JAG Argument: Is Data Property?
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Maddox advances a cold dismissal of Data, insisting Picard's attachment stems from anthropomorphism and that if Data were merely a 'box on wheels' there would be no opposition—he strips Data down to machine status to neutralize moral claims.
Maddox paints a utopian vision—replicated Datas aboard every Federation ship acting as tireless hands and eyes—transforming the dispute into a claim about sweeping scientific and strategic benefit.
Phillipa presses Maddox for a clear demand; he leans on her desk and bluntly orders that Data must not be permitted to resign, converting rhetoric into a coercive, immediate legal request.
Maddox explodes at the notion of 'rights,' framing his grievance as the protection of his life's work, while Phillipa invokes the Federation's rule of law to insist one cannot simply seize people for experiments—legal principles enter the fray.
Maddox insists Data is merely machinery and warns that permitting resignation would erase decades of robotics work; Picard counters with a deliberate assertion that Starfleet must respect its own regulations and that Data does have rights.
Maddox analogizes Data to the Enterprise computer refusing a refit; Phillipa seizes the analogy, labels the Enterprise computer as property, and raises the pivotal legal question—Is Data property?—shifting the debate from ethics to precedent.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Defensive and frustrated, but with an underlying single-minded conviction that justifies coercive measures in the name of progress.
Maddox paces and leans forward, palms flat on the desk as he presses his argument: Data is a machine whose availability is essential to scientific progress and thus must not be permitted to resign; he resorts to utilitarian rhetoric and rhetorical analogies to the Enterprise computer.
- • Prevent Data's resignation to preserve years of robotics research.
- • Obtain a legal remedy or policy interpretation that allows compelled participation in experiments.
- • Data is a machine and thus legitimately treated as property or equipment.
- • The advancement of science and the potential benefits for the Federation justify restricting individual choices.
Calm, coolly inquisitive—emotionally distant but engaged in testing legal fault lines.
Phillipa sits expressionless, listening with clinical attention, interjecting with pointed legal questions and a provocative property analogy; she probes the legal categories while maintaining institutional cool.
- • Clarify whether existing law and precedent can classify Data as property.
- • Maintain JAG's procedural integrity while assessing the practical consequences of any ruling.
- • Legal categories and precedent, not sentiment, should determine the outcome.
- • A careful, methodical approach will best protect Starfleet's institutional interests.
Righteously indignant with controlled fury; moral urgency beneath calm command.
Picard stands rigid with fury, alternately pleading and asserting command authority—moving from personal defense of Data to a procedural demand for an official JAG ruling, punctuating sentences to force legal clarity.
- • Secure protection of Data's autonomy and rights.
- • Force an official, precedential legal ruling rather than an informal administrative decision.
- • Data is more than property and deserves rights equivalent to officers.
- • Starfleet must adhere to its regulations and legal processes even when inconvenient.
Not present to express feeling; inferentially threatened and at existential risk due to others' decisions.
Although absent from the room, Data is the subject under contention: his resignation and personhood are debated, and his future autonomy is directly threatened by the arguments made here.
- • Preserve personal autonomy (inferred).
- • Avoid being reduced to property or experimental subject without consent (inferred).
- • If Data were present, he would likely believe his experiences and contributions warrant recognition (inferred).
- • Rights and membership in Starfleet should be applied by consistent legal standards (inferred).
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
A stately desk functions as the physical fulcrum of the confrontation: Maddox plants his palms flat on it and leans in to emphasize his claim, using the furniture to dominate space and punctuate argument. The desk frames body language and heightens the scene's adversarial dynamics.
The Enterprise computer is invoked rhetorically by Maddox as an analogy to argue Data's status: he asks whether a ship's computer could refuse a refit to suggest Data can be treated similarly as property, transforming a technical object into a legal argument.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Enterprise is present only as contextual backdrop—parked in orbit near Starbase 173—but functions narratively as Data's home and the institutional body whose regulations are being invoked and defended by Picard.
The JAG office serves as the formal adjudicative arena where personal and institutional claims collide: its gray-paneled, procedural interior concentrates legal authority, making the exchange less a private appeal and more a jurisdictional matter with precedent implications.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
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Key Dialogue
"MADDOX: "If it were a box on wheels I wouldn't be facing this opposition.""
"MADDOX: "Data must not be permitted to resign.""
"PICARD: "Starfleet is not an organization that ignores its own regulations when they become inconvenient. Whether you like it or not, Data does... have... rights.""