Best Artificial Life FormWell we've had some debate on this blog over the best starship captain on Star Trek. But who can forget that other staple of the Star Trek universe (and the most theologically interesting): artificial life forms. That's right: from nanites to exocomps to the Enterprise itself, we've seen a plethora of forms of humanly created life (which often wind up so heavily anthropomorphized that it becomes necessary to attribute them human-type rights). Sometimes the artificial life is mechanical (e.g. Lore, Data's evil brother, B4, Data's idiot brother, or Lal, Data's endearing but fated offspring); sometime's it's virtual (e.g. Vic Fontaine, DS9's Lounge Singer, or Professor Moriarity, Sherlock Holmes'/Data's adversary).
But for me, the two most memorable are Data himself (smart, possessing incredible strength, and "fully functioning, programmed in multiple techniques" -- how cool is that?) and the Doctor on Voyager (with an acerbic, ironic wit, operatic temprament and an ego to match). What do you think? What do the kinds of life created by humans say about humans themselves?
2 comments:
i agree, the doctor from voyager is the best. He is the least artifical-like, of all the artificial life forms. He strives more to become an individual than even his crewmate; former borg 7of9.
The federation's move away from deism was a mark of their stupidity more than anything else. So often they could have been both gifted and saved by the divine Continuum... so often they refused, preferring to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. What wonders they could have had; Whorf with a mate, Geordi with eyes, Riker as a Q, Janeway with a short trip home... and yet, being "intelligent" and "advanced" were so much better... one must wonder what absurd standard of measure is used to determine such titles...
All this aside, Data's 'grandfather' who translated his mind into computer code and stole Data's body is by far the best artificial life form.
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