Sci - fi has been fascinated with sentient synthetic living sinceits earliest twenty-four hours , but Star Trek , in particular , has had quite the tumultuous history with its own thoughtfulness of android and their position in its far future tense . From Graeco-Roman interpretations of sinister ‘ bots to one of the dealership ’s most beloved theatrical role , here ’s everything you take to know aboutStar Trek’sandroids .
Just a warning going in : This explainer will touch on patch details covered in the first episode of Star Trek : Picard near the remainder ( get caught up , it ’s great ! ) . We ’ll stake our usual spoiler image when we get there .
The Androids of the 23rd Century
You ca n’t talk about where androids end up in the Star Trek creation without also untangling the franchise ’s relationship with human augmentation in general .
In the 23rd century of the original serial publication ( fleshed out in Discovery and finally in the even - earlier predecessor Enterprise ) , genetic augmentation of humankind has been outlawed since the mid-2200s , in the backwash of the Eugenics Wars — a series of conflicts in Trek ’s nineties over the decision to advance human civilization through selective education and transmitted handling ; these conflict eventually sparked World War III — and the creation of bioengineered superhuman existence like Khan .
In the wake of that ban , there were still scientists interested in the musical theme . Arik Soong , an ancestor of Dr. Noonien Soong ( who we ’ll be discussing subsequently ) , started his coevals - span desire to research human augmentation not through synthetic life-time , but controversial genetic engineering , trust his descendants to carry on his oeuvre .
One of the most important androids in Star Trek history still has more mysteries to solve.Image: CBS
https://gizmodo.com/the-ultimate-list-of-what-star-trek-you-should-watch-be-1837426021
But human augmentation in various forms is alert and well by the prison term of twenty-third century Starfleet in spite of this ban . Despite it being against Federation law , microbiologist Paul Stamets becomes an augmented homo on Discovery when he splices himselfwith Tardigrade DNAto navigate the titular ship ’s spore - drive , enhance himself further with cybernetic augmentation to better facilitate the process .
And speaking of cybernetics ( and the eventual course to the development of celluloid life ) and Discovery , you ’ve also got cyborgs likeLieutenant Commander Airiam , an augmented human who , in the wake of a nigh - fatal shuttle crash , received major cybernetic upgrade — at this pointedness in Trek story they were not as advance as you may expect , though , with Airiam having to selectively manage the storage of her own memory board to avert overcharge her augments .
Harry Mudd, and a court of his own android servants in “I, Mudd.”Image: CBS
But moving beyond human augmentation and to the android we encounter in this earliest menses of Star Trek on screen , it ’s interesting to observe that even with beings like Airiam as coevals , completely synthetic sentient life is a pipe dream . Every mechanical man we conform to in the meter of the original Star Trek comes from lodge that exist outside of the Federation — from ancient , long - drop dead civilization , or seemingly all-powerful beings whose grasp of technology is clearly establish as being far beyond the current agreement of Starfleet .
On the “ ancient civilization ” front , you have androids like Rayna in “ Requiem for Methuselah , ” the instauration of an immortal named Flint who , despite completely pass along as a human female person , was not advanced enough to deal with … theflirtations of Captain Kirk — she overloaded her circumference dealing with the intense emotional overload of her attractor to him and her creator . There were also the Mudd humanoid of “ I , Mudd , ” the servants of an unknown precursor civilization from the Andromeda Galax urceolata dispersed as researchers and observers of the less - advanced specie of our own galaxy until they encounter Harry Mudd , who naturally forces them to make him a harem of fembots to do his bid . But as advanced as these ego - double androids were , like Rayna before them , their bond to system of logic in the face of worked up variability proved to be their unfastening .
Separately , former Trek also featured humanoid that , while celluloid , were reproduction of organic beings rather of their own selves . “ I , Mudd ” featured a few , notably Mudd ’s refreshment of his “ darling ” wife Stella — but we also had the Exo III androids of “ What Are Little girl Made Of ? ” Even more advanced than the Mudd Androids or Rayna , they could n’t just dish out with emotion but developed their own android copier that could create a synthetic copy of an constitutive being , complete with their memory and personality .
Airiam: a hybrid of human and synthetic design.Image: CBS
https://gizmodo.com/the-beautifully-dull-paradox-of-star-trek-the-motion-p-1838018612
Star Trek : The Motion Picturealso gave us a grim form of humanoid in V’Ger ’s creation of the Illia Probe , a hybridization of one of its sensor probe with the unfortunate body of the Enterprise ’s Lieutenant Illia , using her clay essentially as a puppet . We also got the inverse of that idea in the Sargon - case of “ Return to Tomorrow”—android “ shells ” designed by the disembodied being Sargon , mean to store the disjoint minds of the last survivors of his race .
