theglobalnomad@reddit

You gotta get a navy buddy to explain it - because I don’t remember completely - but he’s the 2nd officer, 3rd in command by rank and he’s the operations officer by billet? (That’s the word I might be misusing - it’s like in the navy you have your rank and job title all in one - so he was the 3rd top person overall, but the top operations officer)

You are number 6

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Seahawk124@reddit

gif

I did find it, it's from episode "The Battle" in season 1, at around 8:30 (on my version) when the Ferengi first beams onto the bridge of the Enterprise. Ferengi introduce themselves first, then Picard introduces Riker as his "first officer", and Data as "second-in-command".

If he wanted to be correct he would refer Data to third in command, or "his second", as Daimon Bok does.

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Malnurtured_Snay@reddit

Interesting! I just watched -- you're right! Mr. Stewart flubbed his line! I think in-world we could explain this as Picard suffering from his headache. This is from the script:

     PICARD
(nods to acknowledge)
This is my first officer,
Commander Riker...
(Bok nods)
And Counselor Troi. Second
Officer Data; Lieutenant La Forge;
security officers, Lieutenant Yar
and Lieutenant Worf; Ensign
Crusher.

Data, at this point in time, was much more concerned with his humanity. On the Enterprise he is surrounded by people sympathetic to that goal. He is also at a place in the command structure where he can experience a wide range of relationships and activities as opposed to the Captain's chair. Had he pursued promotion he would have easily been promoted and likely reassigned some place like the Sutherland serving with a ship full of Hobsons. That would be antithetical to his goal.

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Hats668@reddit

There's that one episode of TNG as well where data was put in charge of a starship we had that clash with the human first officer. I think that kind of implies that there's some discrimination against Androids and other forms of artificial life, even in star fleet.

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Abe_Bettik@reddit

I think that kind of implies that there's some discrimination against Androids and other forms of artificial life, even in star fleet.

Measure of a Man is a great episode, but, I agree, it makes no sense that Starfleet would

admit a cadet
commission an officer
make said officer third in command of the flagship

without estabishing his sentience and affirming his rights to personhood.

The episode would have made more sense, been of higher stakes, and the metaphor to slavery more apt and pointeint if the threat to Data was to abrogate his existing rights and have him reclassified under the law as property.

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bigloser42@reddit

The other problem with measure of a man is that Data is not the property of Starfleet if he isn’t a person. None of the oaths he has said or contracts he signed would be valid, as property cannot enter into a contract. He would be the property of Soong unless Starfleet can produce a receipt of purchase.

Unless they entered some kind of salvage rights when the found him, but that would have presumably settled his sentience at that point, not years later.

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kaiser_charles_viii@reddit

To be fair they don't know that Soong is alive at that point, that isn't discovered until season 4 so it's possible that since Soong was a federation citizen and a scientist who was almost certainly working for the federation for a time (before going to omicron theta) that the federation decided "well, all his science is our science now, and Data is science so he's ours"

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acebert@reddit

Although it’s certainly ridiculous, it’s not exactly unbelievable that an interstellar bureaucracy would drop the ball.

I always assumed that he was admitted in a way similar to Nog and other non Fed personnel, his sentience was assumed but not affirmed as a result. Then Maddox comes along and exploits that technical oversight.

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irregardless@reddit

The question the episode doesn’t address is “why now?”. Why hadn’t the status of Data’s sentience been settled before we got to this point? Or if it had, why was this time different?

It strains credulity to think that Data would have been allowed to enroll at the academy, graduate, and be given a commission if Starfleet hadn’t already accepted that he was fully self-actualized and capable of understanding the rights and responsibilities that come with being an officer and performing his duties to the fullest. Starfleet would not administer an oath to a being if it had doubts that they can stay true to it.

The episode doesn’t address this though, instead presenting the situation as though it’s the first time anyone has thought about it, like this issue has never come up during Data’s career. It even goes so far as to make up a hand-wavy legal precedent to place Data into jeopardy.

