Star Trek: 10 Worst Things Data Has Ever Done

6. Placed A Sick Child At Serious Risk (Brothers)

Star Trek data knife troi
Paramount

In Brothers, Data (yet again) is controlled to take the Enterprise to a backwater planet to meet up with his creator Dr Noonien Soong.

At the same time, the Federation flagship should be taking a sick child for emergency treatment after eating some deadly berries. The episode makes it very, very clear that this child will die if he doesn't receive the vital treatment.

Now, consider that Data knows this because he is only called by Soong while the ship is enroute. Much chaos ensues as Data shut down the ship, creates the mother of all security passwords (not his mum's surname or first school) and then escapes the ship.

At no point during the next part of the story, while he is engaged with Soong and party-crasher Lore, does he even make reference to the emergency situation aboard the Enterprise. Ok, he can't get back and no-one else can beam down but there is no sense of urgency from someone who is as dedicated to duty as Lt Cmdr Data. The Enterprise is also pretty much disabled until found by Riker's away team. Once more, nothing said!

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.