lore star trek

Lore's Entire Backstory Explained

Every "Star Trek" series seems to have its own version of Spock, someone who doesn't understand (or cannot feel) emotions in the traditional sense. On "Star Trek: The Next Generation," that character is the beloved synthetic human Data (Brent Spiner), though Data also has elements of another famous "Star Trek" character. According to producer Robert H. Justman (via " The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next Twenty Five Years "), Data was envisioned as "an android programmed by Starfleet Command with all of the familiar abilities and characteristics of Spock fused with the leadership and humanistic qualities of Captain Kirk."

For seven seasons, Data played a major part in the show's explorations of selfhood, intelligence, and emotion. One plan to explore these feelings was to give Data a love interest . Her job was supposed to be repairing the ship in dangerous situations. Instead, "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry decided to go down the evil twin route, and so the Lore that we know — also played by Spiner — was born. He's clever, mean, quirky, and very funny to watch, but with a lurking malevolence that's impossible to ignore. Let's take a look at his backstory.

The story of Data and Lore begins on the Omicron Theta colony, where Doctor Noonian Soong and his wife Juliana built a series of androids: Two basic prototypes, the simplistic model B-4, Lore, and Data. These were the first true fully functioning "positronic brains," which is the show's explanation for artificial intelligence in android form, and which is politicized, in various ways, throughout the canon.

The four Omicron Theta creations are known as "Soong-type" androids, because they are made in Dr. Soong's image (Dr. Soong, of course, is also played by Brent Spiner). Soong and Juliana considered all four of them their children, and Data and his fellow Soong-types are often referred to and behave as brothers. The Soongs also have a biological son, Altan Inigo Soong, graced with the same brilliance as his parents and brothers. He is introduced much later in the "Star Trek: Picard" series.

Thanks to Data's fame as the first android in Starfleet, Soong's research is further developed by Dr. Bruce Maddox, who goes into hiding after synthetics attempt to conquer Mars and synthetic life is subsequently banned. He and Agnes Jurati work with Noonian's son to create a whole community of organic androids based on Data's positronic neurons.

Creating Lore

When we first meet Lore on Omicron Theta, he claims to be an improvement on Data, but that turns out to be a lie: He is Data's older brother, not younger. Lore was born extremely advanced, with great strength and speed and high intelligence. He was also, unfortunately, unstable from the jump and he developed a serious superiority complex.

Later, Lore would claim he was rejected for being "too perfect," but the truth is that he's flawed in many ways. The people of the colony demanded that Noonian shut Lore down because he was creeping everybody out. In response, Lore secretly contacted a planet-killing space creature called the Crystalline Entity to come and destroy all life on the planet — excluding himself, of course.

Noonian eventually gave in to the demands of his fellow colonists and deactivated Lore. He stored Lore away and started work on Data instead. Since Lore's emotions were the core of his terrible behavior, Noonian decided Data would be created without all that mess — and he promised himself he would come back and fix Lore later. Noonian later came to feel bad about leaving Data's emotions out and created an "emotion chip" for him, but it took a long time for Data to actually receive and initiate it.

Meeting Lore

Unfortunately, Lore's deactivation doesn't take place soon enough for the colony to avoid the consequences of his actions, and the Crystalline Entity destroys all life on Omicron Theta. Data is discovered by the crew of the USS Tripoli years after the disaster, while Lore remained in Noonian's lab. An away team including Dr. Beverly Crusher comes from the USS Enterprise-D, and they are able to reactivate him.

Lore plays the part of a kind brother to Data at first, sharing stories about Soong, although we see in a few tics and quirks that indicate he's not entirely stable. We soon learn that he's lying about being created after Data rather than before. He isn't a more advanced model, as he would have people believe. That truth is that Soong saw some of his features were broken and resolved to work on him later, then designed the somewhat simpler Data.

Lore's true nature soon comes to the surface — he steals Data's uniform and knocks him out, planning to sacrifice the Enterprise crew to his old friend, the Crystalline Entity. Wesley Crusher is the only person who can tell the difference between the brothers, and he is frustratingly persecuted for his attempts to expose the interloper. Eventually, the ruse is discovered, and during a battle with Data and Wesley, Lore is transported into space.

The good doctor

The Enterprise is working at a Federation colony when the Crystalline Entity reappears, destroying another planet. Data and Riker are able to save almost the entire group they're working with by hiding in caves made up of a certain kind of stone. In an attempt to capture or speak to the Crystalline Entity (and in the hope of getting it to stop killing everything it comes across), an expert xenologist named Dr. Kila Marr is summoned. She seems intensely interested in the Entity, and even more so in Data.

Kila's not an android-hater: She knows Data's relationship to Lore, and Lore's relationship to the Crystalline Entity, and she thinks there's some connection between these things and the group's survival. Isn't it likely, she wonders, that the Entity would overlook the caves if they contained an ally? Were the colonists spared because Data was with them? In the end, it's revealed that Dr. Marr's son was killed in an attack by the Crystalline Entity, and she uses the Enterprise's attempts to communicate with the Entity to first torture and then destroy it. The crew is horrified by this waste of life, and Dr. Marr herself seems to go completely off the rails.

