TNG-0626 Descent

Image Credits: IMDB 🖖 The Next Generation-1987 Season:06 Episode:26

Overall Score:       81.22 / 100
Star Trek Values:    4.50 / 5
Inspiring:           4.75 / 5
Story Development:   4.75 / 5

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Wow, a valuable work of storytelling!

Fascinating and a fluent flow; interconnected stories from the history concluded with a hopeful message.

Lore brings a nazistic mission to individualized Borgs; destroying non-artificial life forms, and creating a kind of eugenics.

Multi-directed thoughts within the freed Borgs, triggers a leadership crisis. As like as humans without a purpose (feeling) in life, they also ended up with existential crisis, in this case with some additions of undesired outcomes. So it’s a real key message to carry out a meaning or purpose while preserving individual perspective, meaning is not a catalyzer thing, but an existential aspect.

Lore and Data tells us a story under some similarities;

• Lore has a strong willing and ability to create
• Lore lacks self-control - conscience (ethical subroutines) like Data
• Data can make logic and progressive ideas, but he’s not in the front, he’s in the supportive role.
• As Data becomes more human, or develops himself, he took leadership opportunities a real development to all.

I don’t know, how much Gene Roddenberry has designed the Data - Lore concepts, but these two brothers gave us some thoughtful moments to consider the power of emotions to drive something, and the power of logic & ethics to drive the driver.

Their analogy is not like a gas-brake analogy but more like an elephant driver analogy. And I suggest taking a look to Elephant & Driver mental model in this case.

Source: https://tte-strategy.com/insights/post/crisis-means-uncertainty-why-emotional-capital-is-crucial-right-now

The story turned the tide by following two moment, which both of them are worth thinking;

1. Georgi and Picard were able to trigger Data’s ethical routines, by causing a reset; which means with just a tiny touch, a human can be reset into a thoughtful situation.

2. Riker and Worf has been caught by Hugh’s team and involved them into the situation. Thanks to the credit of early encounter where Picard choose to give a new possibility to Hugh. It’s kind of the power of networking.

Plusses;

• Episode starts with a game play around a table with Data and fathers of Physics; including Hawking played by him. Fascinating!
• Georgi is not just a sincere friend to Mr. Data; he’s good with all artificial life forms, and engineers, and introverts :) Nice to see that.
• Captain’s Chair is inspiring, even the Doctor was able to make bold moves and took out the chances. :)
• This episode make sense to me, I asked AI to create a moment of “Data’s conscience reset” with the touch of his friends. Here is the image;