How many instructors at academy would have balked at having to teach a walking computer, or students protested when he got better scores, if it weren’t already established that Data had a right to be there? Throughout his career, how many officers would have raised challenges when they were expected to follow orders from, or were passed over for promotions in favor of this automaton, this glorified adding machine. And can you imagine Picard and Starfleet Command saying "Geez, we don’t know if this android fella has free will or not, but let’s make him a department head and third in command of the flagship."

We're repeatedly told that Data is for all intents unique. Admitting the first manmade intelligent machine that seems to demonstrate free will – exerting agency upon the world, being able to learn right from wrong, and taking responsibility for its own actions – into the service wouldn’t have been the result of a paperwork snafu; it would have been notable and precedent setting.

"Measure of a Man" was purely speculative 35 years ago. But it takes on some new relevance as our society starts to tackle some of the issues of how intelligent machines interface with the law. The line from ChatGPT to Data could be quite long, but we're already grappling with questions of how to govern the behavior of machine intelligence, who is responsible for the actions of the machine, whether machines can be held accountable for their own mistakes, and how do we define personhood?

The episode's portrayal of Data's sentience as a novel concept is not only implausible but also undermines the show's own established character development. Throughout his career, Data has demonstrated remarkable emotional intelligence, creativity, and capacity for self-awareness. It's clear that he was always more than just a machine, and it's surprising that no one had raised these questions before.

In reality, Starfleet should have taken steps to establish Data's rights and personhood long before he became a key member of the crew. This would have involved more than just a simple court case or bureaucratic hurdle. It would have required a fundamental shift in how to think about artificial intelligence and its place in society.

If we accept the episode at face value, it's astonishing that the episode relies on an impromptu hearing by a frontier JAG officer to settle these questions, when they should have been addressed by Federation law or Starfleet's own policies and procedures. It's both unrealistic in that a believably competent society would let Data get as far as he had if his rights had not be affirmed, and problematic in that it suggests was willing to accept the legal grey area where Data existed.

"Measure of a Man" is phenomenally well executed and a high water mark in the Star Trek canon, even if we have to accept its somewhat flawed premise. But it's those flaws that allow us to examine our own ongoing and evolving relationships with artificial intelligence.

Thank you for attending my Trek Talk.

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Jgorkisch@reddit

I don’t know.

It’s a universal human trait to want to kick tough decisions to someone else. That’s why we see a lot of court cases in our world be ruled on technicality rather than substance.

Amplify that with bureaucratic process.

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Top_Benefit_5594@reddit

Does it though? Regimes, policies and attitudes change with circumstances. Not to get too into the weeds but there are definitely things back on the political table in real life now that a lot of us thought were settled.

If Maddox and people he worked for gave a suitably passionate case to someone very high up who didn’t know Data or care that much about artificial intelligence, who knows what could have been agreed to review?

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GargantuanCake@reddit

The portrayal is that most of Starfleet saw him as a sentient being. If you aren't a member of a species already known to be sentient you have to take a sentience test to join it. Data passed it so most people just went "alright, must be sentient!" He served with distinction so most people just went "well I guess we have a robot lol." Look at how most of the crew interact with him; he isn't even the tenth weirdest thing Starfleet has ever seen and he does his job well. Sure he isn't a biological entity given that he's literally a robot but since when do you have to be made of meat to be sentient?

That's what the character was about overall. The problems came around when you had the outliers coming out and arguing that Data, due to being a robot, was just a thing that had the appearance of sentience. While he was treated as just another sentient being there was still a lot of "OK we need to figure each other out" going on given that biological humanoid races are usually accustomed to dealing with other biological humanoid races. Data wasn't that so there was always a lot of interactions based on that disconnect. At the end of the day however, and this is a major strength of Starfleet, the agreement was "we're extremely different but we can still get along." Since he did his job well and didn't cause problems Starfleet let him hang around.

