Star Trek: 10 Best Captain Picard Speeches
9. There It Sits
The Next Generation: The Measure Of A Man (Season 2, Episode 9)
The Measure of a Man is probably the Next Generation's first truly remarkable episode. It displayed a maturity and confidence in the series that had, to be blunt, been lacking to that point. Everything works here, from the performances, to the themes, to the very real sense that things may not end in the desired way.
Picard is charged with defending Lt. Cmdr. Data's rights as a sentient being, while Riker is tasked with prosecuting his friend. Lt. Bruce Maddox, who would return in Star Trek: Picard, is the scientist wishing to take Data apart, with the hope of replicating him. This, Guinan points out to Picard, will lay the first stones of the path to slavery of an entire race.
'Starfleet was founded to seek out new life. Well, there it sits. Waiting.'
Picard's defence of Data is passionate, direct, and effective. Data is awarded the rights of any sentient being, the first of his kind to do so. It is one of the strongest episodes of Star Trek for portraying the need for equal rights, hidden, as Star Trek often does, in the world of science-fiction, and in the voice of Jean-Luc Picard.