Of course not. They do it with holographic projections and forcefields. This is, after all, TEH FUTAH.
(.....in spaaaaaace!)
Geordi is not really not that likeable of a character and it's really too bad
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Of course not. They do it with holographic projections and forcefields. This is, after all, TEH FUTAH.
(.....in spaaaaaace!)
True. While TNG had many characters say "end program" versus "Save program", Computer might have saved it without proper verbal confirmation. Never mind "save program and clear" since, I'd hope, "and clear" refers to local memory and not the actual program file being wiped! For this level of minutiae, TNG was definitely vague when not inconsistent. If the program was ended (deleted automatically to save resources), then there'd be no story.
Even then, the vague thing works both ways - no further episode suggested conclusively that Geordi was revisiting that program, or altering it to get backrubs galore?
Don't holodecks simulate all the fun stuff with forcefields and replicator technologies embedded, no pun intended?
Yeah, natural communication is best... That seemed to be the idea for the story, per Guinan, but could the story have told it better and in less cringey ways?
If it was conclusive he used it as a toy, which he hadn't - even Geordi states outright about her not having seen the full program and that does exonerate him as he even said no to the computer instigating a backrub and he didn't want it (albeit during the emergency, but Leah did make an accusation of other programs
The scene:
So far, very fair points - it is creepy.
This now gets a bit accusatory, but she has the most important point - Geordi did want a more human-style personality than the image spouting technical info. Indeed, why conjure up Leah at all when the ship's computer was also doing a back-and-forth with him. Geordi didn't need to go this far. +100 to Leah (That said, he only wanted to know what the designer looked like, for accurate visage, not based on anybody that matched Geordy's "type" (e.g. Christy).
His retort sums it up and Leah did take it out of context, though I agree he didn't need to create a visage of her for any reason other than to make the season 3 story more interesting than a back-and-forth with the computer.
Not to mention, that "you're touching me" was not asked by Geordi but was part of the computer's 9% margin of error. Geordi knew there was a margin of error but still wanted to deal with "a human", whether this is due to having been dumped by Christy at the start of the episode or because this was a big problem and wanted other than the computer voice...?
She's continuing to emote personally and most of us would feel the same way as a snap reaction. Again, we the audience knew of the previous episode and there were no other programs. The only weirdness is Geordi creating the program, but the computer did all the rest and in ways he wasn't expecting.
She was curt from the get-go and if it weren't for the "is that right?" moment (Geordi thinking he's cool in such knowledge of her and still thinking that she would be impressed by it all because he wanted to know more about a person visiting a ship beforehand, but in reality, she's creeped out, worried, uncomfortable, scared because it's personal info rather than professional writings about the ship...)
But was Geordi intentionally using her visage for hookups? I still can't fathom things being for that reason. Out of touch, arguably and likely, but as a sleazazoid? Not thinking that. Of course, if other crewmembers known for getting it on with ease acted the same way, would it be any different?
On Staaaaaaaaaaaar Trek The Next Generation!
Those teasers had some moments of greatness, but "Staaaaaaar" to emphasize the EPIC nature of the show rarely landed... very 80s, though.
S1 Geordi was also IMHO, a lot more superficially presented, unrelatable, & even phony at times, with some occasionally very corny dialog. If he'd stayed that way, I doubt I'd have ever cared about him at all. Fortunately, that wasn't the case.
He became a lot more real, & relatable by S2 & S3. Season 3's The Enemy is, in my book, everything Geordi should be. He really became the most "every-man" of the crew at that point.
And that's the rub. Did he have more stories with conflict & imperfection, & even some character flaws? Certainly. Do you know why? Because that's what every man has.
In the end, he has one of the best played friendships in the whole franchise, & is a very believable (if sometimes flawed) working manager. I believe he's more so than even Scotty, who in his day was largely portrayed as more of an inexplicable miracle worker. Geordi had no such rep. He had to visibly strive through every dilemma to get his miraculous or at least survivable outcome.
Frankly, I found him a much more tolerable presence than Riker, Troi, or Crusher, all of whom possessed airs of superiority much more & more often than him imho.
I just would like to say Star Trek was hopelessly ruined in First Contact when they took Geordi's visor away for those un interesting white contacts
Maybe, but at least the story was interesting. After Geordi's visor had been used against him twice (and the second time caused the destruction of the flagship), Starfleet Command declared that he had to either go to implants or not be allowed in high security locations.
I think Geordi is kinda rude to women when his advances don’t go his way, but I don’t think he’s an unlikeable character. If anything, he’s the TNG character that gets messed up the most… his blindness joked about (by Riker in “The Naked Now”), his VISOR always coming off, getting shot down by Pakleds and women, being tortured by Romulans… bro had it rough.
Three times, if you consider Lore was planning on using it to tinker with his expatriated Borg drones. That dang thing dangling off knobs on his face was just a huge liability, when there were other similar options
After "Brothers" (Daddy took him over),
"Descent" (big butch bully brother Lore got him),
"The Schizoid Man", (Dr Graves took him and put his consciousness in him)
and "Evolution" (at least the little fritters were cute and didn't use Data to go all psycho on everyone else),
(The list covers entities that could only usurp Data; episodes where Data with the rest of the crew, or directly analogous to the crew (e.g. mental breakdown vs programming malfunction) can't count...)
and Picard didn't lock him up in his quarters as a result?
