Datalore

Next Generation Episode #13

Written by Robert Lewin and Gene Roddenberry. Story by Robert Lewin and Maurice Hurley. Directed by Rob Bowman.

Stardate: 41242.4 First aired: 18 January 1988

The Enterprise investigates Omicron Theta, the colony where Data was discovered 26 years before by the USS Tripoli, just after the human colonists had been wiped out by an unknown force. Data discovers a laboratory containing parts for another completed android, built by the cyberneticist Noonien Soong. The android is reassembled on the Enterprise, and announces that it is Lore, an improved version of Data. He seems to have emotions, and to be rather arrogant. He soon admits he was built before Data, and was so perfect the colonists wanted him deactivated. Lore reveals that the colonists were wiped out by the Crystalline Entity, a massive space-dwelling creature. Lore incapacitates Data and takes his place, but Wesley notices, and reactivates the real Data - together, they prevent Lore from using the Crystalline Entity to destroy the Enterprise. Lore is transported into space.

Guest Cast

Brent Spiner as "Lore", Biff Yeager as "Argyle".

Trivia

• The original story had Data falling for a female android. It was Spiner who suggested that Data might have an evil twin. A lot is learned about Data's origins in this story, and the revelation that he was built by a human scientist contradicts the original concept for the character: that he was built by an unknown race of aliens who wanted to use him to learn about humanity (much as V'Ger used the android of Ilia in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

• Noonien Soong, like Khan Noonian Singh, was named after an army buddy of Gene Roddenberry.

• Lore returns in Brothers and Descent, and the Crystalline Entity reappears in Silicon Avatar.

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