was transferred to the
newly commissioned USS Enterprise D as its second officer.
He would serve in this position until the vessel’s destruction in 2371.
Data’s service aboard the Enterprise and the unique responsibilities assigned to him
as its Second Officer greatly enhanced his character and was a critical component in
his self-assigned ambition to become more human.
Over the course of his career, Data would take command of the ship when its crew became
incapacitated, negotiate the withdrawal of 15,000 colonists to prevent their annihilation
by Sheliak Corporate, assist in the rescue of Captain Picard after his abduction by the
Borg, and even be temporariliy granted command of his own starship, during the Federation
blockade of the Klingon-Romulan border.
In one instance, Data was even forced to acknowledge his own mortality, when a temporal anomaly
on Earth seemed to indicate his eventual, unavoidable death.
While this was eventually subverted, the knowledge that his existence might be limited, brought
Data some degree of comfort, as it was yet another way in which he resembled humanity.
His questionable legal status within both Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets
made Data a major influence in the process to recognize the sentience of Soong-Type Androids
and artificial life in general.
When Commander Bruce Maddox attempted to force Data to submit to an untested procedure against
his will, the issue was brought to a Starfleet court.
During the proceedings, Captain Picard’s arguments on behalf of Data were so profound
that they laid the groundwork for future recognition of artificial life, and even began to convince
Commander Maddox of Data’s capacity of sentience.
In time, Data and Maddox would develop a strong professional relationship devoted furthering
the development of artificial life.
Data’s most personal experiences aboard the Enterprise D involved both his brother
android “Lore” and his creator, Dr. Noonian Soong.
Each influenced Data in their own way, encouraging, and in the case of Lore, manipulating him
into experiencing different aspects of his character and potential.
In one such instance, Data was given an emotion chip, allowing him to experience states of
consciousness he had previously been incapable of.
While these emotions had the potential to interfere with his duties, it further refined
Data’s programming, bringing him one step closer to his goal of being human.
Following the destruction of the Enterprise D in 2371, Data was assigned to its immediate
successor.
During the Borg Incursion into Earth’s history, Data’s emotions and programming were again
manipulated, and for a brief instant, he was tempted into betraying his crew and joining
the Borg Collective.
Ultimately however, Data manipulated the Borg in turn, betraying them at the critical moment.
Data was expected to replace Command Riker in 2379 following his appointment as Captain
of the USS Titan.
However while on route to Betazed, the Enterprise encountered another of Soong’s androids,
an earlier model known as B-4.
This would eventually expose the machinations of Praetor Shinzon, the new leader of the
Romulan Star Empire and force a confrontation with his flagship, the Scimitar.
In a final act of self-sacrifice, Data destroyed the Scimitar, and the prototype thalaron weapon
it carried, saving his captain and his shipmates at the cost of his own existence.
While he had begun as a simple machine, perhaps no different than any sophisticated computer
network, Data’s experiences, and most critically the relationships he had with his friends,
shaped his life in ways that perhaps not even Dr. Soong could have imagined.
He began practicing numerous hobbies, from artwork, music, poker, and retreats into the
holodeck.
Through his close personal friendship with Geordi LaForge, Data gained an appreciation
for the character of Sherlock Holmes, frequently playing the role of the great detective inside
the holodeck.
The death of Natasha Yar, with whom he experienced his first romantic encounter, likewise had
a profound effect on Data.
He kept a small holo image of Yar within his quarters, a memento of both that experience,
and their brief, but meaningful friendship.
It was Captain Picard who likely had the greatest impact on Data, becoming something of a mentor
and father figure.
Data frequently solicited Picard’s advice in his quest to become more human, and the
mutual trust between the two allowed Data to succeed as a Starfleet Officer free of
any prejudice arising from his artificial nature.
Picard introduced Data to the theater, and together they explored the works of famous
authors on the Holodeck, from the tragedies of Shakespear to the pulp fiction of Dixon
Hill.
Ultimately this relationship had as much of an impact on Picard as it did on Data.
In his final years in Starfleet, Picard became the most vocal proponent of synthetic rights,
even in the aftermath of the destruction of the Utopia Plani-shi-a Shipyards of Mars by
rogue artificial lifeforms.
Picards devotion to preserving the legacy of Data would ultimately lead to the discovery
of Data’s “daughters”, created by Dr. Maddox who had finally replicated what Soong
had decades earlier.
Picard’s journey to Coppelius, home to a community of such artificial lifeforms would
reunite Picard with Data’s consciousness, carefully preserved in a sophisticated simulation.
During this brief reunion, Data made a final request of his former Captain, that his simulation
be terminated so that his existence might have meaning.
Data’s determination to grow, and change came from his choice to consider himself a
person who would never be limited by the sum of his parts.
In embracing his own personal development, he not only grew to become more human, but
brought out the humanity of his friends and colleagues, allowing them to see the best
parts of themselves.
Across Starfleet and the Federation he shaped the very definition of life itself, ensuring
that when his existence ended, something unique, something wonderful, was never lost.