Even more fun: When asking a text-input query-based AI system to see what episodes it would list for the instances that Data was compromised, it omitted some of the aforementioned episodes, included others erroneously, and - most entertainingly of all - stated that "The Chain of Command" had Data being captured and tortured by Cardassians. Erm, no, that was Picard who was captured. Different verbiage didn't help and saying "you're wrong" with it spouting even greater goofiness was quite entertaining...
You forgot Masks. Data was actually overtaken in Power Play as well, but so we're Troi & O'Brien. Apart from Geordi in The Mind's Eye, Troi was also overtaken in Clues, & Man of The People. Barclay in the Nth Degree, everybody is taken over in The Game, arguably Beverly in Sub Rosa & even the ship itself is possessed by intelligence in Emergence.
One could also argue that Data was somehow outside his own control in Fistful of Datas & Phantasms, though not specifically hijacked... & Maybe Geordi in Identity Crisis?
Data is by far not the only case of having someone lose autonomy, & shouldn't be singled out for it. I doubt they'd demand Geordi ditch the visor either, but maybe he'd just personally had enough, after three close calls.
Data is more concerning to me is the ability to lock out controls by perfect mimicry of his CO's voice.
Notice we never see that happen again under any circumstance. (including Descent, & lord knows Lore would've liked to take them down using Data, if he could've) By then, all Data managed to pull off is freeing a prisoner & hijacking a shuttle. Security must be better.
I like to think a whole lot of fixes for what he did in Brothers got implemented after that. It really is the only way they'd trust things after that. It was probably the best debugging Starfleet ever had, & ultimately it was no harm no foul. I imagine it being programmed to recognize when it's Data or potentially any Soong android
D'oh! I just saw that one... but I was rushing for time as well.
I avoided any episode that had critters invading/taking over humans as I was honing on only entities that could take over machines, since there's a running gag about Data's not being trustworthy over how often he's allegedly taken over and trying to keep such a differentiation for a later point... (Not to mention how often people get taken over, and for a similar reason...)
Phantasms and Fistful both involved his dream subroutine or whatever? I avoided self-ailment the same way I avoided a human being psychotic and running around doing nasty things, or sick via the flu (which the DNA-changing viral thing afflicting Geordi arguably counts as?), so technically "The Naked Now" is just one best forgotten, even if (a) Data discusses "suck vs blow" to Riker and (b) the mannequins in the room on the Tsiolkovsky tastefully done, oddly.
Apart from decades' worth of youtube reviews and social media citing how Data is still a machine, not an independently sentient biological lifeform, such as this:
The end goal was to actually put up a rebuttal to that claim.
Also, an analogy as to if Data is genuinely and independently sentient only goes so far. Especially as there's one determining factor in all of this:
No biological creature that oozed out of a planet's ecology has a switch in back labeled "on" and "off". That's a huge distinction and Soong put it there for either one or two reasons, if not both. One reason being control. The other to differentiate a fully independent, actual life to that of a construct. But Data does have such a direct switch, right above the 120V/180W generator extension socket that only Soong, Lore, B4, Lal, and Yar knew about.
Which leads to yet another fun tangent:
Was it hypocritical of Commander Data to refuse to allow a Starfleet scientist to disassemble him with the intent of making more androids...
Answer (1 of 14): This seems like a pretty silly question. It wasn’t Android research that Data objected to. It was having to sacrifice his own life for the sake of it. In contrast, Data didn’t kill anyone in order to create Lal, so I don’t see any clear hypocrisy there. Suppose someone came to ...
Or an easier analogy, how come we find it easier to look at a pet and figure out its emotional state and how it acts and reacts versus a computer with robotic appendages? One still feels less genuine than the other.
Thankfully it was only under the influence of Soong's homing beacon and overriding command of "haul your shiny metal heiney home" that led Data to do everything he had. I might argue it leans toward sentience, but the evidence shown still feels more like preprogramed responses upon a command to do so. Now if Data were sentient, why wouldn't he just overtake the ship and bugger off to anywhere he wanted to go based on independent reasoning, whatever that is? (The fact Data chose to mimic Picard's voice as opposed to simply using brute force being an interesting clue for sure, as water and electricity always take the path of lease resistance to it. Forging another's voice, not so much...)
How about Picard, then?
Taken over by an energy entity in Lonely Among Us
Gets addicted in The Game
Ferengi hack into his mind in The Battle
Kidnapped and duplicated in Allegiance
Memory wiped in Clues (in fact, entire crew except Data)
Memory wiped in Conundrum (again, entire crew)
Mind taken over in The Inner Light
Taken over by the Borg in Best of Both Worlds
and I might even have forgotten a few instances. Not including episodes that involve possible Q takeovers of the mind (Tapestry, All good Things) since he's omnipotent anyway, or episodes where it is voluntary (Sarek).
And while Data has the advantage of physical strength, you'd better make sure of yourself before you take action against the Captain.
Taken over by an energy entity in Lonely Among Us
Gets addicted in The Game
Ferengi hack into his mind in The Battle
Kidnapped and duplicated in Allegiance
Memory wiped in Clues (in fact, entire crew except Data)
Memory wiped in Conundrum (again, entire crew)
Mind taken over in The Inner Light
Taken over by the Borg in Best of Both Worlds
and I might even have forgotten a few instances. Not including episodes that involve possible Q takeovers of the mind (Tapestry, All good Things) since he's omnipotent anyway, or episodes where it is voluntary (Sarek).
And while Data has the advantage of physical strength, you'd better make sure of yourself before you take action against the Captain.
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