Star Trek: 10 Ways The Romulan Supernova Impacted The Multiverse

Though the term does not best describe most artificial life in Star Trek — Data certainly didn't appreciate being called one — the A500s were 'robots' by etymology, designed as they were to live out their days in servitude. And bound or not, even loosely, by those famous Three Laws, they certainly broke the First most thoroughly on Mars. "Asimov's dream of a positronic brain," to quote Tasha Yar, had become a nightmare.

After the Attack, the Federation moved with a knee-jerk to ban all synthetic lifeforms and dismantle all active units. Combine lack of (forced) labourers with loss of the fleet, the immediate impact was the end of the evacuation efforts. The Division of Advanced Synthetic Research at the Daystrom Institute, where the A500s were made, was reduced down to a "ghost town" of theoretical proportions, and Bruce Maddox, the Division's Chair of Robotics (that word again) disappeared, having to work on his fractal twin project in secret. That fact would have its own set of near-doomsday consequences down the line.

Millions, billions, or just one, the most devastating effect of the synth ban was the death of Deanna and William Troi-Riker's young son Thaddeus. With no active positronic matrices in which to culture the usual cure, the rare viral mendaxic neurosclerosis he contracted was always fatal. Nepenthe could only be a stay of the inevitable.