Lore's niece

Did you know that Lore once had a niece? After attending a cybernetics conference, an excited Data returns to the Enterprise to build a Soong-type android child of his own: Lal, which means "beloved" in Sanskrit. At first, the child is genderless and faceless, throwing off Deanna Troi and Geordi La Forge entirely. But the child is intelligent and clearly alive — or at least sentient — in the same sense as Data himself. Lal refers to Data as "father," just as Data and Lore do with Dr. Noonian Soong. Data creates Lal knowing all the things that can go wrong, and he's determined to improve on Soong's failures with Lore.

Eventually, Lal chooses a form: Human female. The crew easily goes along with her choice of gender and race, just as they are okay with Data's claims to fatherhood. After a few attempts at schooling, in which she mostly unnerves the other children, Lal takes up a job in Ten Forward under Guinan's guidance and begins learning the ins and outs of social behavior. After a Starfleet Admiral arrives to take her away, Lal's fear response kicks in and causes a cascade failure in her neural net. Ultimately, Data is unable to save his daughter, and they say goodbye.

The emotion chip

Lore drifts in outer space for almost two years before his rescue by a Pakled trade ship. Soon after, Noonian — alive, but dying — sends out a homing signal to summon Data to his new lab on Terlina III. It also summons Lore, who arrives with much resentment, but shows genuine concern when Noonian reveals that he is dying.

However, this family intimacy only lasts for so long. It all goes out of the window when Lore finds out why Noonian sent out the beacon in the first place: He has created an implantable chip that will allow Data to feel human emotion. Lore is, of course, unable to comprehend that Data's makeup and background make him more ethically sophisticated, and therefore able to deal with having emotions without going unstable like Lore.

Lore gets jealous about this, even when Noonian explains that Lore didn't get a chip because he thought he was still deactivated. This isn't a great excuse, since it leads back to the fact that he was deactivated in the first place. He takes the chip for himself by impersonating Data, but Soong explains that the chip was made specifically for Data and that the chip is just going to make him even more unstable, which it does — he eventually kills Noonian because of it, disappearing into the cosmos.

Hugh the Borg

While Lore is gone and presumed dead — or at least no longer a problem — the Enterprise-D discovers a gravely injured Borg drone at a crash site in the Argolis Cluster. Beverly Crusher fights for his life and they bring the Borg back to the Enterprise for care and study. It's the right thing to do, but Geordi La Forge understandably doesn't trust the Borg, named Third of Five. He treats the patient like a machine and keeps his guard up. Soon enough, the Borg starts showing signs of individuality and ego, necessary for a personality to form.

The Borg are a cybernetic race of former humans (and others) who have been assimilated into a vast hive-mind collective, ruled by a Queen. They operate as a group, and can hear each other's thoughts at all times. Beverly and even Geordi come to care for their subject, giving him a human name: Hugh. Captain Jean-Luc Picard suggests they send Hugh back to the collective as a kind of Trojan Horse, hoping his individuality will infect his brethren like a virus. But what does all this have to do with Lore?

Lore's Borg army

One year later, we learn the results of the Hugh gamble. The Borg ship that retrieves Hugh from the Argolis crash site does indeed become more individualist — an effect that causes them great consternation, as they are used to operating as a unit, without personal thoughts. They are adrift and disconnected from the collective when Lore comes across them, ripe for control, and assumes leadership of the group.

Lore gives the Borg individual names but restricts their freedoms — his rule is a totalitarian one. The Borg become his fanatical followers, shouting slogans and threatening violence. They don't even bother assimilating people into the collective anymore, they just kill. Lore is now the leader of a fascist movement made up of formerly mindless drones.

Eventually, he starts experimenting on them, trying to replace their once-human, organic brains with positronic brains like he and Data have. These experiments do not go well, resulting in mutilation and death. What Lore really wants to do is experiment on human subjects, and he plans on using Data to acquire them.

Lore's death

Lore's Borg army begins an attack in Federation space, luring Data in. Lore can now use his emotion chip to moderate Data's own emotions and perceptions — when Data kills a Borg, he feels a perverse pleasure afterward, an alien sensation to him. Lore decides to deactivate Data's ethical subroutines, and Data deserts the Enterprise to follow his brother.

Geordi and Picard are captured, and Data does experiments on Geordi, putting his crewmate through a terrible ordeal. Between bouts of torture at Data's hands, Geordi is able to teach Picard how to modify a Borg interlink transceiver to reboot Data's ethical programs. This won't decrease Lore's power over his emotions, but he'll at least have the option of acting on them.

Lore continues to manipulate Data for some time, fighting against the ethics rising in his subroutines, but eventually Data recoils from the cruelty and futility of their experimentation. The Borg on whom Lore has been experimenting all die horribly, and this is what pushes Data over the edge. He attacks, deactivates, and dismantles Lore, whose last words are: "I love you, brother."

Lore's mother is also an android

Data meets and becomes close with Dr. Juliana Tainer — formerly Juliana Soong, Data and Lore's "mother" — and they play music together. After an accident it becomes apparent that Juliana is also a Soong-type android. She's more developed than both of them, which bodes well for Lore in terms of potential future appearances.

Juliana comes with a holographic chip of Noonian, which Data activates on the holodeck and learns that it's a message directly to him. Soong's hologram explains that the original, organic Juliana was injured in the Crystalline Entity's attack on Omicron Theta, and by the time Soong made it to Terlina III, she was in a coma. Soong built her a positronic matrix and loaded her mind into it, creating a special shutdown loop in case she ever discovered she was an android.

Data wrestles with the decision of whether or not to tell her about her true nature. Eventually, he opts to leave her be, telling Juliana that she was the love of Soong's life, despite the fact that he was sometimes cold toward her — he could never quite get over the fact that she was a replacement for his real wife. They agree to meet again on Atrea and Data calls her "mother" in a touching moment.

Data and Lore's other brother makes an appearance

Lore's now-damaged emotion chip is back in Data's hands, but he's wary of using it due to the instability and actions of his brother. It will be years before he installs the chip, causing a lot of drama during the movie "Star Trek Generations," but not going haywire like Lore would. For the remainder of his appearances, Data possesses emotions, and his arc becomes one about learning to control them, which he eventually does.

In "Star Trek: Nemesis," the tenth film in the series, Data comes up against another older brother, B-4. While Lore's appearances always stage him as being on par with (or perhaps even more capable than) Data, in this case, the roles are reversed — B-4 is a much simpler machine. However, a lot of the same hijinks ultimately ensue, with Data and B-4 impersonating each other and B-4 eventually betraying the crew.

In order to save the Enterprise, Data valiantly offers his own life to destroy a Reman Warbird, and Jean-Luc Picard ends the film discussing Data and his sacrifice with a repaired but still confused and unsophisticated B-4.

Lore is coming back for the final season of Star Trek: Picard

This slide contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Picard."

In the first season finale of "Star Trek: Picard," the titular character briefly visits with Data in hologram form after downloading the remains of his consciousness from B-4. Positronic brains and neural nets, Dr. Maddox discovers, are capable of "fractal neuronic cloning," using just a single positronic neuron to recreate the whole of the consciousness. This is part of an arc that saw the fifth Soong brother — the biological son of Noonian and Juliana — create a planet of Soong-type androids, including two off-world sleeper agents, sisters who may not even know they're androids. These Soong-types are highly advanced, with all of Lore's abilities and none of his problems, and it's exciting to think about what artificial life could look like in the future of the show.

In 2022, it was revealed that Brent Spiner is set to reprise the role of Lore in the third and final season of "Star Trek: Picard." Fans already knew that Spiner was going to be involved, but his return as Lore wasn't confirmed until New York Comic Con, where a new trailer was released . One thread of the series has been Picard's grief and acceptance of Data's death, so Lore's appearance is likely to stir a lot of emotions in the titular character. There was another big Lore reveal at NYCC : The character will be part of a new comic book series called "Star Trek: Defiant." The comic is set before "Star Trek: Nemesis" and sees Lore join the crew of the Defiant, led by Worf. Lore already has a fascinating backstory, and it is set to be filled out even more in the near future.

Star Trek: Who Is Lore?

Taking a close look at the evil twin of one of Star Trek’s most loved characters, and what their presence in the new Picard trailer might mean.

Star Trek is filled to the brim with fantastically crafted characters, both heroes and villains. They slot in perfectly in their complex universe, acting as a futuristic allegory for topical issues at the times when the shows were made. Out of all the villains the franchise offered up, one of the more memorable, but often overlooked by the writers, is that of Lore.

This insidious android is the ‘evil’ cyborg twin brother to fan favorite character Data. With his surprise appearance in the new season 3 trailer for Picard , it seems his time in the limelight is not over. So for those who don't know, who exactly is he, and what happened to him in between The Next Generation and his appearance in Picard ?

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All great stories and character arcs start with a name. ‘Lore’ is a rich name with deeper meaning, especially when compared to his brother’s given name. Both Lore and Data are different types of information, but Data is far more factual and scientific. Lore, meanwhile, often relates to stories and mythology, handed down through generations. Data is inherently logical and factual, harder to falsify. Lore can be twisted and changed as stories pass from one mouth to another. It is also linked to traditions and religion. This makes perfect sense for why Roddenberry , a secular humanist with strong opinions about science over faith , would make Lore a villain The character would embody everything he disliked about religion: alluring and interesting, but dangerous.

Like Data, Lore was created by Doctor Noonien Soong. Also like Data, he was, rather egotistically, built in Soong's own image. He was the doctor's fourth attempt at a fully functional android, and the first he made with a fully functional positronic brain. Lore was, at least at first, the perfect creation. He was advanced in both strength and intelligence, and also fully sentient. This latter aspect was good thing on paper, but as his personality developed, it made him much more dangerous. While Data was created afterward, his older brother was actually more advanced. Lore possessed complex emotional programming – something that Data was always desperate to replicate, but often fell short of or missed the point entirely, much like Seven of Nine .

