#He's right too! With what they're doing they aren't going to have any progeny | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wildishmazz · 3 years

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Who wants a half-baked hypothesis?

This is Lore.

Obviously, we all thought that in the first place, when we saw him, looked at his behaviour, learnt that his initials were "A. I." and scoffed that there's no way Brent Spiner would have played a character so exactly like Lore again by accident; but here's my headcanon for how it happened.

Bruce Maddox wanted to recreate Data. He always did. When Data got blown up on the Scimitar at the end of Nemesis(which we can't just pretend never happened), Maddox was there before the debris had cooled down to comb through the wreckage and find any surviving scraps of his positronic matrix. Evidently, he was successful. But then what to do with them? He wouldn't have been able to scavenge much, certainly not enough to waste on experiments.

So when he gets back to the Daystrom Institute, he starts trying to come up with a method for creating new Soong-type androids using cells from a specimen that they just happen to have in storage:

They've got this guy in a drawer.

So he starts his work, develops his method, but thanks to the synth ban he can't actually make anything. So he ups sticks to Coppélius and sets up a lab there. He tests it out, and successfully creates the first batch of new androids(including Saga and Arcana) - all shiny-skinned, artificially intelligent, but limited in intelligence and personality.

So, great - it definitely works, but they aren't exactly what he was hoping for. Are they simple and trusting because they're made from B4, or would the progeny of Data's cells be the same if they underwent the same procedure? He can't afford to waste a single cell. Perhaps he only has a single cell. He really could do with trying his synth manufacturing process on cells taken from an android more advanced, comparable to Data.

Well, the Daystrom Institute has this guy in a drawer, too.

One thing that we can say about Maddox is that he was confident in his abilities. One might even go so far as to say arrogant. He's also single minded in his quest - he'll sacrifice what he must sacrifice, risk what dangers he must, to get it done. So does he think it's dangerous to play with Lore? Probably. Does he think he can handle that danger? Absolutely. Besides, it's not as if he's planning to reactivate him, just harvest his positronic cells and grow them. How much of Lore's dangerous nature was(lack of) nurture? Maddox can handle it.

So he somehow spirits Lore - or enough of him to work with - away to his private little workshop planet, and loads him up into the computer to start punching out a second batch of more intelligent, quick witted androids(including Jana and Sutra). It works. Fantastic. 100% success rate. He can finally create new androids from Data!

Only that's not all he wants to do. He doesn't just want to create new androids, he would really like to bring back Data himself. And maybe he can do that. If he can rebuild Data's personality inside a simulation, as he has with Lore(oh, yes, he did that with Lore when he loaded his samples into the computer - surprisingly easy, actually, like the cells wanted him to and co-operated eagerly), and if he can create a blank body to load him into, it might just be possible.

New synths grow in pairs. It's an oddity of the process - you can't just create one. All the new Maddox-type androids are twins. Which is fine, but it does mean that when he makes the new blank body to put Data into, he's going to have a spare. Then again, might that not be an opportunity to practise? After all, Data is precious. He doesn't want to risk getting it wrong. And there is another Soong-type android mind sitting right there on the desk, so... it would be daft not to, really. And how dangerous would it really be? What threat does Lore really pose, without his superfast positronic brain, his superhuman strength and reflexes? And really, he doesn't seem all that dangerous. Whenever Maddox talks to him(oh yes, he talks to him, it would be rude not to and also a wasted opportunity to learn more about the androids' construction), he seems a little surly and sarcastic, but generally quite subdued. If he's transferred into an essentially human body, one not in prime condition, there's really nothing he can do that Maddox can't handle.

-is exactly what Lore's got him believing. Lore is very adept at making people think he's harmless, or at least controllable. Lore hops into one of the twin golems, and wakes up very pleased and grateful to be up and about.

He gladly works with Maddox to create the final second generation Soong-Maddox-type synths, Dahj and Soji. Maybe it’s even his idea to use the same template as his bronze-skinned, yellow-eyed daughters, but so much more physically advanced that they are convincingly human. ("Professor, did you know that Data once made himself a daughter? Why don't we make them look like her? I'm sure he would love that.")

At the same time he's working on Jana and Sutra, pointing out how unfair it is that they're actually only prototypes, they were practice, they were not the final product and now their creator has moved on to the daughters he really wanted in the first place. Doing exactly what his own creator did to him. They don't like this very much, and they are androids with superfast positronic brains and superhuman strength, and it isn't too long before Maddox is fleeing for his life.

Lore establishes his alter-ego, Altan Inigo Soong. He slightly reprogrammes the synths, implanting the false memories of him having always been there, always Maddox's partner in the venture from the beginning. He's ready to tell anyone who asks - if anyone would ever come there and ask - that his partner disappeared and he has no idea where he went. Now the only problem is that he genuinely would like to get Data into the other body, because he does actually miss his brother, but Maddox was frightened away too soon. So he's going to have to concoct some sort of plan to get someone as capable as him to come and finish the job. Seek out and summon Maddox's protegé.

Maddox, meanwhile, is so terrified of what would happen to him if he ever tried to return to Coppélius that he would rather take his chances in indentured servitude to stone cold exploiter and murdress Bjayzl than ever go back there.

#Star Trek: Picard #Alton Inigo Soong #Lore Soong #B4 Soong #Data Soong #Bruce Maddox

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