Ethics, B-4, and Data

[Gil Hamilton]

In the movie, the whole B-4 subplot pissed me off, and let me tell you why.
The Remans planted B-4 near the Nuetral Zone to lure Picard in. Without explaining where he came from (I thought all of Soongs androids had been accounted for in TNG, there were the 3 prototypes that were deactivated, Lore, Data, and Soong's wife) the Remans used him to gather information.
Now the Remans used him to gather information on the Enterprise without B-4 understanding what he was doing, so they decided to shut down B-4 indefinitely after the bit.
Even though in the end they turned him on again, this angered me greatly. Look at B-4s behavior. They explain that he's a much more less developed version of Data. This isn't true. He doesn't act like Data, even in the beginning. We've seen what Soong style androids act like when they are first turned on, with Lal. B-4 was clearly mentally retarded. I'm not talking about "Ha ha! You're retarded!" kind of retarded. I'm talking about completely unfunny and serious kind of mental retardation where fully grown adults as so messed up that they've got the mental abilities of a five year old, like the residents who live in the home across the street who require constant care because of their retardation. B-4 even had all the signs of it; serious learning disabilities, questions about people such as ("Why do you have a shiny head?"), playing with objects and babbling to himself. This wasn't cool at all, this was incredibly sad.
So, they had him strapped to a wall and decided to permanently deactivate him, for being "dangerous". Dangerous, my ass! The Remans used him and it wasn't his fault. He didn't know what he was doing at all, he didn't even know who Shinzon and the Remans were. He wasn't about to hurt anyone. Once they knew the Remon plot, they could have just as easily put him in confinement where he couldn't do anything incase the Remans put any other programming in him and tried to help him, they could have end removed his head if they needed to. Nope nope, they decide to euthanize him. Frankly, that's sick. If a person made a powerfully retarded person do something wrong, the person who put him up to the act is responsible, not the handicapped person. The mentally retarded person didn't know what he was doing at all. It's completely inethical and sick to execute the handicapped person for the crime, but that's exactly what happened.
And Data. Data's whole goal in life was to be human. The whole Data subplot should have focused on how he truly achieved humanity in the end. They didn't do this at all, he was the same old Data and what was his legacy? B-4, a damaged proto-type model, who was even worse of than Data than when he started. All that hardwork and development and in the end, it was meaningless and you only get the live on in the equivlent of a person who would require constant care for the rest of his life and never be really human. Congratulations!

Thoughts on this?

[Kuja]

The whole B-4 plot irrtated me, mostly because I was expecting it to be Lore in the movie.

And yeah, never explaining where he came from irked me.


I find the whole idea of replacing Data with 'Be-foul' to be incredibly offensive. I mean, it'sData,for god's sake! You can't replace Data, no matter how hard you try! Killing him off I can live with, because they gave him a decent end and a very emotional one. But for fuck's sake, you can't fucking REPLACE him!

[Nixon]

You are totally right Gil Hamilton. That whole B-4 character was a disaster, and TNG series is filled with contradictory ethics and morals. And some ethics and morals established in TNG series were completely deplorable. (No money? How do you get people to work? Slavery?) This movie along with the rest of the TNG movies is a load of shit. Completely ignoring past plot lines and an ad hoc approach to the storytelling. I see a lot of people on this forum bash B&B for ruining the franchise, and I must say I have to agree. TOS was so much better. Heck, I'd even say Star Trek V is way better than any of the TNG movies. At least V had some good lines and you could get a good laugh out of it. TNG movies are just embarrasing to watch.

[Captain Cyran]

I saw the movie with a friend, both of us at the end were walking out of the theater saying "They....they killed Data....they...they KILLED DATA!"

[Shrykull]

Frankly, that's sick. If a person made a powerfully retarded person do something wrong, the person who put him up to the act is responsible, not the handicapped person. The mentally retarded person didn't know what he was doing at all. It's completely inethical and sick to execute the handicapped person for the crime, but that's exactly what happened.

Ever watch that prison show Oz on HBO, in that that's exactly what happened, an inmate named Ryan O'reilly made his mentally handicapped(he suffered a head injury) brother kill the hospital doctor's husband, he got life without parole and his brother got 40 years added to his already life sentence. His brother though before he committed the act told him "I can't do that it's wrong" however. They also said in that show that executing the mentally retarded was (I don't know if it's true or not) not considered cruel and unusual punishment in the eyes of American law.

[Anarchist Bunny]

B-4 was a invention of Soong, and accually a prototype. Shizon said that after they found him, it wasn't hard to modify him. Atleast that is the best guess as his true origins, but he wasn't romulan made.

[Yogi]

B-4 is not going to be replacing Data. The actor who played Data said he didn't want to play him anymore (since he's getting old and Data's not supposed to).

As for locking up B-4, if you have someone who may have hidden "programmed" commands within them, you would have him restrained until make sure he's "clear". For all they know, B-4 could have a fail-safe which would cause him to go beserk.

