Troi Passes the Moral Burden to Data
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Troi reframes the problem to character: what kind of man is Riker? Data answers—he’s a fighter who presses harder from weakness—and Troi affirms he won’t give up, nailing a character-driven predictive model.
Data probes the moral edge—asks if such unwavering identity is a human failing—while Troi refuses to judge and hands the decision back to him as they exit. Responsibility shifts onto Data, forcing self-directed evaluation beyond pure logic.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Primarily analytical curiosity that fractures into epistemic doubt — a machine's discomfort when logical models encounter a moral category they cannot resolve purely mathematically.
Data delivers a clinical, example-driven tactical analysis, paces while thinking aloud, chains recursive counterfactuals about Riker's potential responses, then vulnerably asks whether Riker's stubbornness is a human failing. His mode shifts from dispassionate calculation to introspective uncertainty.
- • Produce a usable, predictive model of Riker's tactics to prepare the captain and crew.
- • Test the boundaries of pure logic when applied to human behavior and detect anomalous variables.
- • Avoid command surprises by exhausting possible counter-moves through recursion.
- • Human behavior is in principle modelable and predictable by statistical examples.
- • Sufficient recursion should yield reliable tactical probabilities.
- • Moral categories may be outside the scope of pure logic but are relevant to command decisions.
Calm, slightly impatient with abstraction; quietly authoritative and purposeful in steering the conversation from paralysis to actionable moral clarity.
Troi listens, challenges Data's detached abstractions, reframes the technical problem as one of character and human nature, refuses to render moral judgment, and deliberately hands responsibility back to Data and command. She rises and leads the exit after making the decisive, boundary-setting point.
- • Prevent paralysis by over-analysis that would delay command decisions.
- • Recenter the tactical question on human character to make it actionable.
- • Protect the proper division of labor: emotional/moral appraisal belongs to individuals, not her delivering verdicts.
- • Human nature contains reliable patterns that cannot be fully reduced to statistics.
- • It's not her role to moralize on behalf of others; responsibility must remain with the decision-maker.
- • Character-based understanding is often more operationally useful than infinite probabilistic recursion.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The Potemkin is invoked as an example of Riker's past decisions — shutting down power and using a planet's magnetic pole to confuse sensors. It operates as narrative proof that Riker will use unconventional measures when pressured.
The Tholian vessel is cited by Data as a concrete tactical precedent: Riker calculated a sensory blind spot and hid inside it. The vessel functions narratively as the empirical evidence underpinning Data's statistical claims about Riker's unconventional methods.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Observation Lounge provides a private, quiet salon for this intimate but strategic exchange. Its domestic comforts and starlit windows frame a conversation where clinical analysis collides with human empathy, allowing Troi to interrupt and reframe Data away from public or tactical theater.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
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Key Dialogue
"DATA: "Only twenty-one percent of the time does he rely upon traditional tactics.""
"TROI: "You're over-analyzing. Human nature cannot be denied.""
"DATA: "Is that a failing in humans?" TROI: "You'll have to decide that for yourself.""