Lt. Commander Data (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
humandroid) wrote2015-05-01 12:11 am
humandroid) wrote2015-05-01 12:11 am
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IC INFO
_CHARACTER'S NAME: Data (maybe technically NFN/NMI DATA)
_CANON: Star Trek: the Next Generation
_CANON POINT: post 'Contagion,' S2 E11
_CHARACTER'S (ACTUAL) AGE: 26, going by the date of his reactivation by Starfleet officers. Going by his date of construction in general, it's a lot harder to say for sure.
_CHARACTER'S (APPARENT) AGE: Late 20s, early 30s.
_HISTORY: Here!
_ABILITIES:
_PERSONALITY:
Data's primary motivation can be summed up very simply: he's a sentient android whose greatest desire is to understand and emulate human nature. Through the actions he takes and the challenges he encounters, Data often comes around to reflecting on his experiences as they relate to that desire and to his future goals. He's incapable of human emotion, but strives to become more human nonetheless. He firmly believes that he can surpass the limits of his own programming, and that even if he can never achieve true humanity, the effort itself bears its own rewards. He explicitly chooses, every day, to believe that he is "more than a collection of circuits and sub-processors".
Data is a highly intelligent, highly logical, and highly capable being. He's consistently polite, gentle, and kind, with a recurring habit of placing himself in danger for the sake of others. As Picard put it, he's "learned the lessons of humanity well." As a bridge officer, researcher, source of textbook knowledge, and hand in matters both intellectual and heavy-lifting related, Lt. Commander Data is stellar in his performance. He possesses an insatiable curiosity about the ins and outs of human behavior: from emotional responses to turns of phrase to the simplest thought processes. Social cues tend to elude him, particularly sarcasm, joking statements, deception, and (as he'd put it) colloquialisms.
Socially, he's kind of a hot mess. While he's venturing to become more human, it's generally clear that he has a way to go yet. He has some skill in picking up on a person's current emotional state through varying cues (noticing when they are particularly quiet or behaving differently around him, for example). But perceptiveness comes coupled with his passionate curiosity about emotions/humanity, which normally means he'll ask a lot of probing questions rather than letting sleeping dogs lie. While he might try to help someone feel better or to reassure them- even by relating his experiences to their own- the crux of the matter is often that he can't genuinely understand how human emotions feel and work.
While canon makes a regular case for the presence of a form of emotion that Data isn't aware he possesses, often claiming he has no feelings whatsoever, they're either so subtle or so different from human expression that he still doesn't understand they may be more than his own programming. Interacting with people is ultimately one of his biggest fallacies.
For all his intelligence, Data also has a sort of innocence about him. As Tasha Yar put it in her holographic farewell messages, he often sees things with the wonder of a child. He's full of information- facts and statistics, historical records, logs and languages- but is regularly fascinated by some of the most minor human experiences.
He's voraciously curious and even at times... almost passionate in his quests for context or information, from both a scientific and personal perspective. His inquisitive approach to human nature has led him to make queries about everything from mental health to humor, often without realizing he may be overstepping bounds or broaching uncomfortable subject matter until he's directly informed. If there's an aspect of human nature to be explored-- from creativity to humor to games to turns of phrase to biological functions such as sneezing and yawning-- Data is fascinated by it and willing to explore it personally.
Data is a strange mix of the advanced and the backwards. He's capable of many things both physically and mentally, but is lacking emotionally and socially. For all his ongoing knowledge of and experience with humanity, he still only seems to just be learning about the more subtle aspects of human behavior. He wishes to be human, understands that he likely never will be close to it or capable of feeling (as far as he's aware), and has made peace with the fact that the effort itself is worth making nonetheless. In many ways, he's seeking to understand himself through his pursuits as much as he seeks to understand others.
_CHARACTER'S NAME: Data (maybe technically NFN/NMI DATA)
_CANON: Star Trek: the Next Generation
_CANON POINT: post 'Contagion,' S2 E11
_CHARACTER'S (ACTUAL) AGE: 26, going by the date of his reactivation by Starfleet officers. Going by his date of construction in general, it's a lot harder to say for sure.
_CHARACTER'S (APPARENT) AGE: Late 20s, early 30s.
_HISTORY: Here!
_ABILITIES:
- Data's physical strength and endurance is generally far greater than that of a human. He's capable of lifting incredibly heavy things with ease (from humans, a la "Encounter at Farpoint," to solid iron anvils, a la "Time's Arrow," and beyond), and has proven to be much more difficult to physically damage than humans. There are some perks to being primarily constructed with metal, and it just turns out that beating everyone on board in arm wrestling and calmly enduring a Klingon headbutt are two of them.
