Picard's Plea and Data's Refusal
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Admiral Nakamura appears on the viewscreen and shrugs off Picard's protest, framing Data's removal as a routine transfer while pressing Commander Maddox's robotics work as strategically vital—offering Data's cooperation with Maddox as the simple fix.
Picard, rattled, paces until the door chime arrests him; he summons Data into the ready room to confront the dilemma face-to-face.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Matter-of-fact and detached; he projects administrative inevitability rather than empathy.
Admiral Nakamura appears on Picard's viewscreen, frames the transfer as routine and strategically necessary for Starfleet, and brusquely proposes Data work with Commander Maddox rather than debate the order.
- • Enforce Starfleet Command's priority to advance robotics research.
- • Present the transfer as non-controversial to minimize conflict with Picard.
- • Ensure resources and talent (Data) are available to replicate Soong's work.
- • Institutional progress and parity across Starfleet outweigh individual commander objections.
- • Centralized decisions from Starfleet Command are justified when strategic advantage is at stake.
- • Offering a pragmatic compromise (work with Maddox) will neutralize resistance.
Distressed and determined; externally controlled command presence masking personal grief about losing a valued officer and fear about institutional precedent.
Picard receives a brusque transfer order via viewscreen, summons Data, attempts a private pragmatic negotiation to preserve both duty and friendship, then shifts to procedural mode by ordering regulations retrieved.
- • Prevent Data from being forcibly disassembled and transferred.
- • Protect the ship's operational capability while satisfying Starfleet's demands.
- • Find a solution that spares Data physical harm and preserves Picard's moral responsibility to his crew.
- • Starfleet's chain-of-command and regulations create obligations that can legitimately require service.
- • Personal loyalty to officers should be weighed against institutional needs but can be negotiated.
- • If Data volunteers, Picard can avert worse institutional intrusion.
Calm and resolute; his surface neutrality conceals the gravity of asserting agency against an institutional claim on his body.
Data enters when summoned, answers Picard calmly, refuses the disassembly procedure with dignified firmness, and uses a probing ethical analogy about La Forge's eyes to expose the inconsistency in Picard's argument.
- • Protect his physical and personal integrity by refusing involuntary disassembly.
- • Clarify the ethical inconsistency in applying duty to an entity not recognized as human.
- • Force Picard to confront the moral implications of Starfleet's actions.
- • He is not human and that status is central to how rules are being applied to him.
- • Procedural or utilitarian arguments do not negate individual rights to bodily autonomy.
- • Logical analogy can reveal moral hypocrisy and change minds.
Impartial and mechanical; no emotion, only function.
The ship's Computer Voice obediently begins retrieving and displaying Starfleet regulations at Picard's vocal command, transforming a moral debate into documentary, procedural evidence.
- • Provide the requested regulatory materials quickly and accurately.
- • Objectively record and display institutional rules relevant to the dispute.
- • Commands from authorized officers should be executed without interpretation.
- • Displaying regulations will aid decision-making by supplying formal context.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Picard's desk functions as both a physical barrier and intimate stage: Picard sits on its corner to lower the formality and persuades Data face-to-face; he also uses the desk's com to issue the command that summons regulations, making the desk a locus of both personal appeal and procedural action.
The ready-room viewscreen transmits Admiral Nakamura's brusque transfer order and political framing, then goes blank — visually marking the removal of diplomatic buffer and leaving Picard to confront Data privately. The screen later displays scrolling regulations as Picard commands.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Captain's Ready Room frames the episode's moral-tempest: a private, formal space where institutional commands intrude into personal stewardship. It compresses public policy into intimate persuasion, forcing a commander to negotiate between friendship and duty while procedural instruments are summoned within the room.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Maddox produces formal Starfleet transfer orders for Data, which directly forces Picard to seek a non-coercive solution—he asks Data to submit voluntarily as an attempt to avert the transfer."
"Maddox produces formal Starfleet transfer orders for Data, which directly forces Picard to seek a non-coercive solution—he asks Data to submit voluntarily as an attempt to avert the transfer."
"Maddox produces formal Starfleet transfer orders for Data, which directly forces Picard to seek a non-coercive solution—he asks Data to submit voluntarily as an attempt to avert the transfer."
"Data's explicit refusal to submit to Maddox's procedure precipitates his decision to resign from Starfleet as the only legal means to block the transfer."
"Data's explicit refusal to submit to Maddox's procedure precipitates his decision to resign from Starfleet as the only legal means to block the transfer."
Key Dialogue
"NAKAMURA: "Look, it's a transfer, like any other transfer.""
"PICARD: "Undergo the procedure, then the transfer order becomes moot.""
"DATA: "I will not submit to this procedure.""
"DATA: "Then why are not all human officers required to have their eyes replaced with cybernetic implants?... I see. It is precisely because I am not human.""