#emotion chip

[frajer-00]

I'm gonna drive, gonna drive all night

[positronic-crisis]

The Emotion Chip proves that Data always had emotions

And all it did was make them more neurotypical.

I have thoughts. Hear me out: I think what the emotion chip storyline in the TNG movies actually shows is not that Data didn’t have emotions before, but that he did have them all along. What the chip really changes is the way he experiences them.

I know it’s already a popular theory in the fandom that Data always had emotions. What I want to talk about, though, is the way he might have experienced them before the chip—because it reminds me a lot of how some autistic people experience emotions.

As an autistic person myself, I often notice emotions mainly in a cognitive way. That means they don’t always appear as a sudden feeling. Instead, I analyze a situation, come to conclusions, and think something like: “That probably makes me sad.” The emotion is there, but it doesn’t necessarily arrive as an immediate, impulsive feeling. It has to be processed first.

This reminds me a lot of how Data talks about his own inner states. Before the chip, he constantly explains things in terms of preferences, interests, or logical decisions. He analyzes his reactions instead of describing them as emotions. In other words, he rationalizes them.

Much like some autistic people do.

With the emotion chip, his experience suddenly becomes more neurotypical: the emotions just appear. They are immediate, overwhelming, and sometimes difficult for him to regulate.

When watching Generations, I was reminded of a psychological idea that emotions often come before preferences and actions. So when Data sings the life-form song, the chip didn’t suddenly create a new preference. Instead, it might have made him aware of something that was already there.

Before the chip, he already chooses to scan for life-forms. He already prioritizes it over other activities. That’s clearly a preference. But he would describe it as curiosity or interest—not as joy.

The chip doesn’t tell him: “By the way, you dislike this drink now.”

It tells him: “The reaction you just experienced? That’s called disgust.”

As an autistic psychologist, what I see in Data often looks a lot like alexithymia—having emotional processes but struggling to identify or label them as emotions. He has cognitive access to his internal states, but he interprets them through logic instead of recognizing them as feelings.

So my interpretation is this: Data always had emotional processes. The emotion chip didn’t give him emotions—it made those emotions immediate, intense, and recognizable.

Anyway, I just felt the urge to share that thought. I don’t know. Just something I’ve been thinking about.

[sleepinglikeabat]

Headcanon that the emotion chip never actually did anything, instead it allowed Data to surpass his mental block formed from being constantly told he doesn’t have emotions and him internalising it so much that he can’t even identify his feelings as emotions. Because we clearly see Data experiencing emotions before the emotion chip, just in a unique way that he doesn’t yet recognise is emotions. So when he gets the emotion chip and now expects to feel he is able to recognise his emotions and convey them to others in a way he hasn’t been able to before.

[tngtrekdrabbles]

It's alright if you don't want to do this one as it is a bit angsty, but what about a drabble where Data has a panic attack caused by his emotion chip but Geordi comforts him afterwards? (I'm only up to season 5 but I know that he does get the chip at some point)

OMGOMGOMOGMOGMOGMGOMGOMOMGO I LOVE THIS REQUEST!??

ANDDD action:

He was 0.96 seconds too late.

0.96 seconds.

His hand remained where it was mid-air as his fingers missed Geordi's hand, watching in shock and horror as the Engineer's form faded into a miniscule sculpture of fear. His eyes were so advanced, so capable, that he noted every subtle change in expression as he fell. Confusion, to fear and, finally, to acceptance. He never saw his friend hit the ground, never heard the resounding echo of contact, as though there was no end.

There was nothing he could do. Geordi was gone.

-

A low shimmer met his pupils as they were unveiled by his opening eyelids. It was 0600 hours, and the lights had only just started to illuminate, simulating the gradual ascent of a sunrise. Of course, it was not necessary, as his internal clock was nothing like an organic's.

He lay still, watching blankly as the glow radiating from the ceiling grew steadily brighter, recalling the events of the dream.

It was just a dream.

