My wife and I are rewatching The Next Generation and just finished Measure of a Man, the episode in season 2 in which Data’s personhood is legally debated and his life hangs in the balance.
I genuinely found this episode infuriating in its stupidity. It’s the first episode we skipped even a little bit. It was like nails on a chalkboard.
There is oodles of legal precedent that Data is a person. He was allowed to apply to Starfleet, graduated, became an officer and rose to the rank of Lt. Commander with all the responsibilities and privileges thereof.
Comparing him to a computer and the judge advocate general just shrugging and going to trial over it is completely idiotic. There are literal years and years of precedent that he’s an officer.
The problem is compounded because Picard can’t make the obvious legal argument and is therefore stuck philosophizing in a court room, which is all well and good, but it kind of comes down to whether or not Data has a soul? That’s not a legal argument.
The whole thing is so unbelievably ludicrous it just made me angrier and angrier. It wasn’t the high minded, humanistic future I’ve come to know and love, it was a kangaroo court where reason and precedent took a backseat to feeling and belief.
I genuinely hated it.
To my surprise, in looking it up, I discovered it’s considered one of the high water marks for the entire show. It feels like I’m taking crazy pills.
What bothered me most about this ep is that Riker is forced to act as some kind of prosecutor. And he’s like no, I won’t do it. And she’s like you better do it, and to the best of your ability yada yada or else I’m gonna something something. Like how is she gonna know if he does this to the best of his ability. Why wouldn’t he just completely blow it? Or at least in some plausible attempt at an effort. What was she gonna do then, have another trial for Riker for being a bad fake lawyer? Is the concept of conflict of interest not a thing in future robot court?
“You didn’t even try to turn him off!”
“I am literally incapable of doing that.”
The court thing mandates that high ranking officers are to assume the different positions needed for trial. His duty was to be the prosecutor at that moment. Not doing that could’ve been grounds for a court martial. Imagine him doing that for a murder case for someone else, totally ignoring the rules. There is no difference between a murder case and Data’s case. It would also lead to a mistrial. Sooo he would skirt his duty risking his career and nothing would change in the end - Data would probably have a new trial anyway.
Edit: there is the glarinf issue - a conflict of interest.
This is such a weird way to look at the world. “It must be this way because there are rules that say it must be that way and if we don’t follow the rules than the rules say we must fuck the career of anyone not following them.” Completely ignoring that these are rules that were made up by people with the intent of creating a capable and fair system and if the rules are bad, they can and should be changed.
Plus if you can’t find anyone to argue a position, maybe it’s a sign that that position doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on. It also doesn’t say anything good about Riker who was willing to risk his friend’s future and freedom to argue a position he strongly disagreed with because his career was at stake.
It’s standard in any command structure. Be it military or civillian shipping or something. You maybe can voice an opinion, but you are expected to do what is asked anyway.
It’s not that the position doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Defense lawyers will defend guilty people too and they will get them the best deal possible, and even let them walk if that’s what they can do. Grab a room of people who aren’t defense attorneys, and nobody would do it.
Also IIRC it was said in the episodes that it needs to be a high ranking officer. Hence Riker and Picard. There was a huge conflict of interest, but duty goes first.
The whole point of this episode is to challenge the viewer to think about the arguments. That’s all. Is it stupid as far as realism? Yeah it kinda is. But is it a subject matter many of the viewers at the time of it airing were thinking about? No.
I imagine the idea the writer had was “let’s challenge what the viewer thinks and/or feels without them knowing”. There’s a lot of that in ST throughout the years and I, for one have always been here for it.
It’s not the best episode, but it’s certainly not the worst.
Honestly I agree, the legal parts were cringe. I even saw a legal analysis of it on YouTube and they thought it was legally great.
But it’s pretty simple in my mind: if he didn’t have agency, he wouldn’t have been able to join Starfleet. The very basis of Starfleet accepting him means that he is capable of making his own decisions. And the very act of accepting him means he is not the property of Starfleet.
Either way Data is out. Sentient because you accepted him. Not sentient means his acceptance contract is void and obviously not property of Starfleet.
Starfleet rescued him off the planet and reactivated him. He was next to Lore who was completely disassebled. To people thinking Data isn’t a person, it was a salvage operation, not a rescue. Same as getting back a derelict doesn’t make it a person and makes it the property of Starfleet.
I’m having a hard time understanding what you’re trying to say.
Salvage rights are very complex on their own, you don’t automatically own other stuff simply because you come to their rescue (as in rescuing a ship) or flip a switch. It’s quite literally someone else’s property. So Starfleet didn’t own him.
Second, he’s an officer. You have to apply to officer school. Just like the children on the ship aren’t automatically enrolled in Starfleet, they and he have to apply. It’s a serious application. It’s not like this android was just kicking around on a ship and fell into being an officer. (Same goes for enlisted.) *For anyone that doesn’t want to read my next longer comment: Data signed a contract to enlist. To sign a contract requires agency, which starfleet accepted.
Abandonned property can be taken and used. It was thought that whoever was the “owner” of Data died in the crystaline entity incident.
