"Positronic"

[His Divine Shadow]

As we all know Data's brain is a "positronic" brain, now I've seen people point out that this would make Data's head explode since it was made of AM, but I think that from their perspective, "positronic" doesn't mean it's made of AM.

What it probably means is the same concept that Asimov came up with, an artificial version of a human brain.

[Jason von Evil]

Who thinks that his brain is made from AM? Tell those people that the whole idea is as idiotic as the hardcore trekkies belief that Trek could be SW.

Anyways, you're right, his brain was more than likely based on the Positronic mans. Obviously, it would be much more advanced though.

[Patrick Ogaard]

Who thinks that his brain is made from AM? Tell those people that the whole idea is as idiotic as the hardcore trekkies belief that Trek could be SW.

Anyways, you're right, his brain was more than likely based on the Positronic mans. Obviously, it would be much more advanced though.

I don't know about Data's brain necessarily being more advanced than a reasonably advanced positronic robot brain from the robot stories of Isaac Asimov. R. Daneel Olivaw certainly always seemed a lot smarter than Data.

[greenmm]

Who thinks that his brain is made from AM? Tell those people that the whole idea is as idiotic as the hardcore trekkies belief that Trek could be SW.

Anyways, you're right, his brain was more than likely based on the Positronic mans. Obviously, it would be much more advanced though.

I don't know about Data's brain necessarily being more advanced than a reasonably advanced positronic robot brain from the robot stories of Isaac Asimov. R. Daneel Olivaw certainly always seemed a lot smarter than Data.

At the very least, Daneel had a much easier time acting as a real human than Data did, and was even designed to avoid the "artificial" look...

[HemlockGrey]

R. Daneel Olivaw survived for over twenty thousand years and ruled the entire galaxy. He's a bit more impressive than Data.

[Uraniun235]

As we all know Data's brain is a "positronic" brain, now I've seen people point out that this would make Data's head explode since it was made of AM, but I think that from their perspective, "positronic" doesn't mean it's made of AM.

What it probably means is the same concept that Asimov came up with, an artificial version of a human brain.

IIRC, Data's "positronic" brain was a tip-of-the-hat to Roddenberry's good friend Isaac Asimov.

[His Divine Shadow]

R. Daneel Olivaw survived for over twenty thousand years and ruled the entire galaxy. He's a bit more impressive than Data.

Well, well.... Data coloured his hair with a gray streak!

[Gil Hamilton]

R. Daneel Olivaw survived for over twenty thousand years and ruled the entire galaxy. He's a bit more impressive than Data.

Well, well.... Data coloured his hair with a gray streak!

Except he died before he got a chance to.

[Darth Servo]

R. Daneel Olivaw survived for over twenty thousand years and ruled the entire galaxy. He's a bit more impressive than Data.

Well, well.... Data coloured his hair with a gray streak!

Except he died before he got a chance to.

Just gotta love the Trek writers respect for continuity. Of course "All Good Things" was probably a Q-induced halucination anyways.

[Uraniun235]

IMO, what we saw in "All Good Things" was just a possible future... not necessarily what the writers envisioned would happen some 20 years down the line.

[Howedar]

We know that it is not the "correct" future as of immediately before Nemesis. We can't get a giant evil refit Galaxy of death if the E-D crashed in ST7.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Who thinks that his brain is made from AM? Tell those people that the whole idea is as idiotic as the hardcore trekkies belief that Trek could be SW.

Anyways, you're right, his brain was more than likely based on the Positronic mans. Obviously, it would be much more advanced though.

It sounds like those people are thinking of positrons....and for some reason think positronic is the same thing.

And you are also right. The idea that ST could be SW is ridiculous....they are two seperate shows!!!!

[Eframepilot]

Asimov first coined the term "positronic brain" when he was a young green SF writer; using positrons instead of electrons sounded more advanced. Incidentally, he also is credited with inventing the words positronic and robotics.

As to the detection of a "positronic signature" in Nemesis from a planet light-years away - Gah! Brain bug that sensors can pick up anything special. Voyager could detect Talaxians from light-years away as well.

[Patrick Degan]

At the very least, Daneel had a much easier time acting as a real human than Data did, and was even designed to avoid the "artificial" look...

Daneel was one of the reasons I was never able to take Data's "witless exploration of humanity" seriously for even a second.

[The Silence and I]

Daneel was one of the reasons I was never able to take Data's "witless exploration of humanity" seriously for even a second.

How do you mean?

[Patrick Degan]

Daneel was one of the reasons I was never able to take Data's "witless exploration of humanity" seriously for even a second.