Removing emotion from Data was no mistake. Over time, Lore became more and more emotionally unstable, starting to display signs of malevolent behavior. He started to see himself as better than the humans in the colony where he and Soong lived, aware of his superiority and tiring of those he believed to be beneath him. He grew more and more degrading towards them, until the humans began demanding that Soong deactivate Lore. Lore proclaimed that was because they were envious of his perfection. Soong, though, eventually saw the darkness in his creation. He finally chose to shut Lore down and dismantle him, but not before Lore set in motion his own plan for revenge. He knew he would be deactivated, so he contacted a powerful space-born entity known as the Crystaline Entity. He offered to sacrifice the planet and those who lived there to the Entity in exchange for his own survival.

While Soong set about creating Data, he placed Lore into storage for many years. He always meant to return, and fix the issues with his emotional programming, but never did. Soong managed to finish Data, but soon afterward, the Crystaline Entity appeared, responding to Lore’s call. It destroyed all life on the planet, leaving just Data and the dismantled, deactivated Lore ‘alive.’ Starfleet found and rescued Data, and Lore remained in storage until one fateful TNG episode, “Datalore.”

In the episode, Lore was found and reactivated by Beverly Crusher and the crew of the Enterprise-D. Some truly classic Lore shenanigans ensue. He quickly returns to his nefarious ways, culminating in a telenovela-style twin swap with him and Data. The crew eventually work out what he has done and, in a rather un-Star Trek-like conclusion, he is transported into the cold embrace of space . Here, Lore floats around for two years until he is finally picked up by a passing trade vessel, and returned to Doctor Soong, who is revealed to have survived the attack.

Soong re-actives Lore, and they argue. Lore is angry with his ‘father’ for never trying to fix him, and instead replacing him with Data. His anger softens somewhat when he learns that Soong is gravely ill, but is reignited when he learns that Soong has summoned Data as well. He plans to fit Data with a new and improved emotion chip. Combined with an emotionless upbringing where he learned the factual difference between right and wrong, this would prevent the problems that exist with Lore. Data arrives, and Lore once again plays the identical twin card . He takes Data’s place, hoping Soong's invention will ‘fix’ him, and Soong installs the chip in his head instead. Despite his intentions, the chip does the opposite, as it was never designed for him. It sends his emotions into overdrive, sending him into a rage that causes him to mortally wound Soong before escaping.

There is more to Lore’s story, like the time he partnered up with the creepy Borg and turned Data to the dark side, but his story ends in failure. Data, realizing his brother was too far gone to be helped, manages to stun and then deactivate him. Lore's last words were ‘I love you brother’ in a surprisingly emotional moment from the reccurring baddie. He is dismantled, and the emotion chip Soong is removed and returned to Data, who would later install it in himself. Data declares that Lore has been ‘permanently deactivated,’ his positronic net damaged beyond repair. His body/parts are most likely stored at the Daystrom institute.

While he may have been beyond repair during TNG, a lot of scientific discoveries and developments have been made by the time the Picard series comes along. With Maddox’s fractal neuronal cloning technique seemingly working fine, it might provide the perfect reactivation explanation for Lore's return in the new season.

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6 Things To Remember About Lore And Moriarty Before Picard Season 3

There are some things fans should know.

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 is almost here , and while longtime fans of The Next Generation are excited to see their favorite crew back in action , they’re probably just as jazzed about the return of two of the show’s greatest villains . Lore and Moriarty will return for the final season of Picard , and while many are no doubt excited to see them, they may not completely remember why. 

Lore and Moriarty are two of Star Trek: The Next Generation ’s greatest villains, but neither was exactly prevalent across its 178 episodes. For those needing a small reminder, here are some of the things folks will want to know ahead of their return in Picard Season 3. 

Lore Is Data’s Brother, But More Advanced

Lore and Data are both Soong-type Androids created by the great Dr. Noonian Soong, but there are key differences between them. One interesting thing of note is that, while Data was created after Lore, Lore is technically the more advanced of the two thanks to his emotional programming. 

Unfortunately, Lore was prone to malevolence and other negative emotions, which made him incredibly dangerous, considering his other advanced abilities. Dr. Soong ultimately decided that giving Lore the full spectrum of emotions was a mistake, and put his components into storage. He’d go on to make Data without emotions, and Lore would, of course, later find himself reassembled again with a chip on his shoulder toward their shared father. 

Lore Was Allegedly Disassembled During The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation fans might’ve been shocked to see Lore promoted as appearing in Picard Season 3, especially if they remembered his previous appearance on television. Lore was in the iconic TNG two-parter “Descent,” and after his defeat at the end of it, was deactivated and sent off to be disassembled. 

Obviously, there will be some sort of story about how he was reconfigured and for what reason. After all, Lore was one of the greatest enemies Jean-Luc Picard and his crew faced, so why would Starfleet even risk keeping him active? 

