Hello all! Ric here and today’s video is an expansion on last week’s topic of the
Soong-Type Androids with a look into their nitty-gritties! That sounds so wrong, but
I’ve said it and that the take I’m going with. We’re going to be looking at the technical
specs of, specifically Data and his capabilities as well as how that compares to current day
tech for a bit of fun. The information in this video comes from the
Starfleet Technical Manual as well as numerous LCARS displays from the actual episodes, or
at least what I could make out from them. So there is also some assumptions being made
with his inner workings, which I will specify as such. Besides within the context of the
series, Starfleet engineers are still trying to ascertain exactly how Data operates as
Dr Soong was a reclusive genius who made no effort to share his research so I’m being
lore appropriate! Also, last video I stated that the episode
“A Measure of a Man” was in 2367, which is incorrect as many of you pointed out and
was in fact in 2365, thank you for saying so.
So, Data stands at 178cm tall, and is composed of numerous materials giving him a weight
of around one hundred kilograms. His physical body contained 24.6 kilograms of tripolymer
composites, 11.8 kilograms of molybdenum-cobalt alloys and 1.3 kilograms of bioplast sheeting,
while his skull was cortenide and duranium (thank you memory alpha). Real work talk now,
Molybdenum is often used in alloys including various steels to form a more robust metal
and has relatively little expansion or contrition in temperature fluctuations. Combining it
with cobalt seems to reduce the density and create a “superalloy”. So when Data says
that he is built to withstand high pressure, he isn’t exaggerating. As for duranium,
this is a Starfleet alloy used in hull plating which too is, you know, rather sturdy.
Data seems to be built around an endoskeleton, which provides his basic form but unlike us
fleshy meat-things, his skeletal structure houses many pivots and micro-hydraulics that
power his movement. For us, our motor functions are manipulated by muscle, pulling and contracting
to drag the skeleton around whereas the android’s locomotion comes from the skeletal frame itself.
Over this he does appear to possess a sort of muscle like sinew, but these may simply
aid in fine motor control or preform a completely unrelated function.
This is how modern robotics are designing too, the complexity of fabricated sinew and
muscle being often too complex a system to create, although it has been done with even
organic tissue over a skeletal frame. Another problem of modern robotics that is being overcome,
is the sense of balance that a machine needs to operate, especially on two legs.
One commonality in Data’s design, is that Soong went out of his way to mimic the human
body where possible, but not to the extent of simply recreating it out of artificial
parts like say a Battlestar Galactia Cylon. For example, Data’s main power source was
located within his chest cavity, roughly where a heart would have been located in a human.
I guess this is one of the most protected areas on a humanoid body, but it didn’t
need to be slightly offset from centre like a human heart.
He also has a gullet and stomach approximation that can consume food and presumable de-synthesise
it in the same way as a replicator as I couldn’t find an example of him producing waste. Although
he does contain a nutrient processing and distribution system. He was also designed
with a sense of taste, able to analyse a compound in the same faculties as a person, but lacked
any emotional preference for flavour until the installation of the emotion chip.
He also has a respiratory function designed to funnel heat away from his core components,
but does also contain a cooling fluid that is likely pumped throughout the harder to
reach circuitry. Perhaps the hot air is expelled with his breath. He does not need to breath
however, to function as he has been seen operating underwater and in a vacuum with no permanent
damage so it’s possible that his thermal regulation is perfectly fine without this
added function, at least for a time. He also has a circulatory system that pumps
a conductive fluid around his body and must have a series of nerve like sensors that can
detect ambient environments and the pressure of being touched, evident form everyday interactions
among him and his peers. His artificial skin is mostly waterproof,
and durable, but not as strong as his frame as seen from the number of scraps and damages
he has taken throughout the series. Once he sank into a lake and had to be drained by
Geordie LaForge and later installed a floatation device to overcome this inconvenience. He
also has many subdermal micro-hydraulics that act as the fine musculature needed for a fully
animate face and over time, can allow this sheath to mimic aging though in theory this
could be easily reverted as his operational lifetime is theoretically infinite.
He can grow a beard and alter then length of his hair as well as alter its level of
pigmentation and even has a pulse as lubricants are pumped throughout his body.
