Summary

  • Brent Spiner's diverse acting career within the Star Trek universe allowed him to play every Soong character, showcasing his range.
  • Dr. Noonien Soong, Data's creator, focused on creating androids, while Dr. Arik Soong's experiments led to genetic disasters.
  • Dr. Adam Soong, a villainous figure, sought personal acclaim over the well-being of his cloned daughters and was willing to murder to achieve it.

Most remembered for his turn as Lt. Commander Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Brent Spiner also went on to play every single Soong character that has been introduced in the Star Trek universe. Starting with Data's creator, Dr. Noonien Soong on TNG, the celebrated character actor has been tapped to play different Soongs throughout Trek's extended timeline. Each new Soong gave Spiner a chance to show off his acting range, and they also fleshed out the dynasty of Data's mysterious cyberneticist father. The complicated Soong lineage stretches back to the 21st century as seen in Star Trek: Picard.

Since Data was created in the image of his father, Dr. Noonien Soong, it only made sense to have the chameleon-like actor take a turn as the scientist in one of Data's best episodes, TNG season 4, episode 3, "Brothers." The trend continued when Data's ancestor, Dr. Arik Soong, was introduced in that Star Trek: Enterprise season 4 with Spiner returning for the prequel series. Star Trek: Picard not only allowed Spiner to reprise his role as Data, but it introduced Adam and Altan Inigo Soong, both of whom were from different time periods and offered conflicting views of the Soong family legacy.

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6 Dr. Adam Soong

Star Trek: Picard

Dr. Adam Soong was the earliest known Soong, and his encounters with Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in 2024 Los Angeles were the subject of Star Trek: Picard season 2. Dr. Soong was an eccentric and dangerous billionaire whose scientific obsession led him to the fields of human genetic engineering and augmentation. Adam created a series of cloned "daughters" through the process, though they all suffered from a deadly genetic defect. In the end, Soong's only surviving daughter, Kore Soong (Isa Briones), discovered the truth about her so-called father and destroyed all of his research.

In Star Trek: Picard season 2's dark alternate reality, Adam Soong was considered a hero by the Confederation of Planets.

The villainous Adam Soong made Data's backstory more interesting, as there were parallels between the struggles of each generation of Soong to perfect their designs. Although Adam was determined to find a cure for Kore's genetic defect, he was driven not by love for his cloned daughter, but rather by a desire to make a name for himself. Soong was so obsessed with his own legacy that he was willing to murder Renée Picard (Penelope Mitchell) to prevent her from making a discovery on the Europa Mission that would render Soong's research obsolete. Far from the mad genius of his successors, Dr. Adam Soong's murderous ways were just mad.

5 Dr. Arik Soong

Star Trek: Enterprise

In the 22nd century, Dr. Arik Soong came across Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and the NX-01 Enterprise crew in Star Trek: Enterprise season 4, and Arik had taken up the twisted mantel of his ancestor, Adam Soong. Star Trek: Picard season 2 revealed that Dr. Adam Soong possessed a file entitled Project Khan, the genetic engineering protocol that led to the creation of Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) and his reign of terror. Dr. Arik Soong took the genetic research used to create Khan even further. After stealing genetically altered embryos from Khan's Eugenics War, Dr. Arik Soong raised the enhanced children only to have them violently rebel just like Khan did in Star Trek: The Original Series.

Arik Soong's misguided efforts eventually led to a genetic disaster within the Klingon race, as they used leftover Augment DNA in an attempt to create Klingon Augments.

Dr. Arik Soong tried to convince his Augment "children" not to kill anyone, but when they disobeyed him, he helped Captain Archer stop them. After the failure of his Augments, Arik Soong was taken back to prison, where he decided to shift his focus to the study of artificial life. This marked an important shift in the Soong dynasty, as their focus on artificial intelligence would eventually lead to Data and his brothers. Later, Arik Soong's protégés used his work to create Dal R'El (Brett Gray), a Human Augment hybrid, who did not discover his true history until the end of Star Trek: Prodigy season 1.

4 Dr. Noonien Soong

Star Trek: The Next Generation

During the 24th century of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Dr. Noonien Soong's legacy was cemented when his creation, Lt. Commander Data, became a decorated Starfleet officer. A misunderstood genius, Noonien Soong created several androids while living on Omicron Theta, including Data, the prototype B-4, and Data's unstable precursor, Lore. While living among the colonists on Omicron Theta, Lore began to believe himself superior to humans and exhibited frightening behavior. Noonien Soong then deactivated Lore and designed better ethical subroutines for Data. Unbeknownst to Dr. Soong, Lore had communicated with the Crystalline Entity prior to his deactivation, and the Entity then attacked Omicron Theta.

