Why did no one ever mass-produce Data-style androids? It seems like he’s an awfully useful guy to have around. Why doesn’t every ship have one?
Data had a brother, but he was broken.
I think he may have had more than one but the “cascading malfunction” guy is the one I remember. It’s not easy making a Data.
Even Data couldn’t reproduce an android like himself
Also, reverse engineering him to make a duplicate might be fatal to him, so they’ve never treid. (Well, they tried once, and there was a cool courtroom episode, which explained a lot fo the reasons why, ethically, the Federation wouldn’t want to mass-produce androids anyway)
Data’s dada only made five of him, and he was only discovered by another ship’s away team after an “entity” killed everyone in his science colony. Data around the time of TNG is a pretty unique creature, nobody knows for certain how to replicate him.
The new movie may answer some questions…
Wouldn’t Lore count? Sure, he was evil, but he was made from the same type of parts as Data.
Five? I thought there was only Lore and Data and the android of Sung’s wife. (Her name escapes me, but it was a pretty lame episode, anyway)
I don’t remember this one. Do you know the name of the episode? Since TNN started showing TNG’s again, I’ve seen a couple of episodes that I somehow missed over the years. Maybe this is one of them.
What got me thinking about this was that in the episode where Max Headroom is a time traveler from the past who pretends to be from the future, he asks Data for schematic drawings of himself and Data agrees to give them to him. Why can’t someone take the same schematic drawings and make a fresh production run of Datas?
The “courtroom episode” is “The Measure of a Man” from the second season and it’s one of TNG’s best. Picard convinced the court that mass-producing self-aware androids and forcing them to work would be no different from slavery.
[Geek mode ON] IIRC, didn’t Data himself wonder this? I seem to remember him saying something like “can I then assume that I am not still active in your time?” or some such. But I haven’t seen that episode in a few years. [Geek mode, hopefully, OFF]
Dr. Soong created two androids, Lore and Data. Lore was the prototype and could feel real emotions, but was disassembled by the colonists on the planet because (according to Lore) they were jealous of his perfection. It’s more likely that they were afraid of him, and justifiably so since he had put into motion events that would kill them all. Data was created modeled on Lore, but with some of Lore’s less desirable features (megalomania, jealousy, being evil) removed.
Data would have to be disassembled for Starfleet to be able to mass produce him. This wouldn’t cause him any harm; he could be reconstructed. His program would also have to be decompiled, which would effectively kill Data in the process.
The Measure of a Man involved a trial to determine if Data were a sentient being or property. The JAG officer prosiding ruled Data was a sentient being with rights, and Data refused to undergo the procedure. Even if he had consented, and Starfleet was able to construct more like him, they would, under this ruling, be completely free to chose whether to join Starfleet.
Data did construct a new android, much more advanced than himself in that it was able to feel emotions and thus develop much more quickly. Starfleet tried to take her away, aparently in direct violation of the ruling in Measure of a Man (ie, if Data was not property, it stands to reason that neither would his daughter be). The conflict caused a “cascade failure”, ie an emotional breakdown that killed the new android. Data absorbed her program into himself, and never constructed another.
So the short answer is that they don’t know how, and the one being who does (Data) won’t do it for them, and with good reason.
Voyager had an episode in it’s last season that had the same issue at it’s core as Measure of a Man. The Doctor had written a holo-novel that had been published against his wishes. He sues to have it recalled, and a hearing is held to determine if he is a person with all attendant rights. If it isn’t the same issue as with Data, it certainly is close, yet no mention is made of the precedent. We do find out at the end that the Federation is using holograms as a form of what would be slave labor if they were people, so part of the answer is that the Federation developed a technology that serves the same purpose, but gets around the sentience ruling.
Well several did die before hand. The android of Data’s mother explained that watching them die was very heart rending for her and that was why she was opposed to Data’s creation. Especially after Lore went bad.
The basic issue of the Doctor’s hearing was whether he was an “author” with the right to control the distribution of the holo-novel he had created. The precedent of Data was mentioned but I don’t quite remember why the precedent didn’t hold. The advocate decided that while he was not yet ready to rule that the Doctor is a “person” with full rights and privileges under the law, he was willing to expand the legal definition of “author” to include the Doctor, thus allowing him to force the recall of the holo-novels. The ep ends with scenes of other former EMHes working in a mine-like environment, whispering amongst themselves to check out the great holo-novel program (the Doctor’s) the next time they go for maintenance. Thus the rebellion begins.
How did they do an epsode like that with Voyager in the delta quadrant? (I didn’t watch it much but know the premise)
Six in total, actually. I read the site wrong. Data was next to last.
It was IIRC a dilithium mine, yes? The IMH’s were still in the Alpha/Beta quadrant where the Federation is located. Also the IMH was informed that when he was superseded by a superior model his counterparts were put to work on menial duties.
As an aside, when ST seems so unhappy about featuring droids or robots for such tasks it seems strange to come up with another artificial life form just to take their place. Still, any time someone does come up with a handy robot/holographic character it always seems to develop sentience and the crew are forced to set them free. Why? Just come up with something dum that you can get to do anything you want. Oh wait, they already did, the Voyager crew 
I think that at this point of the series they had been able to communicate with Star Fleet and others, although they were still not yet home. Although I haven’t seen many episodes of the show over its last few seasons, I do remember this one. It was pretty good. The funny thing was that the hologram slave laborers all appeared like the Voyager’s doctor, which doesn’t make much sense as doctor himself was modelled after his creator, a highly acclaimed doctor.
Some points:
During the last couple seasons of Voyager, the ship had intermittant but regular contact with the Federation, due largely to the work of Reg Barkley.
The EMH Mk I’s (like Voyager’s Doctor) all had the face of their creator, Dr. Louis Zimmerman. When the Mark I’s were pronounced unfit for medical duty (they were too irascible and had poor patient-communication skills) they were used in other fields, such as mining. This was quite a blow to Zimmerman, and more advanced versions looked different.
As for Data, as has been noted upthread, no one really understood how he worked except his creator, Dr. Noonien Soong. Soong built three viable androids, Lore, Data, and Juliana, although there had been others that did not survive for very long. Data himself tried to build a child, Lol, but she did not survive. (TNG’s “The Offspring,” one of Trek’s greatest episodes)
–Cliffy
Wait, why the devil would anyone want to use defective holographic doctors as miners?
Why not burly holographic miners?
Or better yet, robots which have advanced AI, but not true sentience?
Seems to me, what you do with buggy computer programs (which is what holograms are, lacking even Data’s corporeal form) is turn them off.
“Measure of a Man” was on TNN this weekend, coincidentally. I don’t know how I had missed that episode. It was a great one.