Picard Turns the Courtroom into a Moral Crucible
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Picard reframes the technical demonstration as a moral question about ownership and freedom, then summons Data to the stand to make the issue personal and immediate.
Picard produces Data's travel case and lays out his medals, sonnet book, and a holocube of Tasha Yar to demonstrate that Data keeps intimate, personal artifacts—forcing Data to voice attachment and intimacy under oath.
Data admits the holocube represents an intimate connection with Tasha Yar, a confession that physically unsettles Phillipa and shifts the courtroom from abstraction to human (and post-human) feeling.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Taken aback and moved — intellectual caution gives way to the moral weight of the testimony, prompting decisive empathy.
Presides over the hearing, visibly rocked when Data admits intimacy, listens as Picard reframes the legal question, weighs metaphysical implications, and ultimately moves toward a ruling that denies property status.
- • Render a legally defensible ruling that anticipates future consequences.
- • Maintain courtroom decorum while absorbing unprecedented testimony.
- • Law cannot avoid metaphysical questions but must sometimes 'stab in the dark' toward the future.
- • Personal testimony can legitimately inform legal precedent when novel questions arise.
Progresses from professional confidence to confusion and discomfort — defensive posture cracking under ethical pressure.
Takes the stand as a hostile witness, asserts Data is 'a piece of outstanding engineering,' becomes defensive under Picard's interrogation, and is visibly unsettled when faced with the implications of mass replication and disposability.
- • Defend his position that Data is non-sentient and that dismantling/rebuilding is for the greater good of research.
- • Maintain his scientific credibility and justify his proposed replication program.
- • Technological creations can be used pragmatically for Federation benefit.
- • Scientific progress and replication justify intrusive study and even dismantling.
Not sentient in the moment — serves as a relic/image that catalyzes emotional truth in Data and reaction in the court.
Appears as a holocube projection when Picard triggers the device; functions as the emotional focus of Data's admission though she speaks no lines in the scene.
- • Function as an evidentiary prompt to reveal Data's attachments.
- • Anchor Data's testimony in a recognizable, personal memory.
- • As a projection, the holocube's presence validates memory as evidence.
- • Personal artifacts can demonstrate emotional life even when produced by non-humans.
Controlled intensity — outwardly composed and persuasive, driven by moral urgency and paternal protectiveness toward Data.
Directs the courtroom pivot: produces Data's travel case and personal artifacts, cross-examines Maddox with sharp questions, makes a public, moral appeal and physically demonstrates the rhetorical point by throwing an object into the disposal chute.
- • Reframe the hearing from technical classification to an ethical test about personhood.
- • Elicit evidence of Data's inner life to make the court recognize his rights.
- • Law should protect sentient life, not reduce it to property.
- • Personal artifacts and testimony can reveal moral truth better than abstract technical arguments.
Nervous but honest — a mixture of earnest vulnerability and calm acceptance as he articulates what is at stake for him personally.
Returns to the witness stand, answers under oath, allows Picard to display his possessions, and for the first time explicitly names an emotional bond with Tasha Yar — vulnerability materialized in testimony.
- • Truthfully answer the court's questions without violating promises.
- • Defend his autonomy and right to choose by showing personal attachments.
- • His experiences and attachments are meaningful evidence of his status.
- • Honesty under oath is a moral obligation even if it complicates others.
Subdued tension — outward professionalism masking personal discomfort about prosecuting a friend and the moral stakes unfolding.
Sits quietly after declining to cross-examine Data, confers briefly with Maddox earlier, and registers internal conflict between duty and friendship while allowing Picard's strategy to proceed.
- • Fulfill his courtroom role without further harming personal relationships.
- • Avoid antagonizing the court or escalating conflict beyond his prior position.
- • Procedural adherence is important even when morally difficult.
- • His personal loyalty to Data complicates any aggressive prosecutorial posture.
Impartial and unemotional, delivering factual verification without interpretive tone.
Provides procedural verification when Maddox is sworn in — announces identity, current assignment and major papers, performing neutral informational duties that authenticate Maddox as an expert witness.
- • Authenticate witness identity and credentials for the record.
- • Provide accurate institutional data on demand.
- • Protocol requires clear verification to maintain court integrity.
- • Objective, recorded facts should underpin legal proceedings.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Picard theatrically picks up an unspecified object and flings it through the courtroom disposal chute to symbolize Maddox's claim of expendability; the chute functions as a physical, rhetorical device converting abstract claims into visceral demonstration.
Picard produces the small book of sonnets — a known gift from him to Data — and uses it to demonstrate reciprocal social bonds, friendship, and symbolic meaning that belie a mere 'machine' categorization.
Picard pulls Data's compact travel case onto the table, opens it to produce the contained case of medals and other keepsakes. The travel case serves as the physical archive that converts private life into courtroom evidence.
Picard triggers Data's palmtop holocube; it projects a lifelike hologram of Tasha Yar, which functions as an emotional catalyst that prompts Data's admission of intimacy and stuns the courtroom into reassessment.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The disposal chute is a small metal aperture used by Picard to physically dramatize Maddox's claim about 'expendability' — when Picard tosses an object into it, abstract theory acquires violent finality.
The witness stand is the immediate focus where Data testifies and where personal artifacts are displayed; it concentrates scrutiny and makes the personal into public testimony under oath.
The Starfleet judicial courtroom is the arena where the moral and legal struggle is concentrated; its formal architecture, recording consoles and raised bench frame Picard's theatrical shift from technicalities to ethics and channel the public weight of the decision.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"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."
"Picard producing Data's personal effects (medals, sonnet book, holocube) directly elicits Data's testimony of intimate connection (Tasha Yar), humanizing him under oath and shifting courtroom sentiment."
"Guinan naming the long-term consequence—'slavery'—reframes the stakes for Picard and causes him to shift strategy: he returns to court to argue the moral and precedent-driven case rather than only technicalities."
"Guinan naming the long-term consequence—'slavery'—reframes the stakes for Picard and causes him to shift strategy: he returns to court to argue the moral and precedent-driven case rather than only technicalities."
"Picard producing Data's personal effects (medals, sonnet book, holocube) directly elicits Data's testimony of intimate connection (Tasha Yar), humanizing him under oath and shifting courtroom sentiment."
"Picard producing Data's personal effects (medals, sonnet book, holocube) directly elicits Data's testimony of intimate connection (Tasha Yar), humanizing him under oath and shifting courtroom sentiment."
"Guinan naming the long-term consequence—'slavery'—reframes the stakes for Picard and causes him to shift strategy: he returns to court to argue the moral and precedent-driven case rather than only technicalities."
"The crew's farewell grief (Geordi, friends) thematically parallels Picard's later effort to humanize Data legally—both moments emphasize that Data's value is relational and experiential, not merely technical."
"The crew's farewell grief (Geordi, friends) thematically parallels Picard's later effort to humanize Data legally—both moments emphasize that Data's value is relational and experiential, not merely technical."
"The crew's farewell grief (Geordi, friends) thematically parallels Picard's later effort to humanize Data legally—both moments emphasize that Data's value is relational and experiential, not merely technical."
"The crew's farewell grief (Geordi, friends) thematically parallels Picard's later effort to humanize Data legally—both moments emphasize that Data's value is relational and experiential, not merely technical."
"Picard producing Data's personal effects (medals, sonnet book, holocube) directly elicits Data's testimony of intimate connection (Tasha Yar), humanizing him under oath and shifting courtroom sentiment."
"Picard producing Data's personal effects (medals, sonnet book, holocube) directly elicits Data's testimony of intimate connection (Tasha Yar), humanizing him under oath and shifting courtroom sentiment."
"Picard producing Data's personal effects (medals, sonnet book, holocube) directly elicits Data's testimony of intimate connection (Tasha Yar), humanizing him under oath and shifting courtroom sentiment."
Themes This Exemplifies
Thematic resonance and meaning
Key Dialogue
"DATA: She was important to me... we were... intimate."
"PICARD: Prove to this court that I'm sentient."
"PICARD: Do you condemn then to slavery?"