Spoilers It seems that Data's backstory might be retconned back to the original version...

[Unimatrix Q]

According to the TNG Season 1 Writer's Guide, before the backstory with Soong was written, Data wasn't created by Soong but by Aliens.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation_Writers'/Directors'_Guide

You can find a few versions of the Guide on this site.

Looks like the writers may retcon Data's (and Lore's) origin story back to the original version and Soong may not have created him, but simply found him on the Android planet...

 

[Tosk]

How would they explain Data, Lore, and B-4 looking exactly like Soong?

 

[Timo]

The face would supposedly be malleable, like on Lal. Perhaps Soong chose that face for his "creations" out of vanity - and malleable android faces were such a commonplace thing that nobody thought that a silly tin man with the face of Soong would actually have been created by Soong. (Instead, everybody would assume Data's face was in mockery of Often Wrong Soong, a prank by somebody else.)

But building of android bodies isn't the real issue. Did Soong steal the secret of working brains from the Android Planet and then graft that onto a random android of his making, having been frustrated in his own quest to create "positronic" brains? He'd then slap the moniker onto the stolen brain design, and after "Datalore", it would stick.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unimatrix Q]

How would they explain Data, Lore, and B-4 looking exactly like Soong?

Maybe the inhabitants knew about Soong coming to the planet for some time and created Data in his image.

Or alternately Soong created Data together with them.

 

[Alexander Corrino]

Soong stealing the whole android idea would kinda make sense since he did seem to have a reputation among the colonists for being a failure as a scientist, IIRC. Wouldn't surprise me to hear that he stole it all.

 

[Tosk]

I'm not sure how the events of the last episode indicate a possible retroactive change to Data's origin. Can someone lay it out for me?

 

[Timo]

With the transcripts site down, I can't. But the impression I got was that the place is home to Data-like androids, and has been for millennia. Nothing overtly specific about what "Data-like" means, really: the word "positronic" wasn't uttered IIRC. (But only IIRC.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unimatrix Q]

I'm not sure how the events of the last episode indicate a possible retroactive change to Data's origin. Can someone lay it out for me?

According to the trailer for next episode, we visit the android planet. Seems logical to me with all what we learnt about Dahj, Soji and the other synths, that we might learn something new about Data and his history too.

 

[SJGardner]

It's not necessary that Data, Lore, B4 et al were all created by aliens and just stolen by Soong and presented as his. I think it's more likely he stole the template for positronic circuitry and tried to reverse-engineer it. The existence of B4 as a prototype with an inferior processing unit seems to suggest so for me - he couldn't replicate the positronic brain perfectly on the first few tries, and perhaps Data and Lore were the first ones whose capabilities were deemed satisfactory, if not necessarily perfect replicas.

 

[Timo]

Or then there were no imperfect prototypes, and B4 was a Romulan fake, just like Shinzon was. Soong created Lore and Data and abandoned both as flawed, even though we see both are quite capable; perhaps Soong was unable to actually develop anything, and never made any progress beyond the template he stole from the planet, save for trivially applying a more human face on his wifebot, and perhaps an even less human on those models that preceded Lore.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ALF]

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Juliana_Tainer

"The android duplicate of Doctor Juliana Tainer was created from the body of, and contained the consciousness of, the mid-24th century Federation geologist Juliana Soong. This android was designed and created in 2338 by Dr. Noonien Soong to replace his comatose and later deceased Human wife."​

I don't think the retcon as described will play into every former storyline seamlessly. It also depicts Soong as kind of a fraud, since he would become a reverse-engineerer of androids instead of the galaxy's leading mind on creating them from scratch. On the other hand, I do recall Datalore's assertion that Soong went into hiding after being unable to make his androids successful.

Wasn't Julia Trainer much more advanced than Data/not self aware? Data only realized she was a Soong type android after noticing she blinked in the same non-random pattern as he did.

It might be really interesting to find out more about B4's origins in Star Trek: Picard. How the Romulans came upon him, etc. They haven't mentioned B4 in the series yet by name, have they? Is he still singing Blue Skies somewhere?

 

[Llywela]

It might be really interesting to find out more about B4's origins in Star Trek: Picard. How the Romulans came upon him, etc. They haven't mentioned B4 in the series yet by name, have they? Is he still singing Blue Skies somewhere?

We have seen B4 in this series, yes - he is disassembled, in a drawer at the Daystrom Institute. Jurati showed him to Picard way back - in the first or second episode, I believe.

 

[SG-17]

Maybe Soong, and his ancestor, were in fact bio-androids from this planet who were exiled or sent out with a mission?

 

[ITDUDE]

These images are 200,000 years old:

OMG, I just agreed with one of Unimatrix’s wild theories. That’s it, need to self quarantine myself and check for signs of coronavirus

 

[Tosk]

According to Chabon the images are not old, we see them as interpreted by modern minds.

 

[ITDUDE]

According to Chabon the images are not old, we see them as interpreted by modern minds.

How boring. We go out our minds analyzing each frame, and then it doesn’t even mean what we think it means?

 

[Timo]

I don't think the retcon as described will play into every former storyline seamlessly. It also depicts Soong as kind of a fraud, since he would become a reverse-engineerer of androids instead of the galaxy's leading mind on creating them from scratch. On the other hand, I do recall Datalore's assertion that Soong went into hiding after being unable to make his androids successful.

Having Soong be a fraud would be a fun plot twist IMHO...

Wasn't Julia Trainer much more advanced than Data/not self aware? Data only realized she was a Soong type android after noticing she blinked in the same non-random pattern as he did.

We didn't get anything especially advanced out of her: indeed, beneath the skin, she seemed to be just another DataLore, down to that blinking pattern.

Data already had this "aging routine" installed, say. That his skin was white need not be a sign that Soong couldn't do better: it's explicit that Soong wanted to keep the villagers at ease by making Data not particularly humanlike and indeed somewhat comical. Perhaps his previous works were human-looking, but with Lore he went for the clown angle, and with Data he went further?

It might be really interesting to find out more about B4's origins in Star Trek: Picard. How the Romulans came upon him, etc. They haven't mentioned B4 in the series yet by name, have they? Is he still singing Blue Skies somewhere?

"Remembrance" did specify the dismantled android as B4, now didn't it? We aren't speculating about it having been Lore any longer, at any rate.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lord Garth]

According to Chabon the images are not old, we see them as interpreted by modern minds.

I see what Chabon did there. The Synths, however they might've looked thousands of years ago, have been visually rebooted for a 24th Century Zhat Vash audience.

 

[Gonzo]

Soong stealing the whole android idea would kinda make sense since he did seem to have a reputation among the colonists for being a failure as a scientist, IIRC. Wouldn't surprise me to hear that he stole it all.

It certainly makes more sense than Maddox having done it all in such a short space of time.

It was probably already there when he found it, Maddox may just be a useful lightning rod.

 

[Gonzo]

How boring. We go out our minds analyzing each frame, and then it doesn’t even mean what we think it means?

Its possible that the Zhat Vash have done exactly the same thing.