Data

Lieutenant Commander Data ( ) is a character in the fictional Star Trek universe portrayed by actor Brent Spiner. He appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection and Star Trek: Nemesis. An artificial intelligence and synthetic life form designed and built by Doctor Noonien Soong, Data is a self-aware, sapient, sentient, and anatomically fully functional android who serves as the second officer and chief operations officer aboard the Federation starships USS Enterprise-D and USS Enterprise-E. His positronic brain allows him impressive computational capabilities. Data experienced ongoing difficulties during the early years of his life with understanding various aspects of human behavior and was unable to feel emotion or understand certain human idiosyncrasies, inspiring him to strive for his own humanity. This goal eventually led to the addition of an “emotion chip”, also created by Soong, to Data’s positronic net. Although Data’s endeavor to increase his humanity and desire for human emotional experience is a significant plot point (and source of humor) throughout the series, he consistently shows a nuanced sense of wisdom, sensitivity, and curiosity, garnering immense respect from his peers and colleagues. Data is in many ways a successor to the original Star Treks Spock (Leonard Nimoy), in that the character offers an “outsider’s” perspective on humanity, even briefly working with Spock in the two-part Next Generation episode, Unification.