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Noonien Soong
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Noonien Soong | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Species: | Human |
| Gender: | male |
| Home planet: | Earth |
| Portrayed by: | Brent Spiner |
In the fictional Star Trek: The Next Generation universe, Dr. Noonien Soong is a human cyberneticist who is the creator of the regular android character Data. He is played by the same actor who plays Data, Brent Spiner.
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Soong is first mentioned in the first season episode "Datalore", in which Data and the USS Enterprise crew discover a hidden laboratory, and learn of Soong's existence on the colony world Omicron Theta, on which Data had been discovered. Another android, identical to Data, Lore, is also discovered, as well as several prototypes. Soong is not actually seen in the episode, being presumed dead. The Enterprise databases contain mention of Soong: Early in Dr. Soong's career he was widely hailed as Earth's foremost robotic scientist. He claimed he could make Isaac Asimov's dream of a positronic brain come true and set about trying to do exactly that, and was popularly thought to have failed miserably and largely disappeared from academic and scientific circles shortly thereafter.
He would appear in the fourth-season episode "Brothers". He had escaped the attack on Omicron Theta that had wiped out the colonists and settled on Terlina III, where he lived in isolation (although following avidly the exploits of his creation, Data). In this episode, he summons Data with the use of a homing signal, so that he can fit Data with his final invention, an emotion chip. He also inadvertently summons Lore (being unaware that Lore had been reassembled), who ultimately kills Soong after posing as Data to acquire the chip. The chip and Lore would reappear in the sixth season cliffhanger/seventh season opener, "Descent", which sees Lore finally disassembled (possibly permanently) and the chip in Data's hands. Data finally fits himself with the chip in the movie Star Trek: Generations.
Although Soong is said to have died in "Brothers", he did not die onscreen. His last scene was of him smiling at Data, pleased that Data called him "father." It is assumed that Soong died soon after from his injuries. Also, earlier in the episode, Soong admitted that he was already dying, so his injuries may have aggravated his terminal illness.
Soong's backstory is further elaborated on in the seventh season episode "Inheritance", in which Data and the Enterprise crew come across Juliana O'Donnell, Soong's ex-wife. O'Donnell had accompanied Soong to Terlina, later leaving him and marrying Pren Tainer on Atrea IV. Data discovers in the episode that O'Donnell was in fact an android duplicate of her that Soong had made after her death (she had been injured in the attack on the colony and never recovered). Soong appears in the episode as a recorded message from himself to Data, as he had anticipated the possibility that might happen.
In the TNG episode "The Schizoid Man", Dr. Ira Graves claimed to be Soong's mentor. However, given Soong's ancient appearance, Graves (while also elderly) still appeared significantly younger than Soong.
In the TNG Episode "Birthright" Soong appears in a vision Data has as a result of a plasma blast shutting him down momentarily. He is depicted as a young man, with a hammer and anvil. He is played by Brent Spiner in this episode as usual, but since he is shown in his prime, he is simply Spiner sans makeup.
In the "Borderland" story arc of Star Trek: Enterprise's final season, Dr. Arik Soong (also played by Brent Spiner) appears as a fugitive geneticist seeking to lead a group of genetically-enhanced "Augments" in a three episode arc ("Borderland", "Cold Station 12", and "The Augments"). According to the backstory, Arik Soong, once the director of a high-security research station, was imprisoned after he stole nineteen augmented human embryos, placed in stasis after the end of the Eugenics Wars, in which genetically-engineered 'supermen,' including Khan Noonien Singh, attempted global domination on the basis of their genetic 'superiority.' Ultimately failing to prove that 'improved' humans could peacefully co-exist with the rest of the galaxy, Arik Soong vowed upon returning to prison to find 'perfection' by creating artificial life, noting that he might not finish in his lifetime, and that it might take "a generation or two" — a vision apparently passed on to his progeny.
The movie Star Trek: Nemesis features another Soong-type android, known as B-4, a predecessor to Data.
Although Dr. Noonien Soong's ancestry is not explicitly stated in the canon, his name is East Asian, either Chinese or Korean. Soong is a popular Chinese (宋) and Korean surname (송).
Although not explicitly mentioned in the Borderland arc, publicity materials for the episode note that Arik was Noonien Soong's great-grandfather. It is possible that, given Arik Soong's connection to Khan Noonien Singh, Data's creator was named after him. The resemblance of the name is not coincidental: both Noonien Soong and Khan Noonien Singh were named after a man named Kim Noonien Singh whom Gene Roddenberry knew during World War II. [1]
- Noonien Soong article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki.