Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Data

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.