[DocMoriartty]

B4 was not mentally retarded in the least. Lal unfortunately is not a good example of how an android should act when first activated. Lal had no emotions at all. B4 on the other hand showed all of the emotions one would expect from a veyr young child.

This is my estimation of what is going on here. B4 was Soong's first real experiement with an android that contained emotionional programming from the very start. My guess is that both Lore and Data were built with the add-on capacity of emotions. Lore got his add-on chips right away while Data got his much later.

This leaves a question. Where does B4 fall into the equation? He is B4 as his name says but he is not B4 either Lore or Data. My guess is that B4 was designed as a prototype experiment before Soong built the fully emotional capable android of his wife. Soong needed a platform to work on and he had all the necessary material for a Data/Lore model. so Soong built B4, gave him full emotional programming and left him "alive" only long enough to validate his work. Then he turned him off and created his wife android.

Given time and effort B4 I think could become as effective as Data. Unfortunately the integration of emotions means that he cannot learn like Data. Sure he can absorb the information like Data but his emotional makeup makes how he uses that knowledge much different. Litterally he must learn and grow like a real human child.

Just my two cents since I want to try to give a reason why B4 is not an android retard and no one in the movie seemed to notice how emotional he was.

[Howedar]

For crying out friggin loud, they've transported Data a million times, they sure as hell ought to be able to build another.

[Lord Poe]

I don't think B-4 was a Soong android. I haven't seen the movie, but in "The Defector" the Romulan told Data that he knew a bunch of Romulan robot scientists who'd love to be standing as close to Data as he was. Shinzom probaly found a prototype the Romulans were working on.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

They killed Data?!

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

*sniff* Damn it, he was my favourite character... *sniff*

[Vympel]

Doesn't really matter I guess- what are the chanes of one more TNG movie?

Besides- Brent Spiner was getting older and fatter all the time. Compare Nemesis Data to Season 1 TNG Data.

[Gil Hamilton]

I don't think B-4 was a Soong android. I haven't seen the movie, but in "The Defector" the Romulan told Data that he knew a bunch of Romulan robot scientists who'd love to be standing as close to Data as he was. Shinzom probaly found a prototype the Romulans were working on.

I don't think B-4 was a Soong droid either, mostly because in TNG they pretty conclusively accounted for Soong's androids. There were the first three prototypes (two of which were girls IIRC), Data, Lore, and Soong's dead wife. You'd think that Data would have recognized one of Soong's old prototypes.
Also, B-4 was physically identical to Data except for a defective brain and an extra memory port. Soong's Robot Wife explained that Data and Lore were the first ones that actually worked. Since B-4 worked (sort of) I don't think it was one of the old ones. I think it's more likely that the Romulans got their meathooks on a blue print of Data and did a piss poor job on his brain.

[Typhonis 1]

Or that WAS the best they could do with a positronic brain after all even Data couldnt get one to work ,Roms may have figured it only nneded to last a month or so

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

What was the whole bit about Data "downloading" shit into B-4? I haven't seen the film yet but I gathered the plot from spoilers and a brief scan of the script (I'm not even sure I really want to see the film.) Is B-4 supposedly going to experience some kind of fucked up "upgrade" from this? Is that the idea here?

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

Doesn't really matter I guess- what are the chanes of one more TNG movie?

Besides- Brent Spiner was getting older and fatter all the time. Compare Nemesis Data to Season 1 TNG Data.

\\

Supposedly, Data had an "aging chip" too. lol

[Joe Momma]

That part that bothered me was the memory dump early in the movie.

A) It sucked dramatically. Even if I hadn't read the script already, it was painfully obvious that this would be a cop-out for Data's death. As it was, the friend sitting next to me who had no idea about the storyline promptly leaned over and said, "Let me guess, Data's gonna die, but he'll live on in B4." It also ate up too much screentime to no good effect and cheapened Data's sacrifice by suggesting an out, but the final sacrifice was done so ineptly in the first place that it really doesn't make much difference("Captain, take this emergency transporter unit I showed you a couple of hours ago" and "shuttlecraft" come to mind as two simple ways these clownshoes could have avoided the whole mess; I guess their aft weapons systems were also down so they couldn't rotate the ship and blast the Scimitar, either).

B) The ethical question was never answered -- was Data doing the right thing by dumping all of his memories in B4? It was almost worse that Geordi asked, because it indicated that he knew the question was there, but he never bothered to follow it up or, heaven forfend, stop the procedure until he and Data had actually discussed it. Maybe that was part of the "through a looking glass darkly" theme, in this case the intellectually-retarded being handled by the morally-retarded.


Doc Moriarty wrote:
Given time and effort B4 I think could become as effective as Data. Unfortunately the integration of emotions means that he cannot learn like Data. Sure he can absorb the information like Data but his emotional makeup makes how he uses that knowledge much different. Litterally he must learn and grow like a real human child.