His eyesight is based in the visible light spectrum of humans, but does possess an infrared
mode and possible others and he also as the ability to detect molecule of a substance
in the air through smell. All this sensory data is located, much as a human’s in the
head which also retains its own power supply, though likely far more limited in power than
his central core. Most of his body can be disassembled and stored
away, so long as it is not damaged, a rebuilt Data would return to function as normal. These
points of disassembly seem to be located around the areas of his pivot points, such as his
elbow, waist and neck and as such could be considered the weakest points of his body.
He also had a deactivation switch that would simply cut his power supply located in the
back, and to the left of his spin, approximately where the ribcage ended and beneath the skin.
It could even be set as a timer to reactivate him after a certain period. A single phaser
shot to this switch would also likely trigger it.
Being mechanical in nature and constructed of firmer materials than us humans, he could
not only survive greater kinetic impacts but exert greater strength. We seem him effortlessly
lift an anvil with one hand and from estimates I’d guess it was around 260 pounds, or 118
kilograms. Not quite superhuman to lift this amount, but certainly without any effort.
We have also seen him overpower Borg and Klingons, two very physically capable species and even
bend a “parsteel” bar in demonstration of his power, a feat even more ridiculous
than it first seems. He also held a 1937 Dodge D5 Sedan stationary while it was attempting
to run him down, which apparently has a Brake Horsepower of 87 (about on par with 2017 Ford
Fiesta trying to drive over you). We have never seen an actual strength limit
mentioned in the show but sufficed to say he does have one, even if it would be his
own body giving out first. He has a mental storage capacity of around
100 Petabytes or 2 million, 2 hundred thousand and 22.2 recurring fallout 76 day one patches.
This seems to be enough to store the logs and select memories from all the inhabitants
of Omicron Theta, his colony of origin as well as support his continued evolution.
Data could process information at much faster rates than an organic, allowing him to read
and observe things at incredible speeds as well as have information directly uploaded
to his neural net. The layout of the positronic brain is the biggest mystery of the Soong-Type
android and its capabilities constantly being tested throughout the show, with Data have
no qualms about experimenting on himself with the oversight of friends Although from how
it is described in function, it appears to create connections and anticipate events in
much the same way a human’s does. For example when asked if Data considers people
as friends, he does state that while he lacks an emotional investment in people, the presence,
actions and interactions of certain people build preferential pathways in his mind, and
that their absence causes him to almost “miss” them. If his mind does store memory and work
like an artificial version of our own, then this explains the adaptability and creativity
that it afforded him, even able to indulge in recreational activities such as painting,
composing, acting and reading. As of 2369, Data was able to enter a dream
state when powered down, another process installed by his creator, Dr Soong, but it was held
back from Data’s mind until he had advanced sufficiently to process the unusual state.
This clearly shows that Data learns as a person and adapts much as a human, growing in experience
and complexity with age. This sort of artificial intelligence is still
beyond us for the moment and a limiting factor with much of what can be accomplished. The
processing required to adapt and react to environmental changes is staggering and we’re
still a long, long way from creating a Soong-Type android, most notably because of how human
it appears, although the raw level of processing power can be achieved in current supercomputer
technology. Just not in sizes that would fit in a skull.
Data can also become ill or compromised but of a different nature than organic beings,
for example, Data operates mostly as a closed network, meaning you cannot wirelessly hack
into Data although there are numerous emissions that he can detect or that can have an adverse
effect on his mind, but he can still contract hostile programing or incompatible information
that eventually his is able to overcome with the vast array of subroutines and mental abilities
at his disposal. He can also become intoxicated, of a sort from the Psi 2000 polywater virus
which suggests some organic component to his function, possibly in the fluids that circulate
in his veins. Overall, Data has extreme abilities that could
be augmented further, but would make him less “human” in his design which goes against
the design ethos of the Soong-Type android all together, but interestingly we’ve seen
him go the other direction too. When captured by the Borg Queen, he had organic skin in
place of his artificial wrappings and was able to process the new sensory input despite
previously thinking it would be incompatible. Data walks a fine and uncanny line between
machine and man and is an almost unique individual in all of the Federation. Thanks for watching
this deeper dive into the capabilities of our favourite Starfleet android and I hope
to see more of him, even if it’s merely in flashbacks from future Trek. Until the
next video, I’ve been Ric and I’ll see you around, goodbye!