As Brent Spiner's Adam Soong dashes his hopes of winning "Father of the Year" in Star Trek: Picard season 2, Data's character journey becomes all the sweeter. Star Trek: The Next Generation continued Gene Roddenberry's barrier-breaking approach to sci-fi by featuring an android among the Enterprise-D's main crew. Named Data, this synthetic being's quest for humanity spanned all the way into Star Trek: Picard season 1, and his ultimate (for real, this time) death. As well as the monster, Brent Spiner also played Star Trek's very own Dr. Frankenstein, Noonian Soong - the man who co-created Data alongside his wife, Juliana.
Members of the Soong clan tampering with advanced science is nothing new, and Star Trek: Picard's past timeline sees Jean-Luc encounter Adam Soong in 2024. Obsessed with genetics (the Soongs hadn't yet shifted onto synthetic studies), Adam created a procession of cloned daughters, the final and most successful being Kore, who survives until adulthood but remains unable to venture beyond her sterilized bedroom bubble. Kore discovers her true nature in Star Trek: Picard season 2, then rages at the man she previously called father, accusing Adam Soong of loving her only as an experiment - not as a daughter.
Many parallels can be drawn between the mistakes Adam Soong is making here in Star Trek: Picard's past, and the mistakes Noonian Soong will one day make in Star Trek: The Next Generation's future. Both men were obsessed with their scientific endeavors, pushing human acquaintances away in an unintentionally ironic mission to create realistic human life. Adam was rejected by his peers and disgraced; Noonian's marriage to Juliana ended. Both also failed as fathers due to their bloody-minded pursuit of scientific perfection. Noonian Soong created Data as a newer model whilst neglecting older brother, Lore - a grudge the senior sibling held into Star Trek: The Next Generation. 2024's Adam Soong, meanwhile, sought a cure for Kore's condition, but only to complete his science project, not to give his daughter a normal life. Indeed, Kore realizes Adam never intended to release her, healthy or not. There's a coldness to Adam during their confrontation - a lack of empathy as Kore accuses her "father" of valuing her only as a project, not a sentient being.
And that's precisely where Star Trek's Soong synergy comes to a stop. Though both doctors were guilty of professional obsession and not always appreciating the life forms they created, Adam keeps Kore caged like a lab rat. The Soong predecessor has successfully created life (with a helping hand from Q), but has little intention of letting that young bud flourish. For all his sins, that's not the existence Noonian Soong offered Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Noonian programmed his favorite son to choose his own path, and despite expressing disappointment that Data picked Starfleet over the sciences, Soong wanted Data to experience the outside world and soak up all the emotions and nuances of organic life. That's the complete opposite of Adam Soong's restrictive attitude toward Kore.
Kore's Star Trek: Picard story adds a new element to Data's developmental path through Star Trek: The Next Generation. Data's life could've quite easily been as limiting and oppressive as Adam Soong's daughter in 2024, but he roamed freely instead, living exactly the kind of adventures Kore dreamed about. The Enterprise-D android honored his cloned predecessor's spirit, and their ancestral link is proven by Data's "Daughter" painting, which depicted a girl who looked exactly like Kore. The struggle she endured adds a deeper layer behind Data's thirst for humanity. Kore and her father may yet make amends before Star Trek: Picard season 2 concludes, but right now, their relationship is craggier than Vasquez Rocks. That inability to find resolution proves how meaningful Noonian Soong's final moments - when Data earnestly called him "father" - truly were. One Soong earned that title, that other still hasn't.
Star Trek: Picard also reveals the Soongs, despite possessing eerily similar traits across several centuries, do eventually learn from their mistakes, right up until Inigo Altan Soong, who dwelt happily among his family of androids in the 24th century, some of whom had already flown the nest and were living regular lives in the outside world. Like a fine Saurian Brandy, it seems the Soongs mellow over time.
Star Trek: Picard continues Thursday on Paramount+.