As far as B4 not being retarded, if he simply had to learn like a human child, then why wouldn't Dr. Soong continue the experiment? After all, he did so with Data, who had many childlike qualities as well, if Dr. Tainer's anecdotes are any indication.

I suppose the question of B4's potential rests with his less-developed neural pathways (or whatever phrase they used). If this reflects "software" (for lack of a better term), then B4 may be able to reach greater potential. But if that lesser development was indicative of the physical structure of B4's brain, then he may not be able to do much more than he can now.

Data also seemed rather harsh in his assessment of B4. The claim that B4 had no interest in bettering himself seemed a bit at odds with B4's constant exploration of his environment, both physically and with his questions to others. Almost as if he was disappointed, though he seems to have lost his emotion chip, given his statement about not feeling anything regarding B4 (the script was even more emphatic in this regard, given his questions to Picard about what sadness was like).

OTOH, I think there were moments in the series that demonstrated Data had some emotional ability even before the chip was installed, so such a reaction is not entirely out of line. But that's sort of getting off-topic for this thread...

-- Joe Momma

[DocMoriartty]

Doc Moriarty wrote:
Given time and effort B4 I think could become as effective as Data. Unfortunately the integration of emotions means that he cannot learn like Data. Sure he can absorb the information like Data but his emotional makeup makes how he uses that knowledge much different. Litterally he must learn and grow like a real human child.

As far as B4 not being retarded, if he simply had to learn like a human child, then why wouldn't Dr. Soong continue the experiment? After all, he did so with Data, who had many childlike qualities as well, if Dr. Tainer's anecdotes are any indication.

I suppose the question of B4's potential rests with his less-developed neural pathways (or whatever phrase they used). If this reflects "software" (for lack of a better term), then B4 may be able to reach greater potential. But if that lesser development was indicative of the physical structure of B4's brain, then he may not be able to do much more than he can now.

Data also seemed rather harsh in his assessment of B4. The claim that B4 had no interest in bettering himself seemed a bit at odds with B4's constant exploration of his environment, both physically and with his questions to others. Almost as if he was disappointed, though he seems to have lost his emotion chip, given his statement about not feeling anything regarding B4 (the script was even more emphatic in this regard, given his questions to Picard about what sadness was like).

OTOH, I think there were moments in the series that demonstrated Data had some emotional ability even before the chip was installed, so such a reaction is not entirely out of line. But that's sort of getting off-topic for this thread...

-- Joe Momma

My thought was that B4 was an experiment before Soong made the adroid of his wife. Once he got the basicas down and proven he moved to making her android. Then when she left him it probably killed any interest he had in working on B4 further.

Of course I am making all this up to fit the story better than the real crap in the movie.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

Another thought as to why B4 was deactivated and dismantled (if B4 is, in fact, a Soong product and not a cheap Romulan copy of Data as some have suggested) is that B4 and Lore may have been active simultaneously. When B4, if you recall, did seem to display emotional reactions, as Lore did. It just might stand to reason that Soong discovered Lore's mental illness first and, fearing that it was a problem endemic to both units, deactivated and dismantled both of them. Or, it may simply have been that B4 just didn't meet Soong's expectations and, as Data did in Nemesis, Soong simply gave no thought to the ethical considerations of "deactivating" B4 simply because of his learning disability. If B4 was the original on which Lore and Data were patterned, a "download" from a more advanced unit wouldn't have been possible, and Soong just scrapped B4 to move on to Lore. (The weird part is that the name "B-4" would seem to have been given the unit after at least one other unit was created, which leads to the B4 and Lore interaction" scenario.)

Wow... that was fucking convoluted.

P.S. If any of you out there are just howling for a more fitting farewell for Data, I have one. Does anyone know how to get ahold of the Pocket Books Star Trek editors to pitch it to them?

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

Here's another thought, and it just occurred to me, so I may not have thought it through completely (stupidity disclaimer, lol)

Maybe the two early Soong androids (B-4 and Lore) were built with writable neural pathways -- the material their brains are composed of is such that they are hardwired with certain extremely basic functions (such as how to speak English, walk, et cetera) but more advanced functions are actually learned and result in neural pathway development. The difference with Data was that all of his cognitive development was pre-programmed by Soong in order to avoid Data turning out like Lore, who became too human. B-4 was deactivated and dismantled maybe a week or less after being initially activated, thus his neural pathways are still unwritten.

Remember Lal? Her development was similar -- she knew how to walk and speak even before Data had "customized" her physical appearance, yet more advanced physical activities (such as catching a thrown object) and cognitive functions (such as recognizing when and when not to emulate others' behavior) had to be learned.

It's possible, then, that B-4 isn't learning disabled at all -- he's just at a very early stage of the same learning process all Soong machines go through.