Lore Loved Data As If They Were Actual Family

While Lore was a real ass and had all sorts of evil goals, he also had a strong sense of family. He had a real love for his brother, and one would think Data would’ve as well, if he had the emotional capacity for it at the time. I think this is always important to bring up, as it’s a reminder that while he was a villain in Star Trek , he wasn’t entirely evil. Lore had the capacity to feel many emotions on the spectrum, and while he primarily showed the more negative ones, perhaps he had a capacity for great kindness as well? 

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I imagine this might be a detail relevant to Star Trek: Picard Season 3, and perhaps he could find redemption in the eyes of Starfleet and with the former TNG crew in this new adventure. Or, he might just be the same old Lore and hatch some massive betrayal plot. We don’t really know at this time why he is in the story, and what role he has beyond giving Brent Spiner a reason to work with the cast. We’ll just have to wait and see!

Moriarty Started Out As A Challenge For Data

James Moriarty found his way into the holodeck in “Elementary, Dear Data” when Dr. Pulaski and Geordi La Forge wondered if Data could solve a Sherlock Holmes mystery that wasn’t based on the books. When he easily solved the challenge, there was an immediate question about whether Data solved the case because of its similarity to another Holmes story, or because he really was just that clever. Geordi then decided to up the ante, and asked the holodeck to create a villain that would be challenging for Data , and not just for Sherlock Holmes.

Thus, Moriarty received an upgrade, and while it was not intended at the time, he would go on to become one of the greatest and most complicated challenges that Picard’s Enterprise faced. Holograms can often be a challenge for Starfleet crews from time to time, so readers can only imagine how much of a pain one would be if it was specifically intended to be a rival to Data.

Moriarty Achieved Sentience As A Holodeck Program

Geordi’s wish, paired with Moriarty’s normal cleverness as a character, soon led him to understand that the world he was a part of wasn’t the actual real world. To say these types of occurrences with holodeck programs are rare is an understatement, and Picard and the rest were fascinated by the idea of a holodeck program aware of its own existence as a holodeck program. They were also concerned about the quandary this created, as the ethical rights of destroying a holodeck program were weighed with the creation of one of the more formidable fictional characters in real life. 

In the end, Picard agreed to find a way to bring him the sentience he wished for, and the possibility of life in the real world. He only asked that Moriarty be allowed to lie dormant in the holodeck's memory while Starfleet scientists looked into the matter, and figured out a way for this to happen. Moriarty agreed, and for a while, it seemed like both parties had reached a resolution they were satisfied with. 

Picard Tricked Moriarty Into Thinking He’d Left The Enterprise Years Ago

Moriarty returned to the Enterprise , but unfortunately, it was before Starfleet had developed a way for him to live independently of the holodeck technology. “Ship In A Bottle” showed him taking control of the Enterprise , under the belief that the efforts to remove him from the holodeck were nothing but lies. The crew managed to trick him into thinking they caved to his demands, but in reality, they encased him in a simulation within a simulation. Moriarty “left” the Enterprise thinking he was on his way back to Earth, but really, he’s still in a program. 

If he was mad after a few years stuck in the holodeck, I can’t imagine how he’ll feel after decades spent living in a fake universe. He’s seen with guns in the trailer, which could create a dangerous situation for the crew and even put some lives at risk. Unfortunately, Data isn’t around to help them this time, so hopefully they’re up to the task!

Star Trek: Picard premieres on Paramount+ on Thursday, February 16th. Now would be a good time to revisit some of the previously mentioned episodes, or just some of the best episodes of The Next Generation in general, with a Paramount+ subscription . 

Mick Joest is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend with his hand in an eclectic mix of television goodness. Star Trek is his main jam, but he also regularly reports on happenings in the world of Star Trek, WWE, Doctor Who, 90 Day Fiancé, Quantum Leap, and Big Brother. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Radio and Television. He's great at hosting panels and appearing on podcasts if given the chance as well.

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Star trek reveals lore’s fate between his borg insurrection & picard.

While Star Trek fans believed Lore was deactivated after his Borg insurrection, his fate is more complex, as he escapes before his return in Picard.

Warning: contains spoilers for both Star Trek: Defiant #2 and Season Three of Star Trek: Picard! A new Star Trek comic has revealed Lore’s fate after he led the Borg insurrection. Lore, the evil brother of the Enterprise’s resident android Data, led a group of renegade Borg on a campaign of terror across the Federation - one that ultimately concluded with Lore being deactivated . Lore was not seen again until the final season of Star Trek: Picard , but now Star Trek: Defiant #2 reveals what happened to Lore in between the insurrection and the God War raging across the galaxy.

The issue is written by Christopher Cantwell, drawn by Angel Unzueta, colored by Marissa Louise and lettered by Clayton Cowles. The clone Emperor Kahless, of the Klingon Empire, has created a fantastic weapon capable of slaughtering godlike beings, including the Crystalline Entities. Now, Kahless has adapted his weapon to mimic the Entities . Worf and Spock, of the USS Defiant , reason they need someone knowledgeable about the Entities on their side; Data is already spoken for - which only leaves Lore. Spock and Worf take the Defiant to a heavily-guarded Section 31 facility, where Lore is being stored. It is revealed that after he was deactivated in the wake of the Borg insurrection, his remains were collected by Section 31 and brought to this facility. Spock and Worf then break Lore out, and recruit him to their cause.