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Rusty_of_Shackleford@reddit

This was something I didn’t quite get either. Where do they even… I mean… where does their claim of ownership come from? Simply because he is in starfleet? But it isn’t as though they found Data and put him on a ship immediately as a useful robot tool. No. He joined up and went to the academy by his own choice, so if he hadn’t done that… they wouldn’t even have that spurious sort of claim to him. Why does he even have a rank if he is just ‘owned’ by starfleet and is just a robotic tool.

And apparently Maddox did object when Data applied to the academy, on the grounds he wasn’t sentient, so I guess it did come up… but then… that also means they already decided that Maddox was wrong when they let Data in. Nobody else agreed with his objection. I just don’t see how they make the claim they own Data as property, but also have him jump through the hoops as though they didn’t.

Also… he had already been actively serving in starfleet as an officer for like 15 years before his trial ever happened. How did his being starfleet property never once come up in any kind of way in all that time.

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coluch@reddit

The ownership claim is because Starfleet found him. Android finders keepers. Soong was also a Federation citizen, so another claim to Data belonging to them.

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Rusty_of_Shackleford@reddit

I do understand that, but the problem to me is that they never seemed to make that claim initially. Like I said, they didn’t just force him to get to work for starfleet; he decided to sign up. Why would he have to do that if starfleet already owned him? What if he wouldn’t have decided to join starfleet and just left to do whatever for 20 years. Would they still have shown up out of nowhere after two decades and claim they owned him? Then again maybe if he wouldn’t have joined up they would have indeed tried to force him. Who knows.

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CaptainTripps82@reddit

I would imagine as Maddox rose in rank and authority himself, he influenced the opinions of people and institutions that had previously ruled against his assertion, until he felt confident enough in making another attempt.

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RedditOfUnusualSize@reddit

As someone who's been on the receiving end of discrimination before, there's a whole lotta difference between "one of the good ones" showing up and taking the entrance exam, and that same person taking charge and not understanding his place. They're fine with Data as a helpful ensign. They're even fine with him as a section command on a starship. But Starfleet has a long history of artificial intelligences taking command of ships in limited contexts and then going haywire: the M-5 killed almost 500 service members onboard the Lexington and Excalibur when it took command of the Enterprise.

A lot of people in Starfleet see Data as uncomfortably close to the M-5, which in turn is very likely why Data got slow-rolled through the ranks like he did. Natasha Yar was four years old when Data was admitted to Starfleet Academy, and he spent about seventeen years at the junior officer ranks on the Trieste. This despite the fact that he was repeatedly cited with Starfleet's highest honors. When you look at Data's career compared to someone like, say, Riker, it's certainly not text, but it's also incredibly reasonable headcanon, that Data was promoted up the ranks only when the command couldn't make an excuse for not promoting him.

“Mr. Data, I realize your very nature omits ambition. Nevertheless I want you to know I seriously considered you for first office.”

Seems as though Riker felt he could’ve done the job long before then.

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ratchetology@reddit

yes...except he did ask for command, during the romulan blockade and specifically stated he thought he was passed by because he was an android...

star fleet command structure seems a bit fluid, but it seems with his experience a promotion would come with a posting to a different ship or station...

which he would/should have been eligible for after the romulan blockade...

would make an interesting storyline...and a new opportunity to learn a different aspct pf what its like to be "human"

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MaulerX@reddit

He doesn't have any ambition.

Absolutely incorrect. During episode he was put in command of the sutherland, he asked picard why he wasnt given command of a ship. He could have went on and said nothing. But he spoke up. He has ambition.

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pelle412@reddit

I think what you are saying is this: Data's ego wanted the command to feel good and respected so he requested it. I think what others are saying and the episode Redemption suggests is that Data saw the need for experienced command staff and knew he was one, therefore it logically made sense for him to assume that role. Ambition vs logic.

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MaulerX@reddit

Data doesnt feel emotion. He doesnt have an Ego.

