The Switch: Riker Powers Data Down
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
RIKER escalates to physical disassembly: he requests and removes Data's hand for inspection despite PICARD's objection, forcing the court to treat Data as an object and ratcheting up the courtroom's moral and visceral tension.
RIKER, trembling, flips the switch on Data's removed hand and turns him off; Data collapses inert, silence floods the room, Picard demands a recess, and Riker walks away broken, a single tear marking the human cost of the prosecution's strategy.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Detached, quietly satisfied that the demonstration provides material for his scientific aims; not outwardly emotional.
Maddox sits at the prosecution table, supportive and clinical, not vocally dominating this moment but implicated as the investigative authority whose research motive underpins the prosecution's case.
- • Establish legal authority to study and disassemble Data for research.
- • Use the hearing to secure access to Data's positronic systems.
- • Legitimize a procedural pathway for scientific examination.
- • Data's construction makes him the subject of scientific inquiry rather than moral consideration.
- • Objective mechanical evidence will convince legal authorities.
- • Institutional procedure will protect and permit research objectives.
Clinically neutral and controlled — prioritizes relevance and procedure over interpersonal appeal.
Judge Phillipa Louvois presides with procedural firmness: she rules on objections, inspects exhibits, permits the demonstration and the removal of Data's hand, and grants Picard's recess request after the collapse.
- • Run the hearing according to evidentiary rules and relevance.
- • Maintain courtroom order and impartial adjudication.
- • Allow both sides to present material they deem relevant.
- • Mechanical demonstration is pertinent to determining whether Data is property.
- • The judge's role is to weigh relevance and keep proceedings fair.
- • Emotional objections do not automatically override evidentiary value.
Outwardly righteous and furious during objections; afterward deeply shocked, bereft, and certain of an uphill fight.
Picard repeatedly objects to the relevancy of mechanical demonstrations, stands to demand the service record be read, and after Data collapses he is physically stunned, then requests a recess, visibly defeated and grief-stricken.
- • Prevent the court from reducing Data to mere machinery.
- • Ensure the full record and context (service record) are considered.
- • Protect his officer and friend from dehumanizing treatment.
- • Data is a person deserving full legal and moral consideration.
- • The court must consider the qualitative record, not just physical evidence.
- • Starfleet's moral authority hinges on protecting sentience.
Surface calm and cooperative; no discernible panic — then mechanically inert once powered off.
Data sits in the witness chair, places his hand on the scanner, answers Riker's questions plainly, allows his hand to be removed without protest, and—after Riker presses the switch—powers down and collapses, inert and motionless.
- • Answer the court's questions honestly and accurately.
- • Comply with lawful procedure and commands directed at him.
- • Demonstrate capabilities honestly when asked to do so.
- • Truth is demonstrated through verifiable data and definitions.
- • Obedience to the court and commanding officers is expected behavior.
- • His identity can be described and examined objectively.
Visible agony masked by professional composure — resolute and clinical on the surface, privately devastated (a single tear after the act).
Riker leads the prosecution's demonstration: presents the plasteel bar, requests removal of Data's hand, physically detaches the hand, whispers "I'm sorry" to Data, then bends down and presses Data's off-switch, causing Data to collapse.
- • Secure a decisive demonstration that Data is a machine to win the legal case.
- • Follow the Office of the Judge Advocate General's mandate and present admissible evidence.
- • Contain moral ambiguity through legal clarity, even at personal cost.
- • Physical, demonstrable evidence will persuade the court more than abstract argument.
- • Duty and institutional obligations can require painful personal sacrifices.
- • If Data is shown to be machine, Starfleet policy and scientific progress are served.
Not present; referenced as an authoritative origin figure shaping others' beliefs.
Doctor Noonien Soong is invoked in testimony as Data's creator; his identity is used to anchor the prosecution's argument that Data is 'made' and thus a constructed object rather than a person.
- • N/A — serves as referenced authority in court argumentation.