Still dizzied by disorientation, he sat up, grasping the covers in either hand to remind himself of where he was.

It was just a dream.

0.96 seconds.

Empty fingers.

The face of terror reflected back at him.

He shook his head, as he'd seen many people do when they want to "shake off" a memory. It didn't help. He could feel his systems heating up.

He tried to direct his thoughts elsewhere, onto his shift in two hours, onto today's workload, onto anything but this. But his full focus could not be diverted, and the more he tried, the worse it got.

Warnings began to sound within, prompting him to cool down. His breathing sped up in a desperate attempt to abide by this request. It wasn't enough.

He tried to stand, struggling to remain stable on his feet.

0.96 seconds.

He stumbled out of his bedroom, aiming straight for the main doors to his quarters.

Empty fingers.

The doors opened for him without delay, allowing him to stagger through them. He couldn't stop the increase in temperature, his breathing mechanism now out of control. Much too fast. His biofluid pump whirred ever faster, and ever louder, dominating his hearing.

Fear, terror, panic.

He didn't know where he was going, clutching onto the wall as he made his way shakily along. What was happening to him? Was his chip malfunctioning?

Entering the turbolift, he found that he couldn't speak through the constant demands of air. Not that he knew what to say.

The manual controls lay just next to the door, and he found himself entering a deck number.

...

"Data?" Geordi mumbled, sleepily standing at his doors following the doorbell, "What...?"

"Geordi," Data managed to mutter with great difficulty. It was all that he could say. Too fast.

"Hey, Data? What's going on?" He noted the android's apparent distress, taking him by the wrist and guiding him over to the sofa, "Sit down..."

He took his seat next to Data, observing him with some concern as his breaths became more like wheezes.

"Ch...ip..." Data croaked out, his vocals fading in and out, distorting his words.

"Your emotion chip?" Geordi asked. He peered at his friend's face, watching as a bead of yellow liquid flowed down his cheek, "Data, you're hyperventilating..."

"Ca...not...hel..."

His eyes darted around the room, from the wall to the table to Geordi and back. The tears stained his face golden as they trickled down to his neck.

"Did something upset you? Hey..." He reached an arm around Data and rubbed his back in what he hoped was a comforting gesture, "It's alright, you're alright..."

"Geordi," the android whined, turning to meet his eyes with a look of pure fright.

"It's okay, Data. Just try to breathe, like this." He demonstrated, taking a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth.

"I...can...not..."

"Yes, you can. Come on, repeat after me." He demonstrated again and, this time, Data imitated him.

A few minutes passed, and his systems had begun to return to normal. His internal temperature decreased, and his "heartbeat" and respiration had slowed significantly.

"You ok?"

"...yes..."

Geordi tilted his head with concern, "Data, what happened?"

There was no response for a few moments.

"I...had a dream." Data shook his head vigorously, and stared fixedly down at his hands.

"Like, a nightmare?" He nodded.

"I could not...save you...0.96 seconds..." Data mumbled the number over and over, to no one in particular.

"It's okay, it's not real."

Data nodded again, seeming to accept this statement.

"Regardless, I am still...affected by it."

Geordi smiled sadly at him, patting him on the back, "That's normal. There's nothing wrong with you - or the chip - for that. It's just human nature, Data."

Data smiled at that.

[aquamonstra]

If I had my way Generations would have been a 20 minute movie.

Data pushes Crusher off the boat and EVERYBODY LAUGHS BECAUSE THAT WAS HILARIOUS. PERFECT SETUP. A+ PRANK. SHE WAS FINE. WHEN YOU LARP YOU SIGN UP FOR THE ASSOCIATED RISKS. EVERYBODY PAT'S DATA ON THE BACK AND SAYS "GOOD JOB BUD, YOU UNDERSTAND COMEDY."

No desire to install the emotion chip. It stays locked forever in the weird little shrine he made for it.

Data quickly disarms and apprehends Soran the MILISECOND Geordi's life is threatened.