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JoeyJoeJoeJrShab@reddit

Counterpoint: the episode with Sela where a bunch of ships formed a net to detect cloaked ships. Command of ships was given to a bunch of people who were not Data. Data protested, and got one of those commands, and did quite well.

owlpellet@reddit

all of above is correct, but ALSO per the dates in Memory Beta, the official timeline's wacky.

Data was a lieutenant for \~12 years.

Troi went from Academy graduation to Lt. Commander in... 4 years? Bit of a speedrun.

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Malnurtured_Snay@reddit

Well, depends.

First, as far as I'm aware, the only information we have that Troi attended Starfleet Academy came from a version of her service records seen in "Conundrum." But there is good reason to believe that those records have been altered, and information seen on them should be taken with a grain of salt.

Regarding her education, Troi states that she attended university on Betazed. It's certainly possible she attended both a university on Betazed, and Starfleet Academy, but it's also possible she attended a civilian university, and then gained admission to Starfleet (perhaps there's an Officer Candidate School that someone like Troi may have attended).

In the modern U.S. military, someone entering the military with an advanced degree -- such as a medical degree, or a law degree -- can enter at a higher rank than say, someone graduating from one of the service academy. Of course, these would be non-line officers, such as Troi is.

But I don't particularly see anything wrong with Troi's rank, especially given that she's a senior medical professional aboard the Enterprise.

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wb6vpm@reddit

Per startrek.com (well, the archive dot com backup of it, since it was taken down), Troi attended Starfleet Academy from 2355-59.

https://web.archive.org/web/20091206173710/http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/TNG/character/1112460.html

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Malnurtured_Snay@reddit

I appreciate that. I suspect that whoever put that together likely relied on Memory Alpha, and Memory Alpha appears to have taken that service record from Conundrum at face value.

But I would argue there's every reason not to take it at face value. For one thing, we know the Satarrans have altered the Enterprise's database in at least two ways: one, they've blocked access to the full service records of the crew, who are only able to access the executive summaries; and they've at a minimum, altered one (Riker's) and inserted another (MacDuff).

Deanna has, to my recollection, never mentioned attending Starfleet Academy. She has some references to school in that Enterprise finale, but that's all pre-college. The one reference we have to her education is that Tam Elbrun was a patient of hers while at university on Betazed, which strongly implies that she had at least completed the Betazoid equivalent of a bachelor's degree, and was working to a more advanced degree in mental health.

Malnurtured_Snay@reddit

No, but there's evidence that there's no such policy in place, given how long officers stay in assignments, and if we believe Tapestry to be an accurate reflection of how Starfleet operates.

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bliswell@reddit

Old man Lieutenant Picard was a good officer, but never stood out.

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GamemasterJeff@reddit

He was good, but not great. You need a harder heart to stand out in Star Fleet command.

Starfleet often looks like a military but it doesn't have, as far as I know, a modern-day equivalent.

The US has the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps and Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, both of which are uniformed services.

Spectre_One_One@reddit

In Disaster, she knows she is a Lt. Cmdr she’s just not stepping up to take command because she lacks the technical knowledge.

When Ensign Ro starts giving orders and taking a specific course of action, Chief O’Brien reminds the Ensign, as a senior enlisted would, that Counsellor Troi is a Lt. Cmdt and therefore is in command at that point; not the Ensign.

Her class reunion gives her the final push she needed to brush up on the technical aspect of the running of a starship and taking the command test.

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NickelAntonius@reddit

That's right! Been a long time since I watched that one.

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HellyOHaint@reddit

Troi started thinking about her own ambitions and did so to better herself.

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starcoder@reddit

I always wished that they would have made just one episode centered around the “night watch team”… it could have been so crazy….an entire B list of actors that are running things and trying to downplay major issues, but there would be cameos of the main cast as they were just “passing by” and off duty. But somehow the B team fixes everything before morning and the only one who knows what happened is Data…

All she had to do was take the commander's test. Couldn't Data have done it?

