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-------------------------------------------------------------- STAR TREK FAQ: Data The Android. Last Modified: Monday, January 22nd, 1996 Maintained by: Peter Harbach <pharbach@longnet.com.au> HTML Version : http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~hwloidl/FAQ-Data.html --------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS:
DATA - Android / Sentient Being Assembled Circa 2336
There is no exact answer to the date that Data was first activated, but when Starfleet personnel found Data at the uninhabited Omicron Theta Colony, he chose to follow a career in Starfleet.
SOONG: "So you decided to emulate your rescuers eh?" ( TNG "Brothers" )
Data was created by The brilliant mind of Dr Noonian Soong. His rank aboard the ENTERPRISE 1701-D is that of Second Officer. Data's brain is so sophisticated that he is regarded as a Sentient Life-Form.
Some Technical info on Data that was taken from TNG "Birthright Part I": Courtesy of <vale002@pn.itnet.it>. Data is able to modify the length of his hair (Even though he never does) E.G He is able To "Grow" his hair - Making him a bit more Human Like. He breathes air like Human's, But he breathes to refrigerate his Subsystems, He is able to be without breathing for a long period. Data eats certain food's to lubricate his internal systems, Just like our Circulatory System. (This fact is also noted in TNG "Deja Q") After this same episode Data is able to have Dreams (And Nightmares). Thanks to a program that had been prematurely activated by a Plasma Shock.
Dr N. Soong had originally programmed this Dream function for Data to be activated in a later lifetime, But Data had to get used with Dreaming, which he found hard. After a couple of trips To Counsellor Troi Data's dreaming settled Down.
Data's interests include painting, playing the violin, acting, Sherlock Holmes and caring for Spot, His fuzzy cat. The only thing that Data regrets is his inability to feel emotion and to understand Human Jokes. Though he briefly experienced Happiness and Laughter in TNG "Deja Q" And in TNG "GENERATIONS" he Installs the Emotion Chip made for him by Dr Noonian Soong. (I Personally believe that in the event of Androids, we will never be able to recreate Human Emotions; P.J.Harback)
[Episodes in which Data was Commanding a Ship]
Two occasions come to my mind:
Hans Wolfgang Loidl
hwloidl@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk
Dr Noonian Soong was the genius behind Data's creation.
Soong moved his Android LAB to the Omicron Theta Colony because he was being ridiculed on Earth as a scientist That never got things right, Nobody thought that he would be the first person to create a Sentient Android. Even at the Omicron Theta Colony he was ridiculed just like earth, the colonists there called him "Often Wrong Soong", This Is Quoted truthfully by Lore in TNG "Brothers"
Data was the second "Fully Functioning" Android that Dr Soong created. The first FF Android he built was Lore, unfortunately Lore was programmed With emotional responses which developed in an Evil Denominating way. Lore was deemed a threat by Soong and the colonists and thus was deactivated.
FROM: <Stijn Derudder> In 'Inheritance', Juliana Tayner (Dr. Soong's wife) tells Data that Lore was the fourth android and Data the fifth. Soong made three prior attempts, but they all failed (probably the same kind of malfunction that killed Lal, Data's daughter). After Lore became evil, Tayner wanted Soong to stop his experiments, but Soong made Data anyway. Tayner was later revealed to be an android herself, made in the image of the real Dr. Tayner.
Data was designed and built to be as close as possible to looking like a Human Being. (Though why Soong coloured his skin gold and his eyes yellow remains to be known!) Actually Data Tell Us Just How close he was made to be like a human in the 2nd Episode of the first season of TNG.
Data has Pores in his artificial skin, His blood is a Chemical nutrient solution. Data also has all the organs that a human Male has. =:()
Data got the Chip back from Lore in TNG "Descent Part II" when Lore was dismantled. Lore's body was probably sent to Dr Mattox at Starfleet so he could finally build another android without dismantling our favorite android. Data chose to put the Chip in storage instead of installing it then.
I guess he realized how troublesome the emotion chip can be (what happened with Lore). He wanted to try and learn emotions on his own.
Then in "Generations", he realized that he can no longer develop human emotions without the chip.
For some reason, I thought that the emotion chip was damaged at the end of Descent. Perhaps I remember it looking damaged after Data defeated Lore. I was surprised to see the chip intact in Generations. Perhaps Data rebuilt the chip from the original. This might explain why it apparently malfunctioned after Data inserted the chip, and why it was a bit larger than in TNG "Brothers" & TNG "Descent". It wasn't an exact duplicate of the chip that Lore used.
Maybe Lore modified it for his own diabolical purposes and Data had to remodify the chip so he could use it? This would mean that the chip that Data uses is the third generation.
Let me say what I know of these little talked about "Biomechanical parts". Data tells us about these BM parts in several TNG episodes. In the episode TNG "Disaster" an Energy Stream needs to be stopped before it does damage to what ever it was hitting. Data and Riker are at the location.
Data Tells Riker That He is the only one that can stop the Stream, by stepping into the Stream, i.e putting his body in the way of the ES. Riker Then objects with something along the lines of "Won't that short out & destroy the biomechanical parts in you?"
Data then tells Riker that the only place that he has these BM parts is his head. Data's head can be separated from his body!