Not only are all of these android product of existence far beyond the capabilities of the Federation , they ’re also all slang as inherently sinister — they are foreign , antagonistic forces , whether passively observing our heroes as technical lessers or , in some shell , outright mean to supplant them . It would take Star Trek ’s jump into a whole young hundred — and a whole new show — for the serial ’ portrayal of androids to radically transmute and evolve .
Data discovers his brother, Lore.Image: CBS
Enter Soong
By the 24th C — and byThe Next Generation — android engineering had require steps that were paradoxically massive and incremental . By TNG ’s 2360s , Federation - aligned scientists had handle to do what was so alien a century prior and create sentient synthetic life . Or , rather , one scientist had . One of Arik Soong ’s retentive descendent , not a geneticist like his ascendant , but a renowned , infamous cyberneticist : Dr. Noonien Soong .
base off a “ positronic brain”—a entirely technological , intricate recreation of a human ’s flighty systems — Soong - type androids could achieve sensory faculty unlike any previously bed kind of mechanical man . They were also so hard to make , no other scientist could effectively replicate the job of manually recreating positronic relay race , and even Soong himself clamber . From his research lab on Omicron Theta , he only ever made six , ostensibly the only one to live within the Federation at this dot in metre : two unknown protoypes , B-4 , Lore , and eventually Data , who went on to serve in Starfleet as an officer aboard the Enterprise . His last mechanical man was , unlike his prior effort , not a replication of his own youthful visage , but a recreation of his deceased married woman , Juliana Tainer , who was really advanced enough to be unaware of her android nature .
B-4 , Lore , and data point are the most notable and important of Soong ’s furtherance in synthetic life . Though B-4 was a predecessor of Data and Lore , he ’s actually the last Soong - type we met , appear in the godawful Star Trek : Nemesis . While functional , B-4 was based on a simpler version of Soong ’s positronic technology , in turn , giving him a simpler personality compare to his “ buddy . ” That personality was finally overridden by Shinzon to make B-4 an unwitting undercover agent , and then Data attempted to extend his sibling ’s capacities by give him his own archive of memories .
Bruce Maddox, desperate to advance cybernetic research, makes his plan to dismantle Data known.Image: CBS
Lore , meanwhile , first introduced in the TNG time of year one episode “ Datalore , ” was B-4 ’s successor . More in advance , Lore was also extremely cognisant of his capacity being far beyond that of a human , and eventually spring up a egotistical personality that , combined with his unfitness to balance his unstable emotional reactions , made him a terror to the human colonists living on Omicron Theta . It induce so bad that Soong was forced to deactivate Lore and put him in stasis . datum was then created as a response — a Soong - type that had all of Lore ’s news and advanced ability , but could also better deal with worked up concepts .
Data ’s creation was a landmark moment not just in full term of Federation science , but upon first impinging with Starfleet in the form of a landing place political party from the USS Tripoli — which detect Data abandoned by his creator and his fellow colonist on Omicron Theta after an onslaught on the planet by the Crystalline Entity — he became a landmark in Federation ethics , too . “ Measure of a Man , ” one of TNG ’s most iconic episodes , dealt with the ramification of Data ’s existence as a semisynthetic , sentient being . The complete scarceness of android lifeforms within the Federation made Data ’s space as a appendage of the Enterprise ’s gang an abnormalcy , a being respected as a Starfleet Officer but not really give any ofthe fundamental rightsa citizen of the Federation has .
His ascension through Starfleet Academy and into the establishment itself was opposed by Daystrom Institute cybernetics researcher Bruce Maddox , and Maddox ’s own desire to break datum down and search his positronic brain to see if the Federation could craft its own synthetic liveliness trigger Data ’s quest to be recognize as an individual . What come after , as seen in “ Measure , ” was an unprecedented legal court that ultimately lead to a ruling that not only was Data an individual citizen of the Federation , but that should more androids of his form ever be create , they would be equivalent to the establishment of a novel specie .