Dr. Noonien Soong had none of the deadly intent of Dr. Adam Soong.

Dr. Noonien Soong was presumed dead in the attack, but he had managed to escape and continued his research elsewhere. In TNG's "Brothers," Soong activated a homing beacon in Data and revealed he had created an emotion chip for the android. Unfortunately, Lore also responded to the homing beacon and stole the chip meant for his brother, before fatally wounding his father. Dr. Soong was legitimately interested in creating artificial life and had ditched his family's previous obsession with genetic augmentation. Though his abandoning of his creations led to Frankenstein-like consequences when Lore murdered him, Dr. Noonien Soong had none of the deadly intent of Dr. Adam Soong.

3 Dr. Altan Inigo Soong

Star Trek: Picard

The 2385 attack on Mars was the inciting incident of Star Trek: Picard season 1, and the fallout from the attack led to the all-out ban of artificial lifeforms. Picard season 1 introduced Dr. Altan Inigo Soong, who was Dr. Noonien Soong's only biological child, and technically brother to Data, Lore, and B-4. Dr. Altan Soong's pursuits were closer to that of his father than his other ancestors, and he partnered with fellow cyberneticist Dr. Bruce Maddox (John Ales) to illegally pursue artificial life despite the ban. Soong and Maddox went on to build a laboratory and a community of androids on the planet Coppelius.

Bruce Maddox became convinced that someone within the Federation had been behind the attack on Mars, so he created the androids Soji and Dahj Asha (Isa Briones) to uncover the truth.

Altan Soong remained on Coppelius, looking after his android "children," and working on a means to transfer a person's consciousness into a synthetic body he called a golem. Although Soong originally meant for this synthetic form for himself, he later gifted the golem body to Jean-Luc Picard after Picard died of a terminal brain disease. Soong had also created artificial animals like Spot II and synthetic butterflies, proving he had more diverse interests than the other Soongs. After the ban on synthetics was lifted, Soong redirected his efforts to create a newly upgraded version of Data, that also incorporated the memories of Lore, B-4, and Data's daughter, Lal (Hallie Todd).

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The Soong dynasty in Star Trek pursued their research with an almost fanatical zeal, not letting things like laws stand in their way.

2 The Soongs Abandoned Eugenics In Favor Of Androids

Later in life, Arik Soong chose to focus on artificial life rather than genetic engineering.

The changes in Klingon appearance were the result of Dr. Arik Soong's botched genetic augmentation during Enterprise, and his spectacular failures led him to shift his focus from genetics to synthetics before the end of his life. Arik understood that research into artificial life still had a long way to go and that it would take generations before there would be tangible results. From this point on, the Soongs worked in the field of cybernetics, hoping to create artificial life that was indistinguishable from organic life.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is the latest Star Trek series to explore the time period between Arik and Noonien, and it could provide more clues about the Soongs and their obsession with artificial life.

By all appearances, Dr. Noonien Soong had stronger morals than his ancestors and genuinely cared for Data and the other androids he created. Throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data became the Soong family's greatest accomplishment, as he saved the USS Enterprise-D on numerous occasions and achieved his own level of humanity. Tragically, Data sacrificed himself to save his friends in Star Trek: Nemesis, but this was not the end of Noonien Soong's best creation.

1 Data In Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Is Soong's Greatest Success

Picard season 3 brought closure to Data and the Soongs' Star Trek story.

After his deaths in both Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek: Picard season 1, Data was officially resurrected in Picard season 3. During their quest to uncover the Changeling/Borg plot to destroy the Federation, Admiral Picard and his crew found what remained of Data being used for security on Daystrom Station. They quickly rescued their old friend, whose consciousness had been combined with those of Lore, B-4, and Lal. Although Lore's personality briefly took over the upgraded android body, Data became the dominant personality in the end.

By the end of Star Trek: Picard season 3, Data had become as close to human as possible.

With this new human-like synthetic body, not only could Data experience physical sensations, but he could also feel organic human emotions for the first time. When piloting the rebuilt Enterprise-D, for example, Data experienced joy that even Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) could feel. Data reunited with his best friend, Commodore Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), and the rest of his old crew, bringing his Star Trek story to a satisfying conclusion. By the end of Star Trek: Picard season 3, Data had become as close to human as possible, finally achieving his life-long dream and cementing himself as the Soongs' greatest success.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Enterprise & Star Trek: Picard are streaming on Paramount+.