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Why can

Lore control the ship without physical manipulation in the Star Trek: Picard episode "Dominion"?

I understand there was a "cable" connection and that this allowed them to monitor, and to some degree control, the synth with the ship computer this way.

However, especially considering that

Lore was in there, everyone would have firewalled the access from the synth to the ship systems.

Am I missing something?

Is there an in-world explanation?

V2Blast
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Torsten Knodt
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2 Answers2

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They had no good idea of what they were doing, and they specifically needed the ship's computer to analyse the golem

A couple of things -

  1. they were assuming that Lore was in a "Partition" within the golem.
  2. They don't know how the golem works and need to guess, so likely they weren't able to understand that Lore could have gotten out
  3. They specifically needed the ship's computer to analyse the golem in order to help Data.

This is all explained in the following dialogue:

PICARD: Could we free Data by erasing Lore?
LAFORGE: Jean-Luc, this new positronic body is infinitely more complex than the Data I used to know, this is more art than engineering. The metaphasic figures are too immense. With the help of the ship's computers, I can hopefully analyze the barrier and restore Data, but if I lift that partition and Lore prevails... We might lose Data. This time forever.

(Picard: Dominion)

They had reason to believe that Lore would be contained

Given that the Data golem was not only plugged into Daystrom's computer, but also acting as a defensive measure for the institute, it seems reasonable that it would be safe to do so without Lore breaking out and taking over. As to how specifically Lore broke out - we have no idea.

Philipp
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This is long-established canon. Data can directly interface with the computer via a cable

Data jacked in

Geordi (the person who best knew Data's systems), and even Data himself, would routinely do this so they could access Data's systems. Hence, Geordi hooked him up the same way he always had. We see in multiple TNG episodes where Data can directly issue commands to the computer this way.

Android M-5-10 isn't exactly Data as we knew him

Remember, the original Data was destroyed in the Nemesis incident. This is Android M-5-10 with Data, Lore, Soong and B-4 all mixed together. While he's still positronic, that doesn't mean he is identical. Geordi clearly knew how to make Data a "head only". They don't learn that Lore can take full control of the body as well and override the computer until it is too late.

Machavity
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