#altan soong

[dodgermd]

Maybe it's the ol' british slapstick in me, but man would I celebrate a female ancestor of the Soong dynasty show up and when she turns around it's just Brent Spiner in drag, but nobody acknowledges it - it's just Amanda Soong alright.

[homewrecking-lore]

"Picard's Borg trauma" this. "Picard's Borg trauma" that. What about Picard's Data trauma, hm? Man spends 18 years feeling guilty about Data. Has visions about Data. Meets a Soong with Data's face (Altan). Kills Data for a second time. Ends up in the year 2024. Gets run over by a Soong with Data's face (Adam). Returns to the present. Finds out Data's onto Resurrection #2. Literally the most inescapable man. The Borg who?

[idol--hands]

[best-star-trek-character]

Round One

[defconprime]

Altan Inigo Soong

[raffaelamusiker]

Masterlist

[evviejo]

STAR TREK: PICARD // S1E9 Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 Organic life evolves, yearns for perfection. That yearning leads to synthetic life. But organics perceive this perfection as a threat. When they realize their creations do not age or become sick, or die, they will seek to destroy them and in so doing, destroy themselves.

[quasi-normalcy]

As time goes on and as Brent Spiner keeps getting recast as ever more boring, ever more contrived members of the Soong family, killing off Data in Star Trek Nemesis just comes to seem ever the more pointless.

[dodgermd]

Y’know while it is a funky Star Trek thing that all male members of the Soong family look like literal clones of each other I - as someone who works with scientists who all think they are the very epidome of their field - can only say that these dudes creating androids that look exactly like them over and over again is one of the most realstic things that ever happened in Star Trek. I mean. Heck, I know a dude who literally named a planet he found after himself. XD

[homewrecking-lore]

I don't know, but taking a villain whose whole thing was: "there's something wrong with me. I wanted to prove myself. I wanted to be fixed but I was already being replaced. Now I'll survive and have control and power at any expense", and then deciding to make him a set of personality traits in New Data, who will only ever be perceived as Data, and interacted with as Data, and will only experience positive emotions by literally being placed in Data...

...feels a bit off the mark???

Picard season 3 wrote a perfect gothic horror ending for Lore, but then presents it as an heartfelt, emotional beat that just doesn't work for the setup they created.

[idol--hands]

[halbarryislife]

So to our knowledge, Altan and Lore are the last two living Soongs. I always kind of thought Altan was Lore because of a comment he made about his father making data, but I digress. So let’s say they are two separate people. I would love to see them in a scene together. Kind of harkening back to Data and Lore scenes in TNG. When I first thought about if they had scenes together I imagined they would not like each other, like Altan was the human son Lore could never be or something like that. I imagine Altan would be scared of Lore in someway because he knows what Lore is capable of. But both of them have resentment towards Data because they feel Data replaced them. So maybe they would work together? Maybe Lore needs his brother for something?

And if Lore was Altan all along? Nice plot twist.

[mandala-lore]

My personal timeline/headcanons for the Soongs based on nothing other than vibes:

This became incredibly long. I'm not sorry.

I AM sorry that I can't figure out how to do a read more on mobile. 😓👈

Adam Soong does his little cloning nonsense, leading to the Eugenics Wars (thanks for that, Adam), but while he's at it, he decides to also clone himself because Adam has exactly one self-aware criticism and it's that he probably shouldn't have kids because he's a terrible dad.... But that doesn't mean he can't clone himself and let it be somebody else's problem! The clones are augmented, obviously, with increased lifespan and intelligence, but not the brute strength or other advantages of augments. Adam calls this modesty.

I think it would be satisfying if Khan himself kills Adam, but whatever. Something goes wrong and all those frozen Soong clones are lost. Some Federation authority finds them many decades later and secrets them away, realizing how dangerous but also important these clones are.

Decades or maybe centuries later (I don't know how time works), somebody (maybe in Section 31) activities a clone and names him Arik. They tone down much of the augmentation but Arik is still.... Yknow, Arik. They raise him and educate him but never tell him about the other clones. They also don't reveal that their motivations were to prepare for Khan's return or some other unspecified augment threat.

