Data has always understood humor. He may not experience the emotion of mirth, but you don't need that to understand humor. He is pretending not to understand as a practical joke.
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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His biggest running joke is that he can't use contractions. It would be nice if one day he tells everyone that he didn't think they'd fall for it for so long.
Lal was using contractions in like a week and that was before her brain melted.
The Holodeck is for porn.
That's just canonical at this point. 👉 👌
Otherwise why can you create holograms of your coworkers to bang and apparently that's not against the rules or the programming of the holodeck?
Not just Barclay either. Remember laforge? He was basically married to his warp drive waifu and then she showed up and it's like "oh shit uh awkward I've boned you in every hole"
Wait a sec, tuvok literally used it to pon far. So even more canon, on screen canon!
Snap. Now I need to write a parody of Avenue Q’s “The Internet Is For Porn” lol
Definitely. They talk later about how it's one of the largest breaches of trust walking in on someone's use of it.
I think this has been pretty explicitly confirmed in DS9 and LD.
In the episode "The Perfect Mate" Riker gets all teased and worked up by the sexy alien.
He escapes the conversation saying "I'll be in the holodeck" with a lot of implication!
Isn't it basically confirmed in tng as well with broccoli? I can't quite remember
It was never overtly stated that Barclay was doing sex stuff, though I thought it was a neat bit of world building how they said that recreating people they knew in real life was sort of taboo.
"People use it for that!?"
"It's almost exclusively that!"
I like to think that after his episode in TNG, Scotty went on to have all kinds of adventures in his little shuttlecraft.
When I was a kid, I'd draw his little shuttle craft showing up in battles against the borg and the like.
I've decided Ship of the Line is canon and that Montgomery Scott was on the engineering team for construction of Ent-E
Scotty uses the Nexus to return to the Enterprise B, replaces himself at that point in time, and then messes with the navigation system of the shuttle he's on to avoid the Dyson Sphere entirely (saving his friend).
Edit: basic grammar.
Better watch out for the time cops.
Scotty gave some 1980s rando the formula to fabricate transparent aluminum. He gives exactly zero fucks about the time cops.
ACAB, even time cops.
Especially time cops.
This sounds like a great beta canon novel plot.
Nick Locarno was a name Tom Paris went by for a while to distance himself from his father. I don’t care what Lower Decks had to say about it.
Q was Trelane all grown up. We’ll see if this holds up after SNW season 3 comes out.
Data always had emotions, he just didn’t understand them. Lore never had emotions, he was faking it.
Spot was a robot who underwent a series of upgrades throughout the series, and Data applied the lessons he learned from that to the development of his daughter.
Geordi is secretly the chillest. His visor can see Bev snuck about five joints into the ready room meeting. Hes not gonna say anything though but everyone thinks he would cause hes so to the book.
They're all relatively mad compared to the rest of the population of the UFP.
In a post scarcity socialist utopia, the people we see on screen are almost exclusively a group of folks that when offered the chance to do whatever they wanted they decided some of the most dangerous occupations imaginable. Where death is on the line almost daily due to unforeseen consequences.
They coulda ran a restaurant, researched their passion projects on a Starbase, lounged about eternally and they decided to expose themselves to weekly hazards no one could have possibly predicted.
Anyone in Star Fleet is kind of addicted to danger innit
You kind have to admit that Star Trek isn't much of a post-scarcity socialist utopia.
For one thing, it's viciously elitist and hierarchical. You'd think a "post-scarcity socialist utopia" would have ways that a decorated captain would be able to get their hands on a ship in a pinch, but every Star Trek captain has had to steal a ship at some point because turns out there aren't a lot of them and they don't hand them out very easily.
Now you might say "Yeah but they can't just give out prime war assets to whoever asks for them!" -- at one point the ship they steal is an Enterprise that's being decommissioned -- you can't even use their junk without permission! Then ended up sending half the fleet after a piece of junk they were in the process of throwing out!
"We're delivering food and medical supplies to the colonies!" why? Why is that a thing you need to deliver? I thought this was post scarcity?
For another thing, Seems to me like there's plenty of racism in the star trek world. I mean, you don't want to be a borg, and God forbid you're one of soong's androids, you'll be on trial because they want to dissect your brain.
God help you if your ancestors were genetically modified, that's a jailin'.
Wanna live on the wrong planet? That's a jailin'.
Wanna stop a pre-warp civilization from being destroyed? that's a jailin'.
Wanna be a pre-warp indigenous civilization and not be destroyed if the Federation wants your planet? that's a jailin'.
Wanna get trained at star fleet academy without being part of the top 0.1%? You know that's a jailin'.
wanna be a hologram and get too uppity? That's a deletin'.
Wanna be a combination of two of the captains pet crew members and you don't want to be separated again? That's a murderin'.
Wanna be inconvenient to the fleet? That's a section 31...in'.
Some utopia. Some socialist utopia.
But look on the bright side! If the shiny headed captain wants to bang your mom, maybe you'll get made a member of the bridge crew anyway! Hope you have a hot mom!
But uh oh! Sorry Wesley, you got kicked out of the academy, you have to go off with space pedo now or no space for you! Maybe if your mom was seven of nine instead? "Your mom is seven? Never mind then, no space pedos for you because I want to get in that skintight catsuit!"
It's actually a technocratic aristocracy where we get to see the aristocratic few and only occasionally see the earth tone bedecked underclass in establishing shots.