He also doesn't require food or sleep to function adequately, doesn't need to breathe, and is immune to: alcoholic intoxication, diseases, telepathic/empathic abilities (probably because he isn't human: it's hard to read the emotions of someone who can't feel, or the thoughts of someone whose brain is actually a processing computer), the eventually fatal impact of aging, and radiation that would be fatal or harmful to humans. He has a precise internal clock, too. That can be pretty handy.
That said, Data is susceptible to damage by plasma/electronic shock. It can render him nonfunctional for a while, and if it causes significant damage, could potentially even render him beyond repair (depending on the damage and the skills of whoever tries to repair him). Data can be disassembled: his limbs and head detach, and his torso splits into two segments. If he's disassembled, he's not operational. He even has a switch which can be used to shut him down instantly (though he tries to be discreet about its existence and location on his person). His physical endurance doesn't mean he absolutely can't be harmed, damaged, or shut down through physical means: while he's very resilient, his internal system is made up of some very delicate, very specific technology, which can be much more easily messed up than repaired. Plus, if he tries to go swimming, he'll sink like a rock. He has no buoyancy.
-Mentally, Data's capable of incredibly fast processing in any situation where his ability to operate isn't impeded. His fingers have the ability to match his mental speed, meaning he can input commands and data at a console very quickly if he needs to. He remembers every fact that he's exposed to and every experience he has (discounting events where he's tampered with or controlled by other forces) with perfect clarity, and is even capable of imitating the voice of anyone that he's heard speak. Academically, he's more or less a walking encyclopedia. He has a proficiency for instruments (the violin and guitar have both been played by him canonically) and for art (referenced multiple times throughout the series as he endeavors to master all forms of painting), oddly passionate outlets for such an dispassionate man.
_PERSONALITY:
Data's primary motivation can be summed up very simply: he's a sentient android whose greatest desire is to understand and emulate human nature. Through the actions he takes and the challenges he encounters, Data often comes around to reflecting on his experiences as they relate to that desire and to his future goals. He's incapable of human emotion, but strives to become more human nonetheless. He firmly believes that he can surpass the limits of his own programming, and that even if he can never achieve true humanity, the effort itself bears its own rewards. He explicitly chooses, every day, to believe that he is "more than a collection of circuits and sub-processors".
Data is a highly intelligent, highly logical, and highly capable being. He's consistently polite, gentle, and kind, with a recurring habit of placing himself in danger for the sake of others. As Picard put it, he's "learned the lessons of humanity well." As a bridge officer, researcher, source of textbook knowledge, and hand in matters both intellectual and heavy-lifting related, Lt. Commander Data is stellar in his performance. He possesses an insatiable curiosity about the ins and outs of human behavior: from emotional responses to turns of phrase to the simplest thought processes. Social cues tend to elude him, particularly sarcasm, joking statements, deception, and (as he'd put it) colloquialisms.
Socially, he's kind of a hot mess. While he's venturing to become more human, it's generally clear that he has a way to go yet. He has some skill in picking up on a person's current emotional state through varying cues (noticing when they are particularly quiet or behaving differently around him, for example). But perceptiveness comes coupled with his passionate curiosity about emotions/humanity, which normally means he'll ask a lot of probing questions rather than letting sleeping dogs lie. While he might try to help someone feel better or to reassure them- even by relating his experiences to their own- the crux of the matter is often that he can't genuinely understand how human emotions feel and work.
While canon makes a regular case for the presence of a form of emotion that Data isn't aware he possesses, often claiming he has no feelings whatsoever, they're either so subtle or so different from human expression that he still doesn't understand they may be more than his own programming. Interacting with people is ultimately one of his biggest fallacies.
For all his intelligence, Data also has a sort of innocence about him. As Tasha Yar put it in her holographic farewell messages, he often sees things with the wonder of a child. He's full of information- facts and statistics, historical records, logs and languages- but is regularly fascinated by some of the most minor human experiences.
He's voraciously curious and even at times... almost passionate in his quests for context or information, from both a scientific and personal perspective. His inquisitive approach to human nature has led him to make queries about everything from mental health to humor, often without realizing he may be overstepping bounds or broaching uncomfortable subject matter until he's directly informed. If there's an aspect of human nature to be explored-- from creativity to humor to games to turns of phrase to biological functions such as sneezing and yawning-- Data is fascinated by it and willing to explore it personally.
Data is a strange mix of the advanced and the backwards. He's capable of many things both physically and mentally, but is lacking emotionally and socially. For all his ongoing knowledge of and experience with humanity, he still only seems to just be learning about the more subtle aspects of human behavior. He wishes to be human, understands that he likely never will be close to it or capable of feeling (as far as he's aware), and has made peace with the fact that the effort itself is worth making nonetheless. In many ways, he's seeking to understand himself through his pursuits as much as he seeks to understand others.