Star Trek: 10 Worst Things Data Has Ever Done

9. Forced The Enterprise On A Detour

Star Trek data knife troi
Paramount

Writing interstellar letters to a child - what could possibly go wrong?

Data spends eight weeks communicating with a young girl called Sarjenka on Drema Four before he decides that it's time to tell Picard.

That's two whole months before he goes to ask the captain if he can violate the Prime Directive and intervene with the natural progression of a planet. Data's actions force the captain's hand when the communications turn into a plea for help that even he cannot ignore.

This leads to Picard having to enact some distinctly off-the-books activities to complete the mission and rescue Data's pen pal. It gets substantially worse as the android goes on to make promises to Sarjenka about staying on the Enterprise without any concerns for her future and the fact that he's probably broken about a dozen Federation laws.

This all started because he picked up a signal and started a chat, but the question remains as to why Data didn't take this to the captain immediately considering the seriousness of the situation. Yes, it's a planet-sized disaster but Data has pulled the Federation into something where they should not be playing God.

Contributor
Contributor

A Star Trek fan from birth, I love to dive into every aspect of the franchise in front and behind the screen. There's something here that's kept me interested for the best part of four decades! Now I'm getting back into writing and using Star Trek as my first line of literary attack. If I'm not here on WhatCulture then you're more than welcome to come and take a look at my blog, Some Kind of Star Trek at http://SKoST.co.uk or maybe follow me on Twitter as @TheWarpCore. Sometimes I force myself not to talk about Star Trek.