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SoDrunkRightNow4@reddit

I've never watched an episode of Start Trek. I don't know anything about the show. I don't know why the Reddit algorithm brought me here.

... but the premise is that humans are on a ship traveling through space, right? Wouldn't space for personal items be limited? Wouldn't storage and cargo be limited to items that are absolutely essential? So how is this passenger caked in makeup? If they're a billion miles from earth, wouldn't she run out of eye liner at some point? Does the USS Enterprise have an eye shadow factory inside of it where they're making more makeup constantly? None of this makes sense.

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johndhall1130@reddit (OP)

Watch one or two episodes and most, if not all, of these questions will be answered.

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SoDrunkRightNow4@reddit

where should I start?

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johndhall1130@reddit (OP)

Pretty much anywhere. Most episodes show the replicators in one fashion or another.

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brian_ts118@reddit

Honestly I wish they’d never have made her an officer to begin with. I like the idea that she’s a civilian adjunct of the federation diplomatic corps and her main role is to counsel the captain, rather than be the ships shrink.

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johndhall1130@reddit (OP)

lol. Data wouldn’t say any of this. Data grew to understand things like hyperbole and figures of speech. He also would have understood that the statement didn’t take issue with Troi being promoted only that it happened BEFORE Data, who I believe earned it long before her with his knowledge and job performance and experience in general. Finally, I was stating a subjective opinion which Data would also understand. I think Data’s actual response would be something more like:

“Due to Counselor Troi’s chosen role within the Star Fleet command structure it makes for her to receive a promotion to Commander given her position and accomplishments during her career. But I thank you for your confidence and acknowledgment of my performance and will endeavor to continue to perform my duties to the best of my abilities.”

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lofiscififilmguy@reddit

Let women achieve. That arc was really empowering for women who needed inspiration to look for promotions. The androids of the world can have one when they're populous enough to pay for cable.

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talllankywhiteboy@reddit

Related to this, it’s mentioned a couple of times that Starfleet does have some basically all-Vulcan ships. If Starfleet did sometimes group crews by lifespan, it would make that type of age-accommodation for promotions much smoother as a Vulcan officer wouldn’t be watching their immediate peers get promoted twice as fast as them. Though if any species were to not be bothered by the logic of aging-accommodation, I suppose it might be the Vulcans.

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lofiscififilmguy@reddit

Vulcans and long-lived species generally pursue multiple 'career' paths during their lifetimes. On average they probably have similar star fleet career spans as humans. Other examples include El Aurians, Trill, and whatever the new Engineering Chief in SNW is.

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90bronco@reddit

This supports my theory that Harry Kim is El Aurian

I think it’s more likely Vulcans are promoted faster, but are just encouraged to retire.

"And now a man will turn it off!"

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WrongKielbasa@reddit

gif

She would have been promoted, but not as a command (think line officer in current modern military tracks) officer, but as a medical officer.

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JoeyJoeJoeJrShab@reddit

yeah, but she didn't get the pip on her collar until after she took the test

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ZyxDarkshine@reddit

Troi is not a line officer, therefore in a completely separate category as Data. Troi (and Dr. Crusher) have different criteria for advancement than everyone else. Troi making rank has no effect on whether or not Data makes rank.

Data being an android maybe holds his advancement back due to bigotry, but that has nothing to do with Troi getting promoted.

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GBman84@reddit

The test for Troi to make Commander was "the bridge officer's test".

It wasn't the sciences officer test.

Same with Crusher. In that same episode she says she didn't need Commander to be a doctor but she likes to be in command every once in a while.

All this implies being a commander is just about being in command. Not some separate "line" that Data isn't a part of as you say.

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ZyxDarkshine@reddit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_officer

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GBman84@reddit

This is Star Trek. Not the Us army.

