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How And When Did Data Die?
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What Legacy Did Data Leave In Star Trek?
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How Did Data Continue To Be Important To The Star Trek Universe After His Death?
Highlights
- Data may have been inspired by the
Original Series
‘ Spock, but undertook an incredible journey of his own. - Data has been unlucky enough to die twice in
Star Trek
, but that proved the key to realizing his dream of becoming human. - Data’s legacy continued to impact the Star Trek franchise, including major plot points in
Star Trek: Picard
.
Data is one of Star Trek’s icons — a giant in a galaxy of pop-culture legends. When Star Trek: Next Generation arrived in 1987, the crew of an all-new USS Enterprise had the unenviable task of living up to household names of the Original Series and spin-off films. TNG’s success is well known, as are many of the characters it introduced. At its heart was an incredible ensemble with notable performances, not least Data. The brilliantly conceived android operations officer, brought to life with a pitch-perfect performance by Brent Spiner, became a big part of the franchise and earned a permanent place in pop culture.
Data may have entered the Star Trek franchise as an update of the Original Series’ Spock, the famous logician with a sideline in comic relief. But while his journey certainly paralleled the famous Vulcan, Data grew into a notable character of his own, not least thanks to having one of the franchise’s most impressive character journeys. Riker compared Data to Pinocchio on their first meeting, and that dream of being human was something the android pursued from the opening story of Star Trek: The Next Generation to the conclusion of Star Trek: Picard’s third season. On the way, he’s been one of the few leading characters in Star Trekto have died twice.
How And When Did Data Die?
In the TNG finale, ‘All Good Things, fans were introduced to a possible future in which Data had retired from Starfleet to become a Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. Living in Sir Isaac Newton’s old house with a housekeeper and several cats, the ageless android added a white streak to his hair and adopted the distinct air of a fictional character who had long fascinated him, Sherlock Holmes.
Data’s life and death wasn’t to be that fairytale. Data died in service during the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. The Next Generation’s final film pitted the fan-favorite crew against Shinzon, a distorted clone of Jean-Luc Picard who had seized control of the Romulan Star Empire.
Unfortunately, Shinzon and his Reman forces had developed an incredible new weapon using thalaron radiation. Having saved his captain from being sacrificed in a genetic transfusion to save the fast-destabilizing Shinzon, Data then sacrificed himself to detonate the thalaron weapon and save his crewmates.
All was not necessarily lost, however. Shinzon’s impressively complicated plot had lured the Enterprise to the Romulan Neutral Zone with the traces of an android similar to Data. This unsophisticated prototype of Data was knowingly called B-4. But following Data’s death, Picard discovered that Data had downloaded his memories into his predecessor.
What Legacy Did Data Leave In Star Trek?
Data’s death and the promise of his resurrection were reminiscent of Spock, but there was no Genesis Planet to bring the android back to life. Nemesis may have ended the flight of the Enterprise-E under Jean-Luc Picard on the big screen, but Data’s legacy inspired a significant plot in the sequel series Star Trek: Picard. Twenty years after Data’s sacrifice, Jean Luc Picard was haunted by memories of his old second officer, often encountering him in his dreams, playing poker in Ten Forward or painting in the retired admiral’s vineyard.
Data played a massive role in the lives of his crewmates during his life, helping save the day in countless TNG adventures. As a non-human character and a synthetic lifeform, Data could do what Star Trek does best: shine a light on the human condition as he learns more about being an organic creature.
TNG stories like ‘The Measure For a Man’ explored the meaning of sentience when a courtroom hearing brought by cyberneticist Bruce Maddox attempted to seize Data as the property of Starfleet. When Data took command of a starship in the epic two-parter ‘Redemption,’ he was subject to and overcame the prejudice of his crew. ‘Phantasms’ showed Data triggering new human-like abilities, such as dreaming, and as of Star Trek: Generations, he began to use an emotion chip introduced in Season 4’s ‘Brothers.’
In Star Trek: First Contact, Data came closest to achieving his aim of becoming human thanks to the Borg Queen before once again sacrificing the idea for his crewmates.
‘Datalore’ and ‘Brothers’ helped grow another aspect: Data’s family included father Noonien Soong and brother Lore. Lore was more than the evil twin of Data — he was an earlier model with emotions, inherent instability, and a tendency for malevolence. Star Trek: Enterprise extended Data’s lineage further back, showing the Soong family had previously been involved in genetics and promoting augmented humans decades after the Eugenics War saw the rise and fall of the tyrant Khan Noonien Singh. Arik Soong’s failure and imprisonment turned his and his descendants’ interest to the creation of synthetic life instead.
The science of life passed through generations of Soongs and their creations: In TNG’s third season, Data attempted to expand his family when he created a daughter, Lal, in ‘The Offspring.’ Despite exceeding Data’s programming in some ways, Lal was irreparably flawed and didn’t survive the episode. Her father downloaded her memories into his positronic net in a storyline that, along with other plot strands above, would be continued in Star Trek: Picard.
How Did Data Continue To Be Important To The Star Trek Universe After His Death?
Star Trek: Picard’s first season was underpinned by Data’s legacy. The series retconned the canon to seed a deep mistrust of synthetic life in Romulan culture. Their dark underground forces were shown to be behind the devastating Mars attack that caused the total ban of synthetics in the Federation.
At the season’s climax, it was revealed that Dahj and Soji Asha were synthetic lifeforms created by Bruce Maddox, who had attempted to seize Data years earlier, using the Soong androids that had come into his possession. Data finally has his offspring and, through a strange stroke of fate, the chance to see his captain one last time.
Picard, who was suffering from Irumodic syndrome, as first revealed in ‘All Good Things,’ died during a Romulan attack but was saved by the transference of his mind into a golem. This was a synthetic shell developed by Noonien Soong’s biological son Altan that, while being an organic android, was virtually indistinguishable from a biological lifeform.
In a quantum simulation following the transfer, Picard encountered a virtual form of Data, whose memories had survived after Maddox salvaged them from the B-4 prototype. It’s with Picard that Data dies for a second time when his old captain agrees to let his consciousness expire. The android confirms his belief that only a finite life could prove he had ever lived.
The universe had lost Data once again and was poorer for it until a further twist in the android’s story during the third season of Star Trek: Picard. During the season, it was discovered that Maddox and Altan Soong had developed another golem, using it to house aspects of Altan, as well as Data, his daughter Lal, and his brothers Lore and B-4.
The new organic ‘Data’ construct aged at an average rate and was found in a top-secret branch of the Daystrom Institute. While Data was the dominant entity, he was able to seed clues to bring his former Enterprise crewmates to him. Within the construct, the various personas vied for supremacy until a final reckoning between Data and his brother Lore saw the younger android finally triumph in episode 6, ‘Surrender,’ with considerable thanks to his precious cat Spot.
Data had returned and just in time. When Star Trek Picard’s third and final season was framed as a TNG reunion, showrunner Terry Matalas understandably explained, ‘How the hell are you going to do a Star Trek: Next Generation reunion without Data being a part of it?'”
As of the end of Star Trek: Picard, Data was seen back with his old crewmates, although in a different form as he learned to be an organic lifeform. As well as providing major plot strands for Star Trek’s continuing stories, the franchise’s famous Pinocchio finally had his wish.
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