Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Data
Exploring the deep lore of Star Trek's most famous artificial intelligence.
Data is one of the most beloved characters in Star Trek, as well as sci-fi in general. His top-notch writing combined with Brent Spiner’s acting style to create a truly unique take on the classic Pinocchio character trope.
Throughout his life, Data's main goal in life was to become more Human by observing and learning from the Humans around him. He made a lot of progress in this journey over time, and by the end of the third season of Picard has become closer than ever before.
Despite his popularity in the fanbase, there are many things that fans may have forgotten about Trek's star android. In this list, we're going to discuss some of these details and what they mean to Data's character as a whole. Along the way, we'll learn a lot about what made Data so special to so many fans.
10. His Early Life
Data's first memories were wiped shortly before he was deactivated and left behind on Omicron Theta. Eventually, he learned about his early life when he was reunited with the android of his mother, Juliana Tainer, in the Next Gen episode Inheritance.
Juliana, along with her former husband, Dr. Noonien Soong, created Data and the other Soong-type androids, though Noonien typically receives all of the credit. Juliana was the one who decided to program Data to enjoy art and music, an interest she shared. After dealing with Lore's emotional problems, Juliana wanted their next creation to have an outlet to express himself. Some of her ideas were shot down by Noonien however, like the idea to make Data in a female form. Noonien of course favoured making these androids in his own form.
We also learned in Inheritance that Data really didn't like wearing clothing in his early life. Apparently, he didn't see a need for clothing since the temperature and weather didn't affect him, so he just walked around naked for a time. The other residents of the colony weren't too impressed by this phase of Data's life, so the Soongs wrote him a ‘modesty subroutine’ to correct his behaviour.