Oh, we do get to see a space autist in Barclay -- oh, and he's mocked and ridiculed and belittled, and they're looking for any chance to get rid of him. Utopia, ladies and gentlemen! (Let's not talk about the fact that he's not allowed to be a space autist, but anyone is allowed to use the holodeck to create bangable versions of real people you've met or are likely to meet. Turns out the hierarchy can't enter yellow gridlines, go ahead and bang the ship's doctor, or the hot lady who's real good and making the space ships go fast good!)
"We're so advanced because we don't use money" great but who needs money when the highest ranking aristocrats get to choose exactly how all the capital gets used and the lowest ranking proleteriat can just die because there's no star ships available to deliver supplies this week?
"You don't understand! We're morally superior! We've ended want! We've elevated the common man to a new level!"
Yeah, that's exactly the logic by which the natives in America were subjugated. "Good news! We're bringing you Jesus and freeing you from your heathen ways!"
To be honest, Voyager is really great because it lays bare the fascist undertones. The young, attractive crew in nice uniforms walk around the pristine ship and live under the thumb of the God-King Janeway who will kill you if she can get 2 crew members out of it, and will destroy entire civilizations if she deems it acceptable.
But don't worry, she got her comeuppance by.... being promoted to Admiral (and that's not in Picard, that's during the movie timeline)! But don't worry, our good pal Picard, he.... was kicked out of Star Fleet for having political opinions the people higher on the hierarchy (I guess Janeway?) didn't like. How embarrassing. I guess he just didn't murder enough crew members to get them to multiply like firing neutrons at an atom until it splits.
While we're talking about Picard, let's talk a bit about holograms and synths. Why does star trek need EMH mark 1s cleaning plasma conduits in a socialist utopia? Why does star trek need mass produced worker-synths in a socialist utopia? Is it because they need slaves and they're not allowed to use black people anymore in their space aristocracy? Sounds a bit like a Greek or Roman socialist utopia.
But all joking aside? It's the space military-industrial complex. It's Space America minus the capitalism and the democracy. Far from a socialist utopia, unless joining space Raytheon is socialist utopia.
Maybe Q was right and humanity is just lucky he picked the francophone shakespearian hawk-tua who bamboozled him with bullshit into thinking humanity wasn't still a savage child-race?
TNG character headcanon?
Worf is a narcissist. Reason: Kurn and Alexander were kept until no longer useful to him then discarded. #Justice4Kurn
Universe headcanon?
The Vulcans are augments and the romulans are the baseline diaspora. Reason: every time TPol was unphased by the anomaly because of her [superior] Vulcan physiology.
At least Alexander got to join the House of Martok. All Kurn got was a memory wipe.
Worf is a racist misogynistic deadbeat dad and its amazing he's tolerated.
Rewatching Birthright had me absolutely disgusted with Worf "falling in love" with like a 16 year old he peeps on bathing in a pond then saying "you're an abomination" when he finds out she's half romulan
He was kidnapped by humans and not raised properly. No big surprise he has attachment issues.
He kicked a kid in half
Are you referring to the story he told about accidentally killing a kid in a soccer match when they both tried to headbutt the ball?
Yeah, but I didn't remember it being specific about the injury. Also it's fun to say "Worf kicked a kid in half"
Fair. Worf did a lot of shitty things, I think the PIC writers were trying to have his character attone a bit, but then he also murders an unarmed ferengi...so 🤔
Not about the characters themselves, but lots about the universe.
-We don't see it on screen a lot, but I assume that automation takes a lot of the less desirable jobs. This frees up people to pursue their passions or improve themselves without having to worry about who's going to want to dedicate their life to being a janitor.
-While money isn't necessary on Earth or within the Federation at large, Starfleet members and/or Federation citizens are given stipends to spend at places that may need it. This includes ports of call like Farpoint Station or non-Federation establishments like Quark's Bar.
-Unpopular one incoming. The economy of Earth (for whatever the term "economy" is worth here) operates more similarly to an idealized form of capitalism than it does to communism. We see that private property canonically exists and can be acquired or relinquished through personal transactions. The Picards own Chateau Picard, Joseph Sisko owns Sisko's restaurant, and they're free to operate them as they see fit.
Unpopular one incoming. The economy of Earth (for whatever the term "economy" is worth here) operates more similarly to an idealized form of capitalism than it does to communism. We see that private property canonically exists and can be acquired or relinquished through personal transactions. The Picards own Chateau Picard, Joseph Sisko owns Sisko's restaurant, and they're free to operate them as they see fit.
Those are not necessarily features of a capitalist mode of production.
Given they don't actually need farms to produce wine, the federation might see Chateau Picard as personal (as opposed to private) property that supports Jean Luc's little hobby and preservation of traditional knowledge.
Hard to compare, because Star Trek Earth really has no need for modes of production. Hence my parenthetical - it's hard to describe their "economy" in terms of the systems we have today since they can produce pretty much anything they need, as much as they need, whenever they need it.
Not characters, but places.
Earth is extremely competitive to gain any notoriety, which is really bad for a lot of people as notoriety and talent have become what is valuable in human society. People leave Earth because, while it is comfortable to live there, it is really hard to move up the social ladder. It is a lot easier to move away to get a better position, hence why humanity still colonizes other planets while Earth is paradise.
The Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarire civilizations were going into decline when the Federation was formed. This is why Humanity became the dominant species of the Federation; the other species effectively gave up trying to be powers.