If this is what I expect(Going from Memory), then Data's BM parts would probably be replaced by a Doctor (A Cyberneticist & Dr Crusher) (If anybody knows anything else about Data's BM parts could you please tell me, Thanks)
Again, I don't really know about this question Either. If What I speculated about Question: Replace Biomechanical parts is true, Data would have no need to excrete these BM parts, a Doctor or Cyberneticist would just replace the part.
I'm not really sure if Data uses internal replicators or not! I suppose he might, then again to replicate parts of his body the replicator would need to know all about Data's systems, and what goes where. If they knew that, why haven't they replicated some more androids?, or at least replicated some of Data's systems to give Cyberneticist's a head start in building androids
Because, Both Data & Lore use components which function at a Quantum or Sub-molecular level, these components cannot be easily replicated.
i.e. Sentient Beings that have Knowledge of their Life, Cannot be just Cloned (Replicated)
> Tayner was later revealed to be an android herself, made in the image > of the real Dr. Tayner."So who created that android?"
I Assume that Dr Soong created her as a companion for himself. He's a Workaholic and he probably didn't have time to go and find a mate.
Here we go again, all this emotion chip business! Data Probably has limited taste ability's, E.g he can tell if something is Sour, Sweet, Hot(as in Chili) and cold. In TNG "Generations", the scene where Data says he hates the drink is where he is just testing the emotion chip that he has just inserted in himself.
A guess is that it was some kind of lithium Power source, used as a backup for Data's Arm Servo's
I think its very likely that data's frame is similar to a skeleton, because Soong designed Data to be as much as human in shape as possible. The Skeletal frame that is beneath Datas skin would be very strong and made out of something Durable
A Neural net as complex as Data's would be Processing many things at the same time, For e.g. WALKING DOWN A CORRIDOR:
So is this Parallel Processing? Eh?
[SEE: DATA'S BRAIN - The reality of Neural Networks]
Data's brain comprises of a Neural Network, Information on This Subject is detailed in Section DATA'S BRAIN: The Reality of Neural Networks.
Data's brain's sensory inputs include Sight, Hearing, and Basic Touch Facility's. Full feeling is a sense that we humans have to protect our fragile body's, therefore Data needs only basic Touch since his body is not fragile. Smell and Taste are Gastronomic Senses, Data does not need them. Although Data has some basic taste facility's as shown in TNG "Generations".
Being an Android, Data's sight makes his eyes superior to human eyes. He has the ability to magnify what his eyes see, i.e use his eyes as telescopes. Data also has instant PR (Photo Recollection), i.e. he can instantly remember what his eyes have seen in the past, which is often good when the Enterprise Crew go up against Q or other Alien Lifeforms. Since the eyes are Electro Cemical, there is not much risk in life blindness because if such an incident acurred Data's eyes could just be replaced. It's not as simple when dealing with Human Eyes.
Data's ears have the ability to hear what is being said around him and this information is stored in a Location in his brain. Therefore like his eyes, he can remember what he has heard in the past.
Data has basic touch facilities that enable him to know that he is touching something, Basic Touch is all an android needs, since touch for Humans is used for protection as well as a feeling. Since Androids can't feel pain the touch sensor is basic.
Data has a range of other Nonhuman sensors, Temperature, Radiation, Magnetic fields. I'm sure there's others also that he hasn't mentioned.
Neural Networks take as their starting point the Human Brain! A Neural Net is Composed of Hundreds ( Or Thousands ) of simple "nodes", roughly analogous to the brain's Neurons. These nodes are arranged in layers. Every node has several inputs from the previous layer, and an output to the next layer. Each of these inputs is an influence rather than a straight forward yes/no - one input might say "almost certainly", while the two others indicate "perhaps not". The node "fires" an output if the sum of the inputs exceeds its particular threshold ( Which varies between nodes ).
The output is combined with other node outputs from the same layer to become the input to the nodes on the next layer. A Neural Net learns by adjusting the thresholds of each of its nodes, changing how readily they fire - and by rerouting the interconnections between the nodes and layers.
A Neural Net that's especially designed to recognise patterns is called a Perceptron. A Perceptron may be trained to recognise handwriting by first feeding it many examples of hand-written letter 'A's. It is then told to associate these with the concept of a letter A by internally adjusting the weighting factors applied to the connection priorities. After many examples, the net can be considered trained and feeding it an unseen style of letter will produce a best guess to what the Net Thinks the letter is.
Neural Nets were invented in the 1980s when David Rumelhart, James McLelland and other researchers decided to try to overcome the limitations of artificial intelligence techniques by modelling computers on the complex interconnections of the human brain. They succeeded, But only partly. Because Neural Networks learn by experience and not by programmed rules, they bring much more information to bear on a problem, a Neural Net must be taken on Trust or not at all.
It has been mathematically shown that Neural Nets can learn almost anything if given long enough. The problem is how to tell the Network what's its doing right, so it can preserve that, and what its doing wrong, so it can try something else. There is a Fair amount of art involved in this process.
NOTE: To all Data fans out there! If anybody has any questions or you don't agree with something here in this FAQ then don't hesitate to write a message O.K.? Also if you want to add something to the stuff I have here you can, Anything on Comdr. Data would be appreciated. Your names will BE noted as contributors to this DATA FAQ
Thanks!