Arik does not do as he's told (shocking) and finds himself a fugitive. He does his little cloning nonsense and bad fathering until he winds up in prison. Section 31 disavows him. Realizing at least some of his errors, Arik attempts to address the ethical problems of eugenics (no, he doesn't see the irony) by adding more diversity to his genetic-augmentation portfolio. Hello, Dal R'El, my precious son. ❤

After several prison breaks and his adventures with Archer, Arik manages to learn about the other Soong clones. Maybe the person who raised him takes pity on him and sends him the information, idk. This is a little while after Arik swears off cloning in favor of cybernetic research. When Arik is much older though, he recieves a mysterious distress call. He follows it and gets to meet his "little brother," who goes by Noonian.

Noonian was activated from one of Adam's clones (with more severe changes, like increased empathy) and raised in a much stricter environment than Arik. This did not make Noonian more obedient but rather more devious. He uncovers his history, learns about his much older counterpart, and sends him a message asking for his help escaping. When they finally meet, Arik is an old man and Noonian is a precocious preteen. Noonian, coincidentally, has a particular interest in and talent for cybernetics. Arik and Noonian have an informative chat about their family's downsides and break out of the top secret and definitely not officially sanctioned facility. They have Shenanigans.

Unfortunately, the brothers quickly get on each other's last nerve. Through a series of terrible decisions, they end up fleeing some dangerous foe (probably an arms dealer who wants the Soong augment technology to start more eugenics wars). Arik is prepared to sacrifice himself to help Noonian escape, but Noonian comes back for him at the last minute... And is cornered into taking his first life (their enemy).

The Soongs control-crash land on a planet in the Briar Patch... with some interesting de-aging properties. Here, they are hidden (presumed dead) and able to live out insane lifespans while perfecting their new project: fully synthetic humans. Arik is content to settle here and fade into obscurity, knowing someone else can carry on his research. He's much older (only a little wiser) but he has no desire to live forever. Noonian, however, is restless. He grows up with better socialization than Arik ever had, but he's hungry for new experiences. He's also guilt-ridden and absolutely terrified of becoming or creating the next Khan. This formative fear keeps him grounded.

Noonian feels they hit a dead end with their work and wants to travel and learn after the decades they've spent hidden away. They decide to leave forever and keep the Briar Patch a secret. Only a small number of the locals knew their real identities and they keep that secret in return. Arik dies eventually and Noonian knows to use aliases wherever he goes. On his deathbed, Arik asks Noonian to find and protect the various augment projects he left unattended (hello, Dal R'El). Noonian no-object-permanence Soong agrees and promptly fails that promise.

Under various names, he continues the android research he started with his brother. He doesn't spend much time worrying about the other Soong clones out there, not even Arik's various augment projects. Eugenics are simply not interesting to Noonian; clearly it never ends well. But androids! What could possibly go wrong.

When he feels age creeping in and he's no closer to discovering how to perfect his work, Noonian finally returns to the Briar Patch. He de-ages, takes a vacation, and, after the dust settles on his old persona, he takes a new name and returns to pick up and start again. He does this countless times over decades that turn into centuries. He is an old, old man with a young face.

He's also wiser than Adam or Arik ever had a chance to be. He's gentler too. That's not to say Noonian is perfect, but he lives a long, complicated life. He sees the damage he and his family have caused and he earnestly, wholeheartedly wants to make the galaxy better when he leaves it. Centuries pass and he's so close to figuring out this android thing, he can feel it. The hatred and fear of augments has also loosened, although they're still banned from Starfleet, so he takes one last trip to the Briar Patch and returns using his own name.

Dr. Noonian Soong sets up shop and meets Juliana. Falling in love is as restorative and reinvigorating for his soul as any visit to the Briar Patch is for his body and mind. Section 31 has never quite stopped searching for Soong augments, however, and Noonian feels a noose tightening. He asks Juliana to flee with him under an alias. They get married and finally manage to finish Lore. Then Data.

Lore, Noonian realizes quickly, is too much Soong. He's arrogant, brash, desperate for recognition. It takes Juliana a lot longer to accept, but they soon realize Lore is beyond their control and increasingly dangerous. Noonian's greatest fear, of making the next Khan, seems dangerously close to fruition. Noonian wants to fix Lore... But Juliana makes an emergency call and deactivates Lore when he vaguely boasts to her about how he could hypothetically summon a giant alien to kill them all.

The plan is always, always to make adjustments and reactivate their son, but they simply run out of time. The Crystalline Entity attacks and in the rush to escape, Juliana convinces Noonian to leave Data behind too. They can't be sure Data won't be a second Lore, but Noonian really agrees because he feels he's cursed to always fail, just as his ancestors did. Juliana dies. Crushed and traumatized, Noonian crashes again in the Briar Patch. He only stays long enough to build a Juliana android.... Who he programs to divorce him.

