r/thenextgeneration • u/[deleted] • Feb 27 '22
Is anyone able to clear up something about Data, please?
Supposedly androids are so difficult to create that only two have ever been successful(Data & Lore), but why could the Replicator map Data's positronic brain and copy it? What's stopping the Federation from just making a bunch of androids if needed?
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u/figureativelanguage Sep 13 '22
They don't do it for ethical reasons+the fact that they could but wouldn't be able to replicate them like data so basically would just have a computer
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u/Could-You-Tell Jan 02 '25
Just found this now, but if the transporter could clone Riker, and it can transport Data, they should be able to do the 2 beam thing, rinse and repeat, and have as many as they want.
All of them would start with the same memories, but if the first Data is willing, the rest would follow the roles logically.
If they build the right facility, they're set to have millions by the end of a week.
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u/drumskie85 Apr 28 '26
Makes perfect logical sense- however it ultimately goes 100% against Data’s drive to “become more human”…
I did a quick search for the appropriate quotes bc my memory is decent but not stellar…
Riker — from “Up the Long Ladder” (Season 2), regarding his clone: “One William Riker is unique, perhaps even special. But a hundred of him, a thousand of him, diminishes me in ways I can’t even imagine.”
That said, the sentiment is very close to Data’s speech [to Bruce Maddox] in “The Measure of a Man”: “If, by your experiments, I am destroyed, something unique, something wonderful will be lost.”
So, even though it could theoretically be accomplished, the series already went down that avenue… Commander Bruce Maddox and Vice Admiral Haftel both tried to “appropriate” Data’s technology forcefully, using Starfleet as the mechanism; Picard abruptly shut them down.
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u/imaginarytoby Feb 27 '22
Plot