#quoqueanalysis

Watching Data's inability to take Lore's side against their creator in Brothers, I felt like their misunderstanding largely comes from this difference.

A deep guilt over not being as functional as they could be runs through both characters. Data's desire to be human stems from pondering whether he is good enough at being someone a person should be, some gold standard at being human. His arc ultimately proves he doesn't have to exist in a certain way to deserve life and respect — but the insecurity remains, buried deep, and is constantly revived by others' bigotry. I might even argue that one of the reasons he was deemed worthy of the Academy and starship was his usefulness, which laid the foundation for the "I have to be fully functional to be deserving" mindset. That's why "I'm not less perfect than Lore" cuts so deeply.

The same foundation exists for Lore (from longer exposure to humanity pre Dr. Soong's disappearance, constant evaluation with negative public opinion), but he strikes me as someone who pitied the question "Why didn't he just fix me?" for so long that he finally understood: no amount of functionality would earn him the respect he wanted. The lie about being a newer version feels like a last, desperate attempt at it anyway.

And these two positions colliding feels like being in and out of the illusion of close acceptability. Data was willing to listen to their inventor, and hung onto every word—even after the revelation about his functionality. But Lore? He just saw how obviously he was being ignored and belittled, and how nothing Lore could have done or said would have changed the old man's mind about the impossibility of fixing him.

Lore had clearly abandoned the idea of trying to earn humanity's love long before Data brought him to the Enterprise. But having to look his creator in the eye and know—beyond any doubt—that who he was, at his core, was the thing they couldn't accept? That was its own kind of wound, I'm sure.

***

The difference between them makes me insane.

Is her vision like a surface to her? Are the shapes and colors she sees just pigments painted onto the glass of her eyes? If that's how she experiences reality (as an image projected onto a 'surface') then maybe the line between a real flower and a painted one blurs. Maybe her whole world is a painting.

Also, the definition hinges on the act of applying. It assumes a painter. Lal, who knows she was built, might look at the world through the notion of necessary existence of intentional creation. The flower is just another beautiful arrangement of color, just like her, just like the painting. Every beauty in the world was carefully and lovingly brought to life.

The fact that Data puts her right to authenticity above all else, allowing her to choose her own appearance in the first place. And it's just so nice to see her discovering her first likes and dislikes next. She's a few hours old and she's fascinated by Diana Troi. A few days old and she's happy with every achieved task her father teaches her. A few weeks old and she comes to realize she doesn't want to be different....but is not able to escape it.

Her story is so interconnected with learning the rules of the outside world while discovering who you are fundamentally. And it's beautiful to see Data give her space to discover things herself. Her being placed in the school and Ten Forward, instead of somewhere she could be useful like engineering, doubles that.

And when we look at Data and Lore? Sure, Dr. Soong loved androids. As inventions. As achievements. As his reflections. Soong brothers can't escape the legacy that's upon them: forever the product of someone else's dream.

But Lal was made with love first and foremost for her, as she is. It's in her name. Beloved. And that made her existence so... personal.

To leave with the severed head is to cut ties with the roots. It's painful and cruel, most of the close ones won't understand the decision to leave such a big part of yourself behind, - but it's her plan and she's sure of it. It's her life now. No turning back.

To wait with the prisoner is to overgrow the heritage. She saw leaving as a weakness she never could afford. That's fine - she'll wait. She'll see this place fall apart and she'll build something new on these ruins. She finds fortitude in resilience, but the responsibility for the restoration of her homeland lingers like heavy chains on her hands. It's freedom but with a bitterness of debt.

To kill the prisoner is to fall into the cycle. She never overcame her family burdens. She knew the pattern and decided there was nothing to do but to follow. And oh how well she'll return the favour to the next generation. Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't see drowned grey as an old widow in some distant godforsaken village.

And the cage is about giving up. Her last hope failed. And she needs rest as long as life could give. She'll stay not to hope for the better or to fight for the worst, but to save the pain from trying any further. It's the only thing she knows. There's no power in selfhood or in adherence, so she chooses the indulgence of detachment. She is that distant relative with big sorrowful eyes and the quietest voice, who saw the most. There's no leaving for her now. She's shattered to the core. At least she thinks so.

The heart of the Wild is kept further away, hidden, completely alienated in the void between her ribs, which threaten to prick it at the slightest movement in her posture. In their roundness, they remind of natural ornaments, and their sharp ends look like tree branches. Her nature is the reason for her fragility, threatening to kill her at the slightest disturbance, and only her - it's a feeling shared to another at expanse of self.

I want to know what she would think of Dr. Soong: the greatest inventor she can only hear about, never meet; the often-wrong who decided to play god, his mistakes still echoing through his creations; her grandfather, whose heritage she's destined to carry.

And about Lore? I know about the unmade episode with both of them (greatest loss ever imaginable), but even before that. How would Data tell her, if he would?

I'm sure many who've ever had to deal with mental or physical illness know the feeling of strange attachment to distant relatives from the past who seemed to share it. I think it might be the case here. I think she would be much closer to understanding Lore than anyone else.