10 No-Win Scenarios In Star Trek (And How They Were Resolved)

Scenario: If Riker wins the case, Data will be shipped to Starfleet HQ to be disassembled by Bruce Maddox. If he doesn't do his best job to win the case, the court will be suspended and Data will be sent anyway.

Resolution: For Riker, the entire situation is out of his hands. Ordered into the role of the prosecutor by Phillipa Louvois, he cannot do anything to throw the case in Data's favour. He needs to rely entirely on Captain Picard's legal skills. This becomes even more uncertain once Riker manages to prove in court, without a doubt, that Data is a machine.

However, what Riker fails to do is disprove Data's sentience. He can, in essence, only prove the nature of Data's make-up. Picard manages to prove that Data is more than the sum of his parts or, in any case, that the nature of sentience is wide and vague enough that the court is unable to differentiate between human and android.

Riker's best hope was to lose the case. Thankfully, when those hopes are placed in Jean-Luc Picard, they are in safe hands.