STAR TREK: PICARD Official Trailer

MarkB · May 30, 2019

ART! said:
The Data thing is pretty vague, but there are a lot of options.

It could just be older Data who has implemented an aging subroutine, or living tissue grafts that age.

Or, if it's a short scene, they could maybe afford some de-age-ing CGI work.

The more significant issue is that he sacrificed his life during his last on-screen appearance.

Mustrum_Ridcully · May 30, 2019

Ryujin said:
Given the way things ended, Data would be unlikely.

Nah, the novel or comics and the game already have found ways for Data to return. He basically takes over B4 thanks to B4 having gotten his... data transfer.

MarkB · May 30, 2019

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
Nah, the novel or comics and the game already have found ways for Data to return. He basically takes over B4 thanks to B4 having gotten his... data transfer.

Kinda sucks to B B4, I guess.

ART! · May 30, 2019

MarkB said:
The more significant issue is that he sacrificed his life during his last on-screen appearance.

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
Nah, the novel or comics and the game already have found ways for Data to return. He basically takes over B4 thanks to B4 having gotten his... data transfer.

Yeah, there was some David Mack trilogy that I couldn't finish but I hear winds up with Data back in some form or other.

lowkey13 · May 30, 2019

*Deleted by user*

Umbran · May 30, 2019

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
Nah, the novel or comics and the game already have found ways for Data to return. He basically takes over B4 thanks to B4 having gotten his... data transfer.

Well, there are a couple of ways this has gone:

(From Memory Alpha)

"In the novel Cold Equations: The Persistence of Memory, Doctor Bruce Maddox is contemplating deleting Data's memory engrams from B-4, who is kept in storage along with the remains of Soong's other prototype, Lore, and Lal, Data's daughter, when they are stolen by the Breen. Doctor Soong – who survived his death by transferring his mind into an android body far more Human in appearance than Data's – manages to recover his "children", and transfers Data's memories from B-4 into his own body, unable to complete the new body he had been attempting to construct for his "son". "

This solution takes too much screen time to establish, but would handle the age issue.

"The comic book series Star Trek: Countdown (a tie-in to the 2009 Star Trek film) and the timeline established for the Star Trek Online game depict Data as alive in 2387. Sometime prior, Geordi La Forge installed Data's emotion chip into B-4's neural net. This caused the uploads to B-4 by Data to fully activate, allowing Data's full memory and personality to assert itself, essentially resurrecting him."

This is easy to establish on screen, but does leave us with an age issue.

Of course, Spiner could be appearing in flashbacks or dream sequences or the like.