As for enlistment - Data could learn what he needed to probably in a day. He was a huge asset and denying him entry would be a detriment to Starfleet, even if he was a “thing”. I don’t see enlisting as something that would only be offered to humans / not things, we see a ship “enlist” in Discovery for instance.
First, was it abandoned or were the residents fleeing for their lives under duress? Yeah the latter. This is very far from being long abandoned property. Even if the owner was killed, it’s not a sudden finders keepers. There are wills, or even without a will there are still legal inheritors that the courts figure out. Again, this is not an event from long ago, it literally just happened. If you want to claim legal ownership rights over something that wasn’t yours to begin with, it’s a serious task and the burden is on you. You don’t automatically assume legal ownership, basically the court would have to find in your favor that you can claim salvage. Until and unless that happens, you don’t have legal ownership. That means any difficulty/ambiguity/complexity in the matter leans away from the courts giving you legal ownership. Also, generally as the value of the object goes up, the difficulty of the salvage ownership claim goes up. The value and complexity of a working android is unfathomable and the difficulty of your salvage claim just shot into the stratosphere.
Second enlistment. This is not about learning. Enlisting is a contract. You need to have agency to sign that contract. This is why people under 18 and feeble minded people can not enter into a contract - they do not have agency.
That’s what Picard should have argued: 1) The very act of Starfleet accepting Data’s signature shows they thought Data had agency. Precedent was set. That means both sentience and the ability to decide to resign. That alone basically wins the case. But failing that we can look at the other side: 2) If the judge says that he has no agency to resign from Starfleet, that means that Data never had agency to enlist in Starfleet in the first place. The entire contract is null and void. Data has no legal relationship with Starfleet, they can not give him orders to report to Maddox, and Data is free to go. Which leaves you with the salvage claim, and as above good luck with that you’re going to need it.
That’s basically the same as what I said before but with more elaboration. That’s as elaborate an explanation that I care to make so I think that’s my last reply.
What about him joining Star Fleet proves without any doubt that he is a person?
It’s not about proving it beyond a doubt, the OP’s frustrarion is about how the whole courtroom drama was inaccurate.
The assumtion is this: Legally, Starfleet only allows sapent adults to join its ranks. So a toaster cannot be a starfleet officer, and neither can a dog.
The fact that he is an officer means that in legal terms, Starfleet has already decided that he is a person, and any court that asks this question has a quick and easy answer.
neither can a dog
Admiral Porthos: Am I a joke to you?
Every Star Trek episode involving a trial shows that the way Starfleet conducts its justice system is incredibly stupid.
The Menagerie, Measure of a Man (and like 3 other TNG episodes), Ad Astra Per Aspera, that DS9 one where the Klingons want to extradite Worf… all stupid.
The only one you can’t really blame for being stupid in this regard is Voyager, because they always have the “we aren’t in the Alpha Quadrant” excuse to fall back on.
The dumbest part is when the JAG appoints Riker as the…plantiff/prosecutor? And threatens to summarily vote in the plantiff’s favor if he refuses to serve in that capacity. “If you don’t do anything, you win.”
You are not taking crazy pills, its premise does suffer when watched with a “critical eye” (i.e. thinking about it even a little).
The reason it’s remembered so fondly (imho) is two fold. It is one of the first “thought provoking” episodes. And the first couple of seasons were… not the best to put it mildly.
edit: admittedly, I do enjoy it, but I really have to turn my brain off to do so.
Honestly, the validation means the world to me. The performances were all top notch and I get the idea they’re going for, but how they went there was so painful and contrived.
lol, no kidding. Even watching it as a kid my first thought was, “the fate of Data’s rights can be determined in an impromptu court session with bridge crew acting as lawyers!? Shouldn’t they have… real courts for this?”. At the time I didn’t consider the limitations of the show of course, and I do think the willingness to tackle high concepts was what made the show so special. But damn did the limitations show in this one.
The existing legal precedent is absolutely ignored in lieu of courtroom spectacle. An excuse to have Picard wax poetic, which he does to great effect.
🥵
All Johnny 5 had to do was laugh at a religious joke told by Steve Gottenburg. Guess the 80s were more advanced socially in that regard
They sure balanced out that social advancement with Fisher Stevens face painted to be an Indian engineer.
Dude, he wasn’t playing an Indian! He clearly says that his ancestors are from Pittsburgh
(is /s necessary here? Eh, I’ll put it in anyway)
/s
Nun soup?
Your argument ignores one important aspect.
They were looking for a reason to de-person him, to take him apart, and to build loads more like him to be used as slave labor in mines and other dangerous places.
Didn’t Legal Eagle on yt do a video about this ep?
In hindsight, there’s a book that sort of covers Data early career, or at least what he was doing when Picard met him. The main focus of the book is Picard’s time before the Enterprise. https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/The_Buried_Age
Noone is sure what to make of Data at that point. He is doing some computer database management stuff at some remote location and is content to just do that. Picard shows him how to have aspirations for more.
Starfleet never really thought or cared about Data’s needs or wants, let alone sentience, until Maddox wanted to vivisect him