How do you mean?

You're kidding, right?

Intelligent robots and androids had been common coin in SF for decades —stretching all the way back to Karel Capek's R.U.R. Robots and androids with human-like intellect and even emotion were also standard to science fiction (e.g. the aforementioned R. Daneel Olivaw). They had certainly been seen in the original Star Trek often enough; in other series such as Doctor Who, and in movies such as Forbidden Planet, Alien and Aliens to render the idea of artifical intelligence with designed emotional response a wholly familiar one to SF readers and even casual movie viewers for years. We've seen human-like androids in all that time in movies and television; not only looking human but also possessing human-like emotional response and the capacity to understand the concept of emotion.

Against this, we've got Mr. Data, who looks like somebody dipped in beige paint and who spends half his time struggling so hard to discover the human equation by ineptly telling awful jokes, or growing a beard, or playing Sherlock Holmes, or acting Shakespeare and all in a plodding manner while overanalysing every last nuance and statement to fucking death. He's put forth as something entirely new in science fiction when he is no such thing and is used as a device to "examine the nature of humanity", supposedly. The only thing TNG managed by this approach was to make a spectacle out of a main series character while simultaneously demonstrating how totally out of touch its writers were with the currents and standards of science fiction. He's not a character, he's a cartoon. Q's brutally incisive observation regarding Data's "witless exploration of humanity" as one of the ways Picard wasted his time and energy in seven years summed up the entire waste of time the caricature development of Mr. Data had been. Whole fucking episodes devoted to inane plots about Data programming himself for romance, or not getting the concept of deception, or playing Sherlock Holmes on the holodeck, trying to cover a subject which has become cliché long long ago.

Data was a throwback beyond even the earliest serious science fiction works about androids and the entire Man v. Machine debate. There was just no fucking point to the exercise beyond presenting intelligent television audiences with a SF version of Pinnochio, the puppet who would be a boy. Good Cthulhu, surely the movie The Wizard Of Oz sank this entire idiotic exercise when it showed that the Tin Man had always had a heart, even if he didn't think he did, and presented a far more complete human character in his form in a two hour movie than seven years of TNG ever managed.

I'm sorry, but Data doesn't even make the grade in Remedial Science Fiction Writing 057. A whole legion of SF androids over five decades worth of works made him The Obsolete Droid before he ever appeared on the scene. He doesn't even stack up in comparison to the mechanical beings of the 1965 B-grade stinker Creation Of The Humanoids.

[SPOOFE]

I'm going to do something I rarely do, and defend TNG on this point, Mr. Degan. Data's portrayal in the show was hardly deep or ground-breaking... and I think that was the point. I think Data was supposed to be a light-hearted homage to the standard institution of sci-fi that you described. As such, it makes perfect sense for his behavior to be a little silly.

[Patrick Degan]

Data's portrayal in the show was hardly deep or ground-breaking... and I think that was the point. I think Data was supposed to be a light-hearted homage to the standard institution of sci-fi that you described. As such, it makes perfect sense for his behavior to be a little silly.

Sorry, but that doesn't wash. Data was intended as the character who would offer the "outsiders'" perspective on humanity; the surrogate Spock for TNG, if you will. He was also essentially the reincarnation of Questor.

Some background: Questor was another of Gene Roddenberry's series proposals which never made it beyond a pilot and really hasn't been seen since. Starring Mike Farrell (later to become BJ Hunnicutt on M*A*S*H), Questor was an android designed to be fully human. His creator is killed before the emotions can be programmed into him, leaving Questor to wander the world searching out the meaning of what humanity is.

Data is Questor retrieved from the scrap heap. Sadly, it was decided that he should be written as Pinnochio.

The argument that he was a "light-hearted homage" of the SF standard android doesn't really wash either. It's one thing if you're doing a parody. But if you're doing a series intended to be taken seriously, then this effort is seriously undermined if you have a sub-par character whose entire purpose is to be the butt of everybody's jokes. You can only go so far with the "he doesn't get emotion" storyline or character thread before you simply cease to take him and the series he's on seriously.

I will point out that TOS never needed such inane plot or character devices to sell itself to an intelligent audience. Neither did any series which succeeded or at the least is remembered as something unique and special years after it went dark following its thirteenth episode.

Tell me, do you see anything other than a huge waste of screen time ocurring whenever you see Data exploring humanity by growing a beard? It's one thing to offer an outsider's perspective on humanity (Spock). It's entirely another to simply have a character demonstrating his own ineptness on a continual basis.