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HookDragger@reddit

She also had more time in service than data…. Was the lead counselor for a small city in space, was critical in diplomatic meetings and negotiations. She also reached beyond her accepted role to learn the command track.

I don’t see the issue.

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GamemasterJeff@reddit

To be fair, Troi is also considered by be a "person" by the Feds, and Data's legal experience with that was problematic at best.

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IR0NWARRIOR@reddit

But Data was just a stupid robot who fucked up and malfunctioned every otber episode. I would have fired him if I was Picard

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billsatwork@reddit

One of the post-Nemesis beta-canon novels made the point that Data essentially held three full-time positions: he was the Enterprise's Second Officer, Chief Operations Officer, and Chief Science Officer. Picard had relied on him for years for each of those roles that would normally be held by three separate officers. Data most likely concluded that regardless of rank, his de facto positions on the Federation flagship made him the single most useful officer in all of Starfleet. Why would he ever want to leave?

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Washtali@reddit

The writers specifically said that making Troi a Commander was a more interesting and less predictable plot for the episode, which I agree with. Data and Geordi would not have struggled with the final test as they both had more experience with command.

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beeemmvee@reddit

but she sent Geordi to his death

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operator-as-fuck@reddit

Data was third in line? when did she ever outrank him?

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MustangPauli@reddit

It’s not a binary thing and one has nothing to do with the other. Did Data deserve a promotion during the run of TNG? Probably, and yes, it was kind of an oversight. That being said, Troi getting promoted didn’t prevent Data from getting a promotion. Troi worked hard and earned the promotion she got; it was deserved. Your complaints shouldn’t be with/about her but rather with the command staff that overlooked Data.

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johndhall1130@reddit (OP)

Once again, I didn’t say she shouldn’t have been promoted. I said Data should have been promoted before her.

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whiskeygolf13@reddit

Eh. Troi is a staff officer. She’s not really part of the chain of command.

Her field is medical and advisory - sure, she took the test and became a qualified bridge officer, but she’s not in line for The Chair. Advancement is a little different for Unrestricted Line Officers - and if we’re honest.. Data doesn’t have a ton of advocates higher up the chain. Picard is/was his best shot.

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JamesTSheridan@reddit

Promoted to Commander and effectively did fuck all with it except get a pip. The E-D was a shitshow of career trajectories unless you actually left.

Simple reality is: The E-D was stagnant because the command structure is so inter-personnally connected they are stuck.

Riker has a death grip on wanting the E-D and his quasi GF is the counsellor.
Data is best friends everyone and Geordi is effectively his mechanic.
Picard has the connection to Dr. Crusher.

Worf and O'Brian are the prime examples of folks leaving the E-D and getting back on track. That said, O'Brian is kinda wierd because of how the screw up over his job / rank. That guy might as well be the Chief Engineer of DS9 with a rank that would match Geordi.

Star Trek was never really good at doing a proper military structure and Starfleet was languishing in lazy decadance until the Borg / Dominion kicked them out of it.

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Oddball_bfi@reddit

Diana is not a command track officer. She's done the command training, but she's a science officer. She presumably isn't the only counsellor on board, and likely oversees a whole department of mental healthcare professionals. Heck, Miles O'Brien probably has a dedicated crewmember. She's got staff, she needs rank. If she moved to Starfleet Headquarters and took command of Starfleet Medical Mental Health Services across the fleet, she might even be an Admiral. She's not going to be taking charge of a fleet any time soon, though.

They were helping Data to learn human emotions by constantly giving him reasons to feel jealousy and resentment.

csciabar@reddit

Over the years riker seemed more incompetent. Like he settled into waiting for picard to retire and wasnt really pushing

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Batgirl_III@reddit

Riker was handpicked by Picard to be the executive officer on Starfleet’s flagship during its first mission in 2364. He was only 29 years old, already a full Commander, and clearly seen as an up and coming young officer of great promise.

