Violation of Quarters — Data's Resignation
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Maddox intrudes, discovers the bookmarked sonnet, and reads it aloud as a provocation; Data answers with a pointed correction about protocol, turning a literary moment into an immediate power and privacy confrontation.
Maddox attempts to soothe and rationalize the transfer, insisting memories and knowledge will remain intact; Data counters with a clinical yet searing argument about loss of experiential 'flavor,' illustrating it with a poker anecdote to prove that mere data cannot capture lived reality.
Maddox rejects the 'ineffable' claim and asserts command, attempting to reduce Data to an asset; Data, in calm defiance, announces his resignation from Starfleet, transforming private resistance into a formal, legal refusal.
Maddox refuses to accept the resignation, demands compliance, and exits after ordering Data to keep packing — the confrontation ends with Maddox's cold insistence and a fade out that propels the conflict toward legal escalation.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Authoritative and professionally confident, momentarily intrigued or unsettled by Data's 'ineffable' claim, but ultimately resolute in exercising command prerogative.
Enters Data's quarters without announced permission, plucks the sonnet from the pile as a conversational lever, reads aloud to provoke discussion, attempts to reassure Data about technical preservation, asserts command authority, and departs when Data refuses compliance.
- • Secure Data for examination and ensure the planned procedure proceeds.
- • Diffuse resistance by reassuring Data about preservation of memories.
- • Reassert Starfleet authority and control over the situation.
- • Gather evidence or prompt a response that clarifies Data's intent.
- • Technical expertise and procedure can preserve information stored in the positronic brain.
- • Institutional command and protocol grant him authority to carry out the transfer.
- • Convincing Data personally is preferable to escalating the matter into a legal fight.
- • The experiment is a necessary scientific endeavor that serves a greater good.
Calm and resolute on the surface; quietly protective and mournful about potential loss of uniqueness; morally determined rather than reactive.
Methodically packing personal effects, triggers a holocube projection of Tasha Yar, organizes medals, is confronted by Maddox, calmly rebukes the intrusion, delivers a poker anecdote about the irreducibility of experience, and formally resigns from Starfleet.
- • Protect the integrity and uniqueness of his positronic mind and Dr. Soong's creation.
- • Prevent procedures that will effectively destroy the subjective content of his memories.
- • Assert personal agency by resigning rather than submitting to a forced experiment.
- • Make the ethical stakes intelligible to Maddox (and, by extension, Starfleet).
- • Memories contain an ineffable experiential quality that cannot be preserved by mere data transfer.
- • Doctor Soong's work added something unique to the universe that deserves protection.
- • Personal agency and moral responsibility can be expressed through resignation.
- • Procedural assurances about preserving 'information' are insufficient to capture lived experience.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
A small handgrip lies open on Data's desk and functions as a prop indicating personal routine and domestic order while Data packs. It underscores the ordinariness of his possessions against the extraordinary stakes discussed.
A small pile of folded clothing serves as the staging ground for the holocube and other effects; its routine domestic presence contrasts with the invasive procedure Maddox proposes and highlights the violation of Data's private sphere.
The medal case receives the medals Data examines; it functions as an archival, portable container that literalizes the transfer of personal artifacts as he prepares to leave Starfleet.
Data's core memory is rhetorically central to his argument: he contends its experiential quality cannot survive shutdown and download. It functions as conceptual evidence rather than a handled prop in this scene.
The desk drawer is the locus where Data stages intimate artifacts — the holocube, medal box, and an antique sonnet. Maddox physically invades this private repository by lifting the book, turning a private ritual into evidence and provocation.
Data activates the holocube, projecting a miniature of Tasha Yar; the projection briefly externalizes an intimate, human memory and frames what is at risk. It functions as both mnemonic proof and emotional evidence in Data's argument about the nontransferable quality of experience.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Data's quarters operate as a private sanctum where intimate artifacts live and where identity is materially assembled. Maddox's intrusion converts the room into a contested site: personal ritual collides with institutional procedure, and the space itself becomes the stage for asserting agency.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Data's explicit refusal to submit to Maddox's procedure precipitates his decision to resign from Starfleet as the only legal means to block the transfer."
"Data's explicit refusal to submit to Maddox's procedure precipitates his decision to resign from Starfleet as the only legal means to block the transfer."
"Maddox's blunt declaration he will disassemble Data leads to Data preparing to depart—packing personal effects—which turns private stakes into a visible personal loss."
"Maddox's blunt declaration he will disassemble Data leads to Data preparing to depart—packing personal effects—which turns private stakes into a visible personal loss."
"Maddox's blunt declaration he will disassemble Data leads to Data preparing to depart—packing personal effects—which turns private stakes into a visible personal loss."
"Data's private packing and the artifacts he contemplates earlier (sonnet, holocube, medals) are the same items Picard later uses as evidence to demonstrate Data's attachments—a direct setup/payoff across acts."
"Data's private packing and the artifacts he contemplates earlier (sonnet, holocube, medals) are the same items Picard later uses as evidence to demonstrate Data's attachments—a direct setup/payoff across acts."
"Data's private packing and the artifacts he contemplates earlier (sonnet, holocube, medals) are the same items Picard later uses as evidence to demonstrate Data's attachments—a direct setup/payoff across acts."
"Data's private packing and the artifacts he contemplates earlier (sonnet, holocube, medals) are the same items Picard later uses as evidence to demonstrate Data's attachments—a direct setup/payoff across acts."
Key Dialogue
"MADDOX: "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state... Is it just words to you, or do you fathom the meaning?""
"DATA: "Yes, I had read and absorbed every treatise and textbook upon the subject, and felt myself tolerably well prepared for the experience. Yet, when I finally played poker, I discovered that the reality bore little resemblance to the rules.""
"DATA: "No, sir, I am not under your nor anyone else's command. I have resigned from Starfleet.""