Star Trek: The Next Generation/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 17:37, 24 September 2014
, 9 years ago→Non-Sentient Slaves Are the Best Kind!
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** But these are just the kinds of strange scenarios created when laws are slow to catch up to society. Famously, in Canada, Emily Murphy was a Senator before women were actually defined under the law as persons. Heck, in the U.S., Victoria Woodhull ran for president a full 48 years before women could vote (ie: they could not vote, but could be voted for). "Measure of a Man" implies that there was some resistance to Data's entry to the Academy; perhaps at that time, they didn't want a protracted legal challenge and passed the buck, but ultimately paid for it later. Note too that we do see a Starfleet officer objecting to serving under Data in "Redemption, Part II."
*** It's still rather surprising that nobody pointed to Data's acceptance into Starfleet and being awarded the rank of Lieutenant Commander as legal precedent for his being legally considered a sentient being by the Federation.
** One of the Starfleet Academy novels covers this: When Data applied to Starfleet Academy, there was a hearing over whether or not he could join, as there was no proof that he was sentient. The hearing determined that attempting to join Starfleet Academy without someone else's help was adequate enough proof of sentience ''to attend Starfleet Academy''. That doesn't necessarily create precedence in proving his sentience overall, merely that a prior hearing had validated that he was sentient-seeming enough to attend the Academy. In other words, the Academy board didn't rule "Data is sentient and a real person and no one can ever say he isn't", they ruled "Data can attend Starfleet Academy". Legal systems can be weird that way.
** Great, now I'm imagining [[Red Dwarf|Talkie Toaster]] on board a ship, constantly asking the crew if they want some sort of toasted bread product.
== Somebody Get Worf a Chair! ==
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