Despite Maddox ’s opposition to his status as a being , Data kept in skin senses with him , encouraging the scientist in his oeuvre to make more androids — and even experimented with inflate his own maturation with the use of an emotion chip , which allowed him to physically stimulate and experience emotion for the first time … to vary stage of success .
https://gizmodo.com/a-star-trek-writer-explains-how-data-became-a-citizen-o-1593158869
It was , however , never meant to be . Over the course of instruction of The Next Generation , and even beyond in the Star Trek timeline , androids were still improbably scarce beings . Data himself attempt to make one in the form of his “ daughter ” Lal in TNG ’s time of year three instalment “ The Offspring . ” After take care a Federation cybernetics league that discussed the growing of “ submicron intercellular substance transfer ” engineering science , that would allow the already - be neural connection of a functioning positronic brain to be duplicated and introduce into another , datum place about make his own Soong - type advancement , declare the product to be his girl . Unfortunately , while Lal was in many elbow room more modern than Data , the transfer of training appendage was still frail , leading to brain degradation that at long last forced him to shut her down .
Jean-Luc Picard comes face to face with a mystery that links to his old friend.Image: CBS
With Data ’s own demise during the events of Star Trek : Nemesis , and both B-4 and Lore deactivated ( the latter permanently , the former store for inquiry use by the Daystrom Institute after Data attempted , and ultimately go wrong , to channel his own retentiveness to his trunk ) , it would seem that , coming into Star Trek : Picard , the Federation ’s development of Android technology had hit a considerable roadblock . Scientists had grow a manner to replicate positronic neural nets , but with only B-4 ’s restrain — and compromised — brain uncommitted , creating a replacement to Data was on the face of it far out of compass .
ostensibly .
A Post-Data World
Two decades after Data ’s last in Nemesis , the world we encounter in Picard has once again undergone striking changes in the field of android developing , even if his death has also stagnated it at the same fourth dimension .
https://gizmodo.com/all-the-new-and-returning-sci-fi-fantasy-superhero-a-1837384823
If Data ’s death had n’t already stagnated synthetic awareness research in the Federation , the attack on Mars did — the departure of nearly 100,000 Federation citizen ( and a valuable source of industry ) led to a complete and total prohibition on synthetic sprightliness . And even without it , the creation of an android consanguine to Data ’s capability was still centuries away from development .
Doctor Jurati reveals the extent of Maddox’s advancement in synthetic research.Image: CBS
Picard ’s debut installment “ Remembrance ” tell us that prior to the ban , Federation scientist at Daystrom ’s synthetic research division ( led by Bruce Maddox himself ) were on a path to acquire something akin to an organic equivalent of the Sargon - types Kirk and his crew encountered in “ Return to Tomorrow . ” They ’d have material body - and - rip consistency that could put up a positronic brain . But Data ’s end mean access to functioning neural networks with which people could arrange a submicron intercellular substance transfer was all but impossible .
Except the episode reveals that Maddox , who fled Daystrom in the wake of the all - but - shutdown of its synthetic enquiry , patently managed to gain accession to remnants of Data ’s positronic net before his death . As explained to Jean - Luc Picard by one of Maddox ’s former carbon monoxide gas - proletarian , Agnes Jurati , Maddox was work on a theory called “ fractal neuronic cloning”—which , unlike submicron matrix transfers , would earmark the existence of a full positronic brain out of an individual synthetic nerve cell . Except it apparently was n’t just a hypothesis , and Maddox , using a shard of Data ’s neurons , created two identical android ( the process apparently requiring a duo of clone organic body ): Dahj and Soji Asher .
mightily now , slight is known of just how advanced Dahj and Soji are in comparison to Data — whether they were , because of the cloning appendage , equally open or even more advance . Like Data ’s successor in Soong ’s Juliana android , neither Android is aware of their synthetical nature . Or at least , Soji is n’t , with Dahj ’s enhanced abilities — raise hearing , advanced hacking skills , and even persuasiveness and combat techniques — being activated when she is attacked by mysterious Romulan assailants .
Whatever either she or Soji are equal to of , however , they represent an entirely new generation of humanoid in the Star Trek world — and are about to be more vital to not just Picard , but the Federation at great , than ever imagined .
With Picard let out its focus on the origination of Data ’s bequest — and how it might return the Lieutenant Commander himself — it ’s clear-cut we ’re about to get even more exploration of androids , their rightfulness , and the boundaries of what it means to be post - human in the dealership than we ’ve perhaps see it tackle in years . Just how Trek ’s relationship to one ofsci - fi ’s most enduringtechnological feats will evolve stay to be take in , but for now , as always , it seems like it will go on to be a turbulent and fascinating one .
For more , ensure you ’re follow us on our Instagram @io9dotcom .
AndroidsDataRobotsSci - FiStar TrekStar Trek : PicardStreaming
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , science , and cultivation word in your inbox daily .
News from the future , deliver to your present .
You May Also Like