- • Provide historical/technical grounding for the prosecution's claims.
- • Soong's role as creator implies Data's artificiality and constructed status.
- • Technical authorship can be used to define legal categorization.
Absent but invoked; functions as a cautionary technical precedent.
Lore is referenced via the log record of his construction; the prototype's existence is used by the prosecution to compare and categorize Data as engineered and therefore property.
- • N/A — referenced to support an argument.
- • Serve as comparative evidence to characterize Data.
- • The prototype's documented construction provides an evidentiary template for other androids.
- • Recorded logs can substitute for live testimony about origin and design.
Impassive and purely functional.
The Computer Voice provides formal courtroom verification of Data's identity and service record details earlier in the proceedings, establishing an official record that frames the demonstration.
- • Authenticate personnel and announce recorded decorations and assignments.
- • Maintain an auditable, neutral record of proceedings.
- • Protocol and recorded metadata are authoritative.
- • Objective data should be presented verbatim in legal settings.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Data's off-switch is the immediate instrument of collapse: Riker bends down and depresses the port, effecting an instantaneous system-wide shutdown. The switch converts evidentiary rhetoric into a physical extinguishing of Data's presence and agency.
Commander Data's detached hand is removed by Riker and presented as physical evidence; Phillipa inspects it, Riker slaps it against his palm to make the point of artificiality, and then it is laid beside the now-motionless Data, becoming a stark visual symbol of the trial's dehumanization.
The courtroom witness chair physically holds Data during testimony and situates him for the scanner and the hand-removal; it frames the body's exposure and is the immediate platform from which Data collapses after being powered down.
The log record of Lore is invoked by Riker as evidentiary support for removing Data's hand and for the broader claim that these androids are engineered objects; the record is used to establish precedent and technical similarity between Lore and Data.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Witness Chair centers Data physically and symbolically, integrating biometric scanners and focusing judicial attention on his body; it is the immediate locus of inspection, hand removal, and collapse.
The courtroom counsel table positions Picard and Data before the bench and is the locus where the hand is laid beside Data after the shutdown, turning legal argument into a tableau of broken intimacy.
The Starfleet Judicial Courtroom provides the amphitheater-like public forum where technical definitions become public moral argument. Its formality and procedural apparatus convert private friendship into public precedent as the demonstration unfolds under official scrutiny.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Riker's vow during the fencing confrontation to do everything within the law presages and leads to his hard prosecutorial act in court—the removal of Data's hand and powering him down."
"Maddox's stated opposition to Data's Academy entry and his view of Data as non-sentient prefigure the prosecution's courtroom strategy to emphasize Data's manufactured origin and hardware."
"Maddox's stated opposition to Data's Academy entry and his view of Data as non-sentient prefigure the prosecution's courtroom strategy to emphasize Data's manufactured origin and hardware."
"Maddox's stated opposition to Data's Academy entry and his view of Data as non-sentient prefigure the prosecution's courtroom strategy to emphasize Data's manufactured origin and hardware."
"Riker powering Data down in court produces Picard's emotional collapse and need for counsel; Picard seeks Guinan immediately afterward, shaken and defeated."
"Riker powering Data down in court produces Picard's emotional collapse and need for counsel; Picard seeks Guinan immediately afterward, shaken and defeated."
"Riker powering Data down in court produces Picard's emotional collapse and need for counsel; Picard seeks Guinan immediately afterward, shaken and defeated."
"Riker's act of powering Data down haunts him and directly sets up the intimate reconciliation where Data reframes Riker's sacrifice and they repair their bond."
Themes This Exemplifies
Thematic resonance and meaning
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"RIKER: "Your honor, there is only one issue in this case and one relevant piece of evidence. I call Lieutenant Commander Data.""
"RIKER (sotto voce to Data): "I'm sorry.""
"RIKER: "And this man has turned him off. Pinocchio is broken, the strings are cut.""