# What color was Data (Star Trek)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 24, 2009, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534 "2009-03-24T00:58:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/41 "2009-03-25T00:43:48Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > The official explanation was that as a Ship’s Counselor, she was not required to wear a uniform. But she was a lieutenant commander, right? I remember one episode where she took the test to become a full commander, like Dr. Crusher. So was she supposed to have graduated from the Academy, or was she just a civilian serving on board the starship as a counselor and the rank was honorary? And for a ship of over 1000 people, why didn’t they show her staff? Surely she wasn’t seeing everybody on board all by herself…she never would have been on the bridge. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/42 "2009-03-25T01:05:22Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > But she was a lieutenant commander, right? I remember one episode where she took the test to become a full commander, like Dr. Crusher. So was she supposed to have graduated from the Academy, or was she just a civilian serving on board the starship as a counselor and the rank was honorary? Fairly certain she went the full academy route. But perhaps since she wasn’t a line officer (and, being a counselor, needed to project a “softer”, more approachable image to her patients … some who might feel differently about her, depending on her higher/lower rank), the clothing rules weren’t as strict. > [@ivylass](#): > > And for a ship of over 1000 people, why didn’t they show her staff? Surely she wasn’t seeing everybody on board all by herself…she never would have been on the bridge. I don’t know … not EVERYONE had to be crazy, all the time. Figure one annual psych evaluation for everyone on board (or, perhaps just the Starfleet personnel), plus more frequent evaluations (quarterly?) for senior officers, plus her “crisis” patients (grieving widows, the injured, etc.) who would need to see her only two or three times, then not again, and then head cases like Barclay, who would need to see her once a week. I had the feeling that Barclay was the exception, not the rule. I didn’t get the impression that everyone on board was undergoing full psychoanalysis, with one or more sessions a week all year long. (After all … it’s a utopia! Isn’t everyone supposed to be much better adjusted than we are now?) ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/43 "2009-03-25T01:25:19Z")
I do have a vague recollection of Troi mentioning an assistant/assistants in at least one episode, but don’t ask me which one. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/44 "2009-03-25T03:18:18Z")
It’s Star Trek. You barely see support personnel in any department. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/45 "2009-03-25T03:57:46Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > It’s Star Trek. You barely see support personnel in any department. Except Security 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/46 "2009-03-25T04:12:21Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > It’s Star Trek. You barely see support personnel in any department. Except when an away team is put together. Then you get a bunch of random people popping out from somewhere around the science stations to go down and man the abandoned control consoles. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/47 "2009-03-25T04:32:49Z")
> [@motomoon](#): > > I remember hearing Brent Spiner talk about the make-up, IIRC it was “lots and lots of gold makeup”. I was unforunate enough to find myself with naught but an _ST:TNG_ novel to read a couple of times. The machine known as “Data” was described as having a gold-colored integuement. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/48 "2009-03-25T16:36:01Z")
I’d say yellow-white, but in those pre-HD days, the Data on every TV in the world was probably a little bit different from every other. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/49 "2009-03-25T16:59:52Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I was unforunate enough to find myself with naught but an _ST:TNG_ novel to read a couple of times. The machine known as “Data” was described as having a gold-colored integuement. I sure hope it wasn’t _War Drums_. Even allowing for a lower standard of quality, that book suuuuuuuuucked. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/50 "2009-03-25T17:04:57Z")
Well, this is the Dope, after all. And your point is…? ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/51 "2009-03-25T17:13:39Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I sure hope it wasn’t _War Drums_. Even allowing for a lower standard of quality, that book suuuuuuuuucked. Were Worf and Troi on the cover? And did it involve some sort of underground guerrila war on a plant, or something similar? I liked that one, if so. Of course, I read the vast majority of all pre-2000 Trek novels and liked most of them (except \*Vendetta \*by Peter David. It was offensively bad) so my taste is rather suspect. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/52 "2009-03-25T17:28:48Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > Were Worf and Troi on the cover? Ensign Ro, too, as I recall. The whole thing was a morality play about bigotry, spoon-fed to the reader with even less subtlety than the typical after-school special. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/53 "2009-03-25T17:52:39Z")
We have the TNG DVDs. On one of the behind the scenes, Brent Spiner describes the makeup process for Data. And he described the makeup as being gold colored. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/54 "2009-03-25T18:13:30Z")
Ooops. My post #50 was in response to a troll whose post has, apparently, been removed by TPTB. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/55 "2009-03-25T20:30:37Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I sure hope it wasn’t _War Drums_. Even allowing for a lower standard of quality, that book suuuuuuuuucked. Nope. One of them was _Vendetta_, a truly dreary experience. And the other was _The Romulan Prize_, which featured the hilarious labelling of a black woman (surviving member of a long-lost starship crew) as “African-American.” Truly worth the price of admission (I found the book lying around the lunchroom at work). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2009, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534/56 "2009-03-25T21:04:30Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Ooops. My post #50 was in response to a troll whose post has, apparently, been removed by TPTB. I was really, really confused about that. “Was it something Bryan said?”, I thought to myself… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-was-data-star-trek/490534.md?page=2)