He loves her and he wants to know that some version of her is out there somewhere... But being with an android copy is not enough. Noonian settles into obscurity and finally understands why Arik felt prepared to die all those centuries ago.

He's able to keep track of Data's development and feels vindicated that Data adjusted so well with significantly less Soong family input. Noonian is convinced that his presence, his parenting was what damaged Lore, so letting Data go was the only way to save him. He's only half right.

Right around this time, Noonian learns of his other great failure: abandoning the Soong clones and augments, some of whom have now been adopted or captured by less than trustworthy authorities. Instead of returning to fix Lore or make contact with Data, Noonian accepts that they're both probably better off without him. He owes Arik this final favor.

Old man Noonian spends a long time doing what he can to repair the damage of his forefathers. He sends inactive clones to Section 31 (or destroys them). He liberates captured Soong clones and their offspring from various work camps or prisons. He puts down a particulary violent and ambitious Adam clone that was somehow activated and wants to restart a eugenics war on a galactic scale. After killing him, he discovers the last Adam clone, an infant named Altan. Noonian does a lot of good, although he's not perfect. And he gets so very old. Somewhere in here, he misses the batch with Dal R'El, but Noonian never gives up tracking every loose thread.

He feels death coming upon him like exhaustion after a long day. He makes the emotion chip for Data and fills it with memories too. He never gets a chance to express the unabashed joy and gut-punching irony of seeing Lore again, his greatest failure, his first true success, his clone, his shadow, his son. And only when they're both so lonely and broken. Noonian dies at peace in so many ways, but he doesn't get to see Data's greatest moments or know for sure that everything will be ok. He dies with regrets, but he's content to die.

When Lore tries to use the emotion chip, the surge of memories overwhelms him. As does a sudden, violent urge to conquer and lead. 😬 Whoops! It's genetic.

When Data finally gets the emotion chip, he studies it carefully and installs it the way it was intended. He gets the memories his father intended for him, all of Noonian's life and Data's own earliest records. He also gets memories from Arik. And Adam. And Juliana (the real one). And Lore. And Kore. And on and on. Noonian included all the information he could find on every Soong, particularly the stuff the Federation didn't have access to. Noonian also sent whatever information he had collected about various augments and clones he wasn't able to track down before dying.

Data has to decide between finishing his father's work or setting all this Soong stuff aside to live his own life. He is overwhelmed, which is an understatement, but there are crises that need his attention. He buries it and buries it but it's harder now that he has... Feelings. Ultimately, he decides his family is here, on The Enterprise, not out there in various dangerous and illegal situations. His first priority is Starfleet. Maybe someday he'll make time to honor his father's legacy.... He'll have a lot of time. He's an android after all.

It's imperceptible to all but his closest friends, but these memories change Data. He's never felt so conflicted or so human. Generational trauma will do that to a person. So when Data has to decide between watching Picard (his chosen father) die or sacrifice himself to save one of the best men he's ever known... Well, it's not an easy decision... But Data feels there's only one ethical choice. He does what other Soongs have always struggled to do. He puts the good of the many ahead of the one. Sure, all that legacy will end with Data, but human life is more important than one man's ego.

When Data dies, he inadvertently takes all that information about the Soongs with him. That whole record of one family (really, one man) wrecking havoc, pursuing science that maybe shouldn't be pursued, then working for decades to set things right... It's all lost. Altan only knows the barest outline of these details. He knows he too had a difficult relationship with his father, who was too busy with androids and clones to be a good parent. But he doesn't know how hard Arik and Noonian worked to fix their mistakes.

With help though, Altan continues the work. Data's legacy is what lasts, not Adam's.

At SOME POINT, Dal R'El NEEDS to hear Data's speeches in Measure of a Man. Because I need Dal to understand that he is special and deserving of life and dignity and love. He comes from a place, yes of arrogance, but also love and joy of learning. I want him to see his place in this long, messy line (just as Data did) and choose to do better. Data's legacy, not Adam's.

Maybe he can meet Soji too. That'd be nice. ❤

[my-timing-is-digital]

[ Ooc: I just noticed something. WHY IS THERE A SHINY BLUE CABLE ATTACHED TO THE BACK OF LORE'S NECK? Asdfghjkl. WTF. WTF. I NEED ANSWERS. ]