this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2025
790 points (99.9% liked)
TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name
5697 readers
1203 users here now
/c/TenForward: Your home-away-from-home for all things Star Trek!
Re-route power to the shields, emit a tachyon pulse through the deflector, and post all the nonsense you want. Within reason of course.
~ 1. No bigotry. This is a Star Trek community. Remember that diversity and coexistence are Star Trek values. Any post/comments that are racist, anti-LGBT, or generally "othering" of a group will result in removal/ban.
~ 2. Keep it civil. Disagreements will happen both on lore and preferences. That's okay! Just don't let it make you forget that the person you are talking to is also a person.
~ 3. Use spoiler tags.
Use spoiler tags in comments, and NSFW checkbox for posts.
This applies to any episodes that have dropped within 3 months prior of your posting. After that it's free game.
~ 4. Keep it Trek related. This one is kind of a gimme but keep as on topic as possible.
~ 5. Keep posts to a limit. We all love Star Trek stuff but 3-4 posts in an hour is plenty enough.
~ 6. Try to not repost. Mistakes happen, we get it! But try to not repost anything from within the past 1-2 months.
~ 7. No General AI Art. Posts of simple AI art do not 'inspire jamaharon'
~ 8. No Political Upheaval. Political commentary is allowed, but please keep discussions civil. Read here for our community's expectations.
Fun will now commence.
Sister Communities:
Want your community to be added to the sidebar? Just ask one of our mods!
Creator Resources:
Looking for a Star Trek screencap? (TrekCore)
Looking for the right Star Trek typeface/font for your meme? (Thank you @kellyaster for putting this together!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Is this canon or did the poster just cherry pick a few instances?
This might be legit. Brent Spiner said in interviews that he was consciously keeping track of Data’s growth during the series. He intentionally made him feel like a blank canvas that behaved in an uncanny way at first, and slowly introduced more and more human mannerisms and warmth to his character.
Without instruction, for seven years & four movies. He was probably doing the same thing during Picard.
I feel like the time(s?) he played future Data he "jumped ahead" on the mannerisms too.
Can I note that Data served many years in Starfleet prior to the start of TNG? He wasn't activated the day before the Encounter at Farpoint mission started. He would have had years of experience working with humans by that point.
To be fair, did any of us have great social skills for the first decade or two after activation?
Fair point. Quite a few people never develop those skills.
Sure, but in an ensemble cast I doubt that he would have had an in-depth back story given him prior to the episode where they find Lore and reveal that Data has all the colonists' memories, etc.
No you may not.
Damn.
Yes, but the crews didn’t accept him as much as enterprise crew did, making it hard for him ti experience and grow.
Agreed. I think Enterprise was the first time people collectively treated Data like anything other than a machine. A case of nurture when is came to the professional culture of Picard’s command.
Then Pulaski comes onboard from another ship and immediately regards him as a walking computer. This was probably the first time Data stood up for himself as well. Over time, Pulaski adopted the respect the rest of the crew had for him.
Just too bad she fell down that turbolift shaft.
Picard summarily dismissed the claims that Data pushed her.
Of course. We all know Data was merely holding the door for Picard.
I mean maybe not, but I find it hard to believe he'd get promoted to lieutenant commander if he couldn't lead. So people had to have trusted him, like the guy eventually did in the episode where he had command of that ship.
heh. Pretty sure a rock with googly eyes would be a better leader than half the Admiralty. Just saying. plenty of turdlings getting promoted who shouldn't have been. And plenty more were promoted merely on competence with little regard for leadership.
He also got plenty of awards for bravery and courage. There are tons of socially awkard leaders. Like Gen. Sherman (union army, civil war,) Brilliant tactician, socially worse than the average redditor.
(anybody else remember pet rocks from the 90's? those were fun.)
Aren't we talking about Star Trek? Most of the admirals are pretty competent in ST, when they aren't being occupied by an invading force or something.
I mean, just as examples, we’re talking about an organization that put civilian families- including children- onto ships that are routinely attacked or otherwise facing casualties.
And let’s not talk about OSHA standards that clearly don’t exist. Virtually every non-combat casualty of been prevented with a modicum of regard for safety (wearing PPE, having a safety plan that includes questions like “what could go wrong”, and addresses them, etc)(let’s not talk about seatbelts and surge protectors,)
Or that JAG admiral who failed to even consider a legal test to determine data’s sentience- a legal test that not only would literally have to exist, but be taught to basically everyone in starfleet; because the prime directive requires that they not fuck with sentient life.
Imagine how awkward he must have been at the start.
That actually would have been a great flashback sequence that I'm sorry they never did.
Well he started with refusing to wear clothes so much Soong had to hardcode an anti nudity patch.
Thank you.
You'll see him mimicking behavior throughout the series. One of my favorite examples is in Starship Mine aka "Star Trek does a Die Hard" with Data's attempts at small talk.
I’m convinced that a lot of his footage in that episode was Spiner goofing off or intentionally blowing takes and they just used whatever they could.
There’s an outtake of the scene when he’s “being Hutchinson” to ~~Troi~~ Crusher and Riker. In the episode it’s the same scene cut short because the extended scene quickly devolves into crude humor that couldn’t be aired on network TV at the time - both Frakes and ~~Sirtis~~ McFadden gasping at what Spiner said.
Is this the clip you’re referring to?
Data’s Small Talk Protocol
lmao I love how it takes Frakes a second to register what Spiner just said before he just loses it
It would have totally been in-character for Riker to react the same way, too.
Thank you. It was McFadden, not Sirtis.
Frakes just lost it at the end.
Spiner is a wonderful human being. And so is Data.
Ironically sticking things up butts is a major part of being a doctor so she's the one who's done that the most.
I love seeing new trek that I never saw before. Thanks for linking that.