Riker was offered the command of USS Drake in 2364, but turned it down to serve as XO on Enterprise. Fair enough, he’s still quite young and ambitious and the Enterprise posting is definitely more prestigious than Drake.

Riker was then offered command of USS Melbourne in 2466, but turned it down on the (mistaken) assumption that he deserved the captaincy of Enterprise.

“Beta Canon” sources tell us that Riker was also offered command of USS Aries in 2365, but this isn’t mentioned on screen in TNG or the other series.

In 2469, the admiralty gives Enterprise to Edward Jellico, Riker’s petty and borderline insubordinate behavior nearly jeopardizing the entire mission and nearly provoking total war with the Cardassian Union… Jellico could have (and should have) had Riker hauled before court martial for this. But, near as we can tell, Jellico must have just left a scathing report in Riker’s jacket because Riker is never again offered a command billet until 2379 when he’s given USS Titan

An officer who had been given offers of his own ship three times (four if you count Aries) before he was even thirty years old… and then he wasn’t offered another command for a decade. A decade that was dominated (pun intended) by the most devastating war the UFP ever fought where ships were being lost by the score and the fleet was bringing century-plus ships out of storage and sending half-finished hulls from the fleet yards. No one in the admiralty had any interest in offering Riker his own command at that point.

Riker’s ambition turned into a stubbornness and, eventually, a sort of complacency. He wanted the command of Enterprise and wasn’t willing to accept anything else.

By doing so, Riker completely screwed over the career trajectory of Lt. Cmdr. Data as well as those unnamed officers junior to Data. Data being totally unemotional and functionally immortal, Data was incapable of desiring to be promoted… and probably logically figured he would be when Riker, eventually, died of old age. But what about the Human, Vulcan, Tellarite, et. al. officers beneath him?

This is just one of many ways where Riker demonstrates that he was a terrible officer.

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Early_Essay3173@reddit

No, but there’s no logical reason for him not to be. If it had been real, perhaps Data would have been on the bridge at the time instead of in engineering, but that’s only a short turbolift ride away. In the time that it took for Geordi to march off to his death and fix the problem with the engine, Data could probably have been there and back. She never even thinks about seeing if the simulation might allow her to send him, even though he would be the obvious choice.

Now, if she tried and the simulation’s computer for some reason came back to her and said “Lt. Commander Data is not available”, at that point I guess I could see her choosing to send Data instead. But if so that would have been an arbitrary condition placed upon the person taking the exam to ensure that they would either fail or be forced to make a terrible decision. That is not an ability that needs to be tested for everyone who wants to be in command, like the Kobayashi Maru. If her first thought in a crisis situation like that is to send the chief engineer to his death, that’s not a sign of good leadership or judgement.

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Malnurtured_Snay@reddit

Okay. You should be mad at Riker.

If Riker had taken the command of the Aries, Data would most likely have been advanced to replace him, and promoted to commander.

If Riker had taken command of the Melbourne, Data would most likely have been advanced to replace him.

And finally, if Riker had promoted Data to first officer in The Best of Both Worlds Pt. 2, Data almost certainly would have been promoted to commander, which, by the way, is exactly what happened to Shelby when Riker made her XO -- she was promoted from lieutenant commander to commander.

It was Riker all along!

And also: there's no reason to think Picard couldn't have promoted him.

Anyway, you should be mad at Riker and Picard. Or hell, maybe Data should have advocated for himself. Maybe Data liked serving aboard the Enterprise and passed over opportunities for promotion that would have required him to serve elsewhere because, gosh, he likes the people he serves with. His best friend is Geordi. He finds fulfillment in his work. Maybe you should be mad at Data.

Tucana66@reddit

While "The Best of Both Worlds" was a Riker episode -- which dealt with his pending promotion to Captain (and the U.S.S. Melbourne), there should have been promotions across the board for saving Earth (and the Federation) from the Borg. Data, at minimum, should have been promoted.

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Agreed! Data’s saved the ship more times than I can remember.