Every subsequent crisis of the movie is averted. The Duras sisters are still out there but who gives a fuck bc they're all boobs no brains. Jim gets to live happily ever after in the wave.

-Fin-

[earhartsease]

so we all know and love Data's little Lifeforms song in Star Trek: Generations, but consider: newly emotion-chipped Data exclaiming "I just love scanning for lifeforms!" suggests to me that he has literally always just loved scanning for lifeforms - it's just that until now, he had no means to interpret that pleasant shift in his positronic network that happened whenever he scanned for them

and presumably the emotion chip is programmed with just a certain subset of just human emotions (I'm guessing Noonian Soong's, which will have been very specific to his own culture, upbringing, ego, and let's face it, neurodivergence), so Data is now suddenly interpreting his sense input (including from his mind) through that specific set of filters - though being positronic and being him, he's entirely capable of growing outwards from that

anyway the point I'm making here is that his delight isn't just with scanning lifeforms, it's with discovering he's always loved scanning for lifeforms, and who wouldn't do a little stimmy song and dance when faced with that new experience (and when pre-programmed with his totally autistic dad's emotions array)?

[strings-have-been-cut]

@ltbroccoli​ // Lt. Barclay ;; 

Data had gotten away from running his sleep program as of late. At first, the dreams and imagery that came to his neural net while he was ‘asleep’ were exciting and unfamiliar and made for very interesting mysteries into his own psyche. But very quickly he determined the algorithm from which they were designed was rather straightforward. Data dreamt about things that he had experienced recently. It was simply a way for his mind to process all the input that had been prioritized lower throughout the day. He more more and more often he just...wanted to stay awake.  After all, the program was only for him, and he didn’t have to prove he could sleep to anyone. He was more Human now than ever before, and with it came the urge to stay up late doing entertaining things combined with the frustration that came from not being able to find something entertaining enough. So many of his nights were either spend on the bridge or in his quarters doing exactly what he was doing now.  Nothing. Or at least it seemed like nothing to him. He was sitting at his workbench, tinkering with a broken console he had taken from Engineering. It was displaying very odd behaviors, and for some reason, Data had not been able to solve the issue. He nudged Spot with his foot gently as she rubbed against him, chirping loudly for attention. “Not now, Spot,” Data said, not looking up from his work.

[why-its-kai]

i have a lot of thoughts about the emotion chip storyline in generations and how they royally fucked it up. spoilers for generations obvs

disclaimer: i am not a fan of the emotion chip at all bc data totally has his own android emotions and like. he doesn’t need that. the chip as a concept just invalidates all of that.

so in generations data basically just activates the chip at full capacity and like within the same day goes on an away mission and shit goes horribly wrong bc he can’t handle his emotions bc it is like his first time ever experiencing any of them!! in his entire life!!!!!!! that was extremely dumb.

i think what they should’ve done is eased data into using the chip. like just using it in small bursts in a controlled environment to test out what feelings felt like. and definitely doing this with the help of geordi (mainly for the technical side of things and monitoring/studying the chip in use, which could also have prevented the fusion into data’s positronic net or whatever they said happened in the movie) and deanna (to guide data through the emotional experiences and explain things to him as well as counseling him obviously). it would’ve made a good episode too i bet! they could practice social situations in ten forward and simulate stressful scenarios in the holodeck to learn how to cope with those feelings in a safe environment. picard could’ve done more shakespeare lessons with data so he could experience emotions through fiction/acting. like with the help of his friends and crewmates and other activities and stuff data could realistically settle in to using the emotion chip safely.

and then we can go back to the scene in generations where data becomes paralyzed with fear and is unable to save geordi from being captured. this scene would still make sense even if data had practiced with the chip beforehand bc emotions can be unpredictable. and like it would probably make a bigger impact this way too as would the following scenes of data telling picard he wanted to be deactivated bc he didnt want feelings anymore since we saw data put all of this work into learning how to use the chip and experience emotions.

just ughhhh. huge wasted opportunity and what they did do in generations felt very rushed and underdeveloped.