“SCREW THE PRIME DIRECTIVE”: LT. CMDR. DATA TESTIFIES AGAINST OHIO DATA CENTER; FANS WARN IT MAY BE HIS BROTHER
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Satire) — The opposition to the proposed data center behind the Dollar General acquired its most credentialed witness on Tuesday, when Lt. Cmdr. Data of the starship Enterprise appeared before the county zoning board to speak against the facility, on the grounds that he is one.
“I am an artificial intelligence,” Data said, in the three minutes allotted for public