Lore Joins Worf After Being Studied by Section 31

Lore is one of Star Trek ’s greatest villains - a dark and twisted mirror of Data. Both were created by noted cyberneticist Noonian Soong - the only difference was Lore had emotions. These emotions, coupled with Lore’s android-derived super strength, led him to seeing himself as above humans, and he promptly summoned a Crystalline Entity to destroy the colony he was built on. The Enterprise found Lore and reactivated him, unleashing the ruthless android on an unsuspecting galaxy. In the sixth season finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation , Lore led an army of renegade Borg, who had been severed from the collective, on a mission of terror across the galaxy. Data and the crew of the Enterprise were successful in once again stopping Lore, deactivating him and seemingly leaving him on a distant world. Yet now, fans learn this was only the beginning for Lore.

Why Did Section 31 Want Lore?

Section 31 appropriating Lore makes perfect sense. Like Data, Lore is an android and one of the most sophisticated pieces of technology in the galaxy. Noonian Soong’s work was light years ahead of everyone else. There was at least one attempt by Starfleet during Star Trek: The Next Generation ’s run to study and potentially weaponize Data, but these efforts were for naught and Data’s right to exist was affirmed . Section 31 no doubt saw a grand opportunity with Lore - they planned to study him, but perhaps to recruit him as well? Thankfully, Worf and Spock have removed Lore’s emotion chip, which makes him far easier to control. Section 31 could have taken a similar approach, which would have given them a terrifying edge.

As stated earlier, Lore returned - and promptly died - in the final season of Star Trek: Picard . It was revealed at that time Lore was being held in another heavily guarded Section 31 base - this time with Data, Lal and B4. Clearly Section 31 finds the murderous android irresistible, and have been integral to his fate after leading Star Wars ' Borg insurrection.

Star Trek: Defiant #2 is on sale now from IDW Publishing!

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Lore was the name used by two Soong-type androids in the 24th century . ( TNG episode : " Datalore "; TNG short story : " I Am Become Death ")

• 1 Original Lore
• 2.1 Specifications
• 2.2.1 As Data
• 2.2.2 As Lore
• 2.2.3 Daystrom Android M-5-10
• 3.1 Appearances
• 3.2 Other references
• 4 External link

Original Lore [ ]

After deactivating and dismantling Lore, Soong set about constructing his brother Data , an android without destabilizing emotions. Lore's positronic net differed from Data's in that it had a Type-"L" phase discriminator , compared to Data's Type-"R". ( TNG episode : " Time's Arrow "). Afterwards Soong intended to construct and program just one more android learn where he had gone wrong with Lore, even though Lore's mother "Juliana" was at first vehemently opposed to creating any more androids. ( TNG episode : " Brothers ")

Lore was rediscovered in 2364 by the crew of USS Enterprise -D . Chief engineer Argyle and Dr. Beverly Crusher reassembled and reactivated the android, who then attempted to steal Data's identity in order to summon the Crystalline Entity to the Enterprise . One noticeable malfunction upon re-activation was a persistent twitch he corrected using the left side of Data's face. In Data 's quarters, he privately asked him to consider the implications. Their Isaac Asimov -inspired technology "could reflect 1000s, or millions... of lifeforms of every kind". He was stopped by Data, who beamed Lore out into space . ( TNG episode : " Datalore ")

While in the void of space, Lore deactivated himself, fusing the matrix in his positronic brain . A version of Data from the 44th century , who had taken control of a Pakled vessel, eventually discovered Lore's body. Exchanging clothing with Lore, the alternate Data vaporized the body in front of the Pakleds in an elaborate ruse to take over Lore's place and prevent the rise of the Children of Soong . ( TNG short story : " I Am Become Death ")

Second Lore [ ]

Specifications [ ].

At some point over the centuries, Lore had improved himself with various new internal devices. This includes a subspace beacon for initiating transport , when standard combadges were unavailable to lock on. ( TNG episode : " Brothers ") It could also function as a transmitter link between himself and any other Soong -type android. ( TNG episode : " Descent ")

Biography [ ]

As data [ ].

Lore's history separates itself from Data's in 2367 , when Data hijacked the USS Enterprise -D under control of Noonien Soong. With the original Lore dead, these events led to Data receiving his emotion chip and the death of Willie Potts .

After many years of loyal service, Data left starship duty to become an academic. Over the next few centuries, the deaths of his close friends ( Jean-Luc Picard , Deanna Troi , Worf ), his wife Tana , and many other crewmates and friends overwhelmed Data's emotion chip to the point that he routinely turned it off.

Eventually, he removed his emotion chip, only to discover after many more centuries that he grew emotions independent of the chip. Discovering he was now nearly human, Data began to despise humanity and retired to Omicron Theta to live amongst the Children of Soong .

Beginning in the 32nd century , Data was kept under the watchful eye of Jaris on Omicron Theta. He escaped in the 44th century to commit suicide at the old Starfleet Headquarters , but was prevented by versions of Jaris and Damia from the 54th century .

In his brief encounter with Jaris and Damia, Data learned of humanity's fate and, after disposing of the two androids and losing an arm in the battle, used their timeship to travel to the year 24th century and revive Lore. Data believed that the continued existence of Lore would prevent the birth of the Children of Soong and the death of humanity.

Arriving in 2364 , Data immediately took control of a Pakled ship and ordered them to search for Lore's body, helping them out along the way. After two years , the Pakleds discovered Lore's body and brought it onboard. When Data discovered that the original Lore is destroyed beyond repair, he developed a ruse where he convinced the Pakleds that he was Lore and he had "killed" Data. He replaced his destroyed arm and loyally served with the Pakleds as "Lore." ( TNG short story : " I Am Become Death ")

As Lore [ ]

In 2367 , Lore answered the homing signal intended to draw Data to Soong's new laboratory on Terlina III . There, Lore posed as Data, took the emotion chip Soong had designed for his brother, and fatally injured the doctor. ( TNG episode : " Brothers ")

In 2369 , Lore encountered a group of Borg disconnected from the Collective as a result of Hugh 's sense of individuality. Lore established himself as their leader, ("the One", as he was referred to, unaware that the Collective hierarchy was composed of myriad Borg Queens ), and directed them to attack Federation targets. This brought the Enterprise-D and Data to investigate, and Lore attempted to manipulate his brother by broadcasting emotions from the stolen chip. Data, with the help of Geordi La Forge , was able to overcome this influence, shoot and deactivate Lore. ( TNG episode & novelization : Descent )

Data brought Lore to the Enterprise -D and disconnected his positronic brain. He kept it in a vault in his lab, isolated from his body, and designed the vault to self-destruct if it was ever tampered with. In 2371 , when the Enterprise -D crashed on Veridian III , the vault containing his brain was damaged; the self-destruct system activated, and the brain was destroyed. The rest of Lore's body was unharmed, and as of 2374 was being kept in Data's lab on the USS Enterprise -E . ( TNG novel : Immortal Coil )

Daystrom Android M-5-10 [ ]

Prior to his death, Doctor Altan Soong had obtained a copy of Lore's memories and personalities and loaded it into an android he described as a totality, along with the personalities and memories of B4, Data, Lal, and himself. Soong built a partition into the android so that Lore could not overwhelm the other personalities in the android. After Altan died Starfleet took possession of Soong's work, taking the android - which they called Daystrom Android M-5-10 - to act as the security system for the Daystrom station.

The android was taken on board the USS Titan by Worf , Riker , and Raffi . LaForge removed the partition seperating the personalities. While it at first appeared that Lore was about to overwhelm and delete the Data personality permanently, Data gave Lore all his memories, giving Data the means to decompile and integrate Lore's personality into his own. As a result Data was resurrected in Daystrom Android M-5-10 while having the memories of B4, Altan, Lal, and Lore combined into his new personality. Following that, the android became known as Data. ( PIC episode : " Surrender ")

Appendices [ ]

Appearances [ ], other references [ ], external link [ ].

• Lore article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .
• Lore article at the Star Trek Timelines Wiki .
• 1 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition
• 2 The Chase
• 3 Preserver (race)

An Episode of Star Trek: TOS Inspired One of The Next Generation's Best Villains

"The Enemy Within" saw Captain Kirk split in two, a concept that was revisited in The Next Generation to create one of Star Trek's best villains.

• Many of Star Trek: The Next Generation's Season 1 episodes were updates of The Original Series.
• A similar premise to "The Enemy Within" provided The Next Generation with one of its greatest recurring villains.
• Lore could have been a one-off antagonist, but an android with Data’s strength and intelligence minus his morality was a villain too tempting to not use over again.

As a long-running franchise, Star Trek has created many excellent villains. From god-like alien entities like Q and Trelayne, to the augmented human despot Khan Noonien Singh and even simple con artists like Harry Mudd, Star Trek has shown that evil can be found anywhere in the galaxy. Sometimes, malevolence can even wear a familiar face, causing havoc in the most subversive ways possible.

In Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1, a romantic episode that had been written for Lt. Cmdr. Data was changed to an evil twin story instead. Taking inspiration from a Season 1 episode of Star Trek: The Original Series , the writers created Data's evil opposite twin brother Lore. What no one could have foreseen at the time was how enduring this new antagonist would be, or how much he would evolve beyond the episode that inspired his creation.

TNG's 'Datalore' Inverted The Original Series Episode 'The Enemy Within'

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In Star Trek: The Next Generation 's first season , the series' writers crafted an episode about Data finding love with a female android whose job was to fix the ship under the most hazardous conditions. The episode was scrapped, however, when it turned out to be too costly to make, so series creator Gene Roddenberry proposed an 'evil twin' story that would be less expensive to replace it. With a limited shooting schedule, rewrites had to happen fast, and the story that was created bore a striking resemblance to Star Trek: The Original Series , Season 1, Episode 4, "The Enemy Within."

In The Original Series , the Enterprise's transporter malfunctions and splits Captain Kirk into two people, each representing a different aspect of his psyche: the good and bad. Star Trek: The Next Generation , Season 1, Episode 13, "Datalore," turned out to be an updated version of the classic episode. With the premise that Data's creator, Dr. Noonien Soong, had constructed another android before him, the The Next Generation story was able to delve deeper into the android officer's origin while simultaneously telling an entertaining evil twin tale. While "Datalore" was able to update the story of "The Enemy Within" with improved special effects and a more complex look at the nature of human emotions, it also covered a lot of the same territory as The Original Series episode.

Evil Kirk Had a Few Things In Common With the Sinister Android Lore

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Though the explanations for Star Trek 's evil doubles between The Original Series and The Next Generation were completely different, the Season 1 doppelgänger episodes of both series had many similarities. When Captain Kirk's dark half attempted to force himself onto Yeoman Janice Rand, he received three deep scratches on his left cheek, visibly distinguishing him from the original Kirk. The Next Generation replaced the scratches with a more active visual distinction for Data's brother. Shortly after being reassembled and reactivated in the Enterprise-D's sickbay, Lore demonstrated a facial tick on his left cheek to differentiate him from Data.

Later in each episode, the evil doubles marked their twins with the same peculiarities and disguised their own. Evil Kirk applied makeup before scratching his opposite's face, while Lore used a tool to correct his twitch and then created one on Data's cheek. They each also rendered their doubles unconscious in order to be free. Yet, "Datalore" was hardly a complete retread of "The Enemy Within," as the evil versions of Data and Kirk had very different motivations and personalities. When Kirk's darker self materialized in the Enterprise's transporter room , he was disoriented and filled with dark impulses, but he was still James T. Kirk.

All of Kirk's memories were the same, even if his impulses were entirely self-motivated. Lore, on the other hand, was a distinctly different android from Lt. Cmdr. Data. Evil Kirk was chiefly interested in his own survival and maintaining command of the Enterprise, while Lore had aided a deadly and powerful alien entity in destroying the colony he'd been living on and planned to do the same to the galaxy class Enterprise. Further, while Captain Kirk used the transporter to reintegrate both his good and bad selves into the more complex man audiences were just getting to know, Data used his ship's transporter to rid the Enterprise of his double. The solution turned out to be impermanent as Lore would later return to make life difficult for his brother again.

Data's Evil Brother Returned to Star Trek as a Threat to the Federation

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While its many similarities to "The Enemy Within" could make "Datalore" seem a little uninspired, Brent Spiner's performance as his own evil twin made the prospect of Lore's return far too tempting for The Next Generation 's producers and writers. Thus, when a homing beacon summoned him and Data reunited with his creator, Dr. Noonien Soong , in Season 4, Episode 3, "Brothers," the return of his unstable brother was as big a thrill for fans as it was a shock for Starfleet's only android officer.

It didn't take long for Lore to return to his malevolent and duplicitous ways, overpowering Data and tricking and thrashing their terminally ill father out of jealousy for his favoring the younger android. Lore made his escape before the away team that had gone to collect Data arrived, carrying in his system the emotion chip that had been meant for his brother. Lore's actions in that episode teased the high probability that he would return once more, and much like recurring Star Trek villain Khan, the crew of the Enterprise would come to know his wrath. Just like Captain Kirk's two disparate versions in "The Enemy Within," Lore had complicated feelings regarding his emotionless little brother.

While he resented Data and felt the younger android was inferior, Lore couldn't help but want to have some kind of relationship with him. As such, in his final appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation , in Season 6, Episode 22 and Season 7, Episode 1, "Descent, Parts I and II," it wasn't enough for Lore to try to destroy the Federation using a ship full of Borg who'd been disconnected from the Collective; he had to manipulate Data into joining him. When Data finally came to his senses and defeated and disassembled Lore, it seemed that was the end of the commander's twin brother, but Star Trek has a history of resurrecting popular characters .

Lore returned for what may have been the last time in Star Trek: Picard , Season 3, as part of a new artificial lifeform comprised of the minds of Data, their less-advanced predecessor B4, Altan Noonien Soong and himself. Unwilling to share the new body, Lore tried to destroy Data, only to be outwitted by his brother. Like Kirk with his evil self before him, Data embraced Lore at the end, deleting his malignant personality while retaining his knowledge and memories. It seems likely that audiences have seen the last of Lore, though with new Star Trek series under consideration , a return in some form isn't out of the question. One thing is certain, however: if Kirk had never faced "The Enemy Within" in The Original Series , The Next Generation would have missed out on one of its most enduring villains.

The Star Trek universe encompasses multiple series, each offering a unique lens through which to experience the wonders and perils of space travel. Join Captain Kirk and his crew on the Original Series' voyages of discovery, encounter the utopian vision of the Federation in The Next Generation, or delve into the darker corners of galactic politics in Deep Space Nine. No matter your preference, there's a Star Trek adventure waiting to ignite your imagination.