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Old 02-14-2019, 12:44 AM
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Nate the Great Nate the Great is offline
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(Data goes to the witness chair and puts his hand on a scanner on the table)
COMPUTER: Verify. Lieutenant Commander Data.

Again, we're acting like Data's Starfleet rights exist even if we're not sure he's alive.
RIKER: What is the capacity of your memory, and how fast can you access information?

How is this relevant to whether or not Data is sentient?

RIKER: Your Honour, I offer in evidence prosecution's exhibit A, a rod of par-steel. Tensile strength, forty kilobars. Commander, would you bend that?
PICARD: Objection. There are many life forms possessed of mega strength. These issues are not relevant to this hearing.

Exactly! What is this proving, that Data is a machine? We already knew that.

PICARD: You're talking about slavery.
GUINAN: I think that's a little harsh.
PICARD: I don't think that's a little harsh. I think that's the truth.

While very powerful emotionally, logically this slavery thing doesn't make sense. Declaring something to be a slave is also automatically implying that it's a sentient person, just one of lesser worth.
PICARD: Commander Riker has also reminded us that Lieutenant Commander Data was created by a human. Do we deny that? No. Again it is not relevant. Children are created from the building blocks of their parents' DNA.

The problem here is that humans can reproduce themselves by converting food into babies. No external mechanism required.

PICARD: Do you like Commander Data?
MADDOX: I don't know it well enough to like or dislike it.
Um, if Data is a toaster you can't like it. It sure sounds like Maddox was acknowledging that Data is a person here.

PICARD: A single Data, and forgive me, Commander, is a curiosity. A wonder, even. But thousands of Datas. Isn't that becoming a race? And won't we be judged by how we treat that race?
If Data isn't a sentient person, multiple Datas can't form a race, it's just a bunch of robots. Picard skipped a step here.

DATA: Sir, there is a celebration on the Holodeck.
RIKER: I have no right to be there.
DATA: Because you failed in your task?
RIKER: No, God, no. I came that close to winning, Data.
DATA: Yes, sir.
RIKER: I almost cost you your life!
DATA: Is it not true that had you refused to prosecute, Captain Louvois would have ruled summarily against me?
RIKER: Yes.
DATA: That action injured you, and saved me. I will not forget it.
RIKER: You're a wise man, my friend.
DATA: Not yet, sir. But with your help, I am learning.
Great scene.

The Fiver

Captain's Log: The Enterprise has docked at a magnificent but unfinished starbase. I'm to meet with Admiral Schubert in the morning.

Schubert's Symphony No. 8 is unfinished. Talk about an obscure joke.

Riker: I'll see your five and raise forty-two.

As the wise man said, 47 is 42 adjusted for inflation.

Picard: I need your help.
Louvois: Oh, did you blow up another ship?
Picard: No. Not... yet.

Not yet? The destruction of the E-D isn't his fault, the E-E is sort of his fault but it didn't blow up.

Worf: What kind of goodbye party is this? Where's the jazz music? Where's the death inflicted by me on the people playing the jazz music?
Riker: (in the doorway with his trombone) Um... I'll just be turning around then.

I hope this is a reference to "The Next Phase."

Guinan: You know, if Maddox wins, they'll eventually make more Datas. Soon there could be thousands, all intelligent but legally bound to obey their human masters. It would be like....
Picard: Tribbles! Guinan, you're so right! This is just like the tribble trade!

Since when do tribbles obey humans?

Memory Alpha

* Melissa Snodgrass: "As to the issue of law in Gene's vision. He nearly killed 'The Measure of a Man' because according to Gene there were no lawyers in the 24th century because if people had criminal intentions they 'had their minds made right'. I found that chilling." Yeah, brrrr. Brainwashing criminals. The case of Garth implies that there can be medication to cure insanity, but I doubt you can chemically eliminate criminal behavior entirely.
* First mention of the Daystrom Institute. As Phil mentions in the Nitpicker's Guide, why would you name anything after Richard Daystrom, the guy was out of his mind!

Nitpickers Guide

* Given what we know of Data's age, Maddox is too young to evaluate Data at the appropriate time.
* Phil wonders why the computer states that Data's current assignment is the Enterprise when he's been transferred to the Starbase. I argue that the transfer is in flux until this hearing is over. I'm reminded of Miracle on 34th Street when Kris answers the question "Where do you live?" with "That's what this hearing will decide."
* In Datalore the off switch was on the right side, in this episode the off switch is on the left side. I argue that Riker could easily reach across Data's back.
* Phil points out that by letting Data into the Academy and overruling Maddox, Data's sentience was already acknowledged if unofficially.
* Phil wonders why "toaster" would be a known quantity in the 24th century, enough for people to coin a phrase based on it. I argue that we use lots of quotes that use obsolete words in the present day.

YouTube

The extended ending, Data comforts Riker
Poker
Guinan, Picard, and slavery
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Last edited by Nate the Great; 02-14-2019 at 12:48 AM.
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