Name: Data
Rank: Lieutenant Commander
Position: Second Officer/Chief Operations Officer/Chief Science Officer USS Enterprise(NCC-1701-D)
Age: technically 41 (body been active for 26 years)
Starfleet History
2341: Enters Starfleet Academy
2345: Graduates Starfleet Academy
????: Assigned to USS Trieste
2351: Promoted to Lieutenant
2360: recruited by Captain Picard to serve on USS Portia
2360: Promoted to Lieutenant Commander and reassigned to USS Trieste as Chief Science Officer
2363: Reassigned to USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) as Chief Operations Officer/Chief Science Officer/Second Officer
Personal History
Data was the fifth of six known androids designed by Dr. Noonien Soong. He was constructed on the planet Omicron Theta around 2336, after his "brother", Lore, had been deactivated over the protests of Soong's wife Juliana. Soong claimed he built Data to perfect his design of his androids, and when Data was perfected, apply his improvements to Lore. In his earliest existence, Data was much like a baby, struggling with motor control and sensory input. Subsequent to the early presence of Noonien and Juliana Soong, Data claimed he had no one to guide him as he developed sentience. Over time, Data had learned about himself and his world, and his programming was refined by Dr. Soong, who attempted to eliminate certain undesirable behaviors. Problems included a disregard for social niceties (courtesies like "please" and "thank you"), and a lack of appreciation for clothing (Data did not see any necessity since he "didn't suffer from the elements"). In regards to the latter issue, the Soongs had to write a "modesty subroutine", because the colonists objected to an anatomically-accurate android being unclothed. Eventually Soong decided to program Data with the logs and journals of the colonists, while simultaneously wiping his memory of his early existence. Unfortunately, the Crystalline Entity attacked before Data was reactivated. Data was discovered, abandoned by the colonists, by an away team from the USS Tripoli. Juliana had come to view Data as her beloved son, but always feared that he would fail, as the other Soong-type androids had, or become dangerous, like Lore, and would have to be dismantled. This fear motivated her to lie to her husband when they fled, forcing him to leave Data behind, inactive.
Data was found and reactivated on the planet Omicron Theta by the USS Tripoli on February 2, 2338, after the Crystalline Entity destroyed the entire colony on the planet. His connection with Starfleet resulted in his choice to enter Starfleet Academy. Upon applying for admittance to the Academy, Data met with some resistance from Bruce Maddox – who, desiring the opportunity to avail his cybernetic research interests, became, as Data put it, "the only member of the evaluation committee to oppose [Data's] entrance on the grounds that [he] was not a sentient being." Eventually, Data was admitted to the Academy in 2341, and spent four years there. During his time at Starfleet Academy Data did extremely well scholastically, but his lack of understanding often created social obstacles for him. He fell victim to several practical jokes and had difficulty with social gatherings. Nonetheless, in 2345, Data graduated, with honors in exobiology and probability mechanics. Data once expressed to Geordi that, though he found it "difficult to understand why someone would deliberately terminate their own existence," when he was achieving sentience, he had considered shutting himself down and beginning all over again – in essence, admitting to in his own way having considered suicide at a difficult point in his early life. One of Data's first assignments after he graduated Starfleet Academy was aboard the USS Trieste. He remained an ensign for three years and spent ten-to-twelve years as a lieutenant before he was recruited for a survey mission by Captain Jean-Luc Picard aboard the USS Portia. During this mission, Picard encouraged Data to assert himself and work beyond what his superiors request of him; prior to meeting Picard, Data had shown a lack of career advancement because he always did the job in front of him simply because it didn't occur to him to push himself further or ask for particular assignments over others, adhering to the chain of command without thinking of going beyond the rules. Inspired by Picard's advice, Data was not only able to determine the true abilities and motives of the Manraloth, Ariel, but expose and thwart her plans to sabotage the Galaxy-class starships with a quantum virus that would have added various minor faults to their designs while rendering Starfleet computers unable to detect these flaws. As a result of his efforts, Data was promoted to Lieutenant Commander in 2360 after the conclusion of the mission. He subsequently served aboard the USS Trieste, although he was assured that there was a place for him on a Galaxy-class starship when he wanted it for his role in saving them.
In 2364, Data joined the crew of the USS Enterprise-D as operations manager, chief science officer, and second officer. Shortly after the Farpoint mission, the Enterprise crew was infected with a polywater intoxication which caused the crew members and even Data to act irrationally, as if mentally unstable. Fortunately, Doctor Crusher found an antidote, and with Data's help the recovered crew was able to retain control of the ship. Data was transported to a different quantum reality and the year 2380 along with the rest of the Enterprise-D personnel after the test of Kozinski's modifications.