Data
The android second officer of the Enterprise-D, played by Brent Spiner.
Data is a self-aware, sapient android who serves as second officer and chief operations officer aboard the USS Enterprise-D and later the Enterprise-E. He is played by Brent Spiner in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the first and third seasons of Star Trek: Picard, the fifth season of Lower Decks, and the films Generations, First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis.
Quick Facts
- Series
- Star Trek: The Next Generation
- First
- "Encounter at Farpoint" (1987) (The Next Generation)
- Creator
- Gene Roddenberry; D. C. Fontana
- Species
- Soong-Type Synthetic intelligence Android-lifeform
- Affiliation
- United Federation of Planets; Starfleet
- Full name
- Data Soong
- Portrayed by
- Brent Spiner
- Origin
- Omicron Theta
Lore & Background
In many ways Data is a successor to the original series' Spock, with superior mental skills and an outsider's view of humanity. Gene Roddenberry told Spiner that Data would become more and more like a human over the series, coming very close by the end but never quite getting there.
Spiner saw in Data the Chaplinesque qualities of a sad, tragic clown and used Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet as a model. Eric Menyuk, Mark Lindsay Chapman, Kevin Peter Hall and Kelvin Han Yee were considered for the role before Spiner was cast.
More in Characters & Crews
Elsewhere in Star Trek
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