Star Trek: 10 Storylines About Data That Were Never Resolved

Data, the synthetic humanoid known for being the first android in Starfleet, has been in nearly every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, made Star Trek: Enterprise watchable,and most recently appeared in Star Trek: Picard. For seven seasons of TNG, he was the narrative and emotional focus of the series, searching for ways to be more human-like in space.

Some of the show's most popular episodes featured Data, as his observations of human behavior often conveyed startling objective insight. While many of them were very good at showcasing Data's technological talents, his capacity for courage, and his superior strategic mind, they often had a few components that went unresolved. Though they leave a little mystery around one of the franchise's most beloved characters, we explore 10 of them below.

10 DATA'S EMOTIONS

Dr. Soong made Data to be the most advanced A.I. the Federation had ever seen. Not only could he calculate probabilities at lightning speed and compute complex problems hundreds of thousands of times faster than the humans he resembled, he even had a fake pulse.

But despite looking humanoid, Data never had emotions. Or did he? He lacked a vital chip Dr. Soong never implanted, but on numerous occasions he's expressed loss, awkwardness, suspicion, and even irritation. Some fans believe he always had emotions, his neural pathways simply needed to advance through learning, and the emotion chip gave him a boost.

9 DATA AND THE BORG

Star Trek fans are familiar with Captain Picard's assimilation into the Borg Collective in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but, Data was almost assimilated as well.

In Star Trek: First Contact, Data was nearly assimilated by the Borg because the Borg Queen felt he was a perfect specimen, an organism that was fully mechanical with no need for organic material - the next evolutionary step for the Borg. Some fans speculate the Borg kept portions of Data's design from their experiments to construct other beings.

8 DATA'S DEATH

After Data's heroic sacrifice at the end of Star Trek: Nemesis, Captain Picard not only survived the destruction of Shinzon's ship, he was forced to live with the guilt of what his friend and crewman had done to save his life. This had deleterious effects on his mental health, as is shown in Star Trek: Picard.

What we don't know is how his death affected his good friends, especially Geordi LaForge. Picard ended up with many of Data's personal effects, which he kept in a vault (we see several of Data's paintings). It's never really explained why he would get all of them.

7 ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR DATA

During a routine verbal joust between Dr. Pulaski and Data, she concludes she'll be impressed when she sees Data use human deductive reasoning, rather than computing hardware, to solve a Sherlock Holmes mystery of an original fabrication on the holodeck.

However, because Geordi instructs the computer to create an enemy "even Data can't beat" rather than "even Holmes can't beat" the computer creates a Professor Moriarty nemesis that becomes self-aware and able to control the ship. How is the Enterprise computer able to create true AI, and why does the Enterprise have no failsafes to combat it?

6 RUINING CHIEF O'BRIEN AND KEIKO'S WEDDING

One of the most amusing and entertaining episodes to feature Data also happens to include one of his most extreme faux pas. When asked to be involved with the wedding between Chief O'Brien and Keiko, he gladly offers to help, hoping the experience will reveal some of the intricacies of humans and their rituals.

However, due to Data's logically illogical programming, he messes everything up. How were O'Brien and Keiko able to forgive him for almost ruining their wedding? Why did it never get mentioned again when they spent the entire episode wondering if their future was destroyed?

5 TIMOTHY

In the Season 5 episode "Hero Worship", Data saves the sole survivor of a starship accident - a young boy named Timothy. The boy is clearly traumatized by the death of the crew, and takes some comfort in modeling his behavior after Data's emotionless personality.

Data, under Counselor Troi's supervision, encourages the boy to replicate his mannerisms, even going so far as to show him how to model his appearance after an android. As time goes on, he's able to emerge from the fantasy and open up about what really happened aboard the ship. It's unclear what became of Timothy after the episode, if Data ever kept in touch with him, and what of his experience as a pseudo-android he retained.

4 THE TROUBLE WITH TIME-TRAVEL

"Time's Arrow" is told over two episodes in Season 5, the first part being devoted to the Enterprise encountering a temporal anomaly, and the second part dealing with Data's mortality as his dismembered head is found in a cave in the 1800s.

It's assumed that Data must have had to make some sort of important choice that would lead him back to 1800 where he lost his head. The fact remains that he could have made any "choice" and the outcome would have been the same, It would have proved that some version of him from an alternate future came back to that time period and lost his head.

3 PEN PALS

In the episode "Pen Pals", the Enterprise investigates unusual geological activity in the Selcundi Drema system. Data intercepts a signal from a young girl named Sarjenka on one of the planets, and he warns the crew she will likely be destroyed by seismic activity if she isn't found.

Data eventually beams to her location to assist in transporting her aboard the Enterprise, breaking first-contact protocol and the Prime Directive by interacting with a pre-warp alien species. Surprisingly, Picard doesn't court-martial him, which begs the question - would a non-robot member of the crew be treated differently?

2 DOWNLOADING AN ENTIRE CIVILIZATION

To many Star Trek fans, Season 7 of Star Trek: The Next Generation isn't the most cohesive or comprehensible, with "Masks" being a perfect example. In it, a malfunction causes Data to download an entire civilization into his databanks from an ancient library.

Not only does Data get taken over, but the entire Enterprise as well. It seems that whether or not Data is being possessed by 87 million-year-old archives, Lore, Dr. Soong, or the Holodeck, he's a giant liability, and he's never given any failsafes to prevent the sort of thing that happens in "Mask" from happening again. He also puts the entire ship in danger (again) and receives no repercussions.

1 DATA'S RANK

The Season 7 episode entitled "Thine Own Self" brings up a glaring problem that was never really resolved in any series involving Data - why he remained a lieutenant commander for 26 years despite being one of the most disciplined, courageous, and gifted officers in Starfleet.

This is the episode where Deanna Troi, who's essentially been a psychologist for 12 years, is promoted to a rank higher than Data. Why didn't he raise a fuss about that, especially when it only takes Troi a few days to pass her officer's exam? Especially since he spends this entire episode saving an entire population of colonists from a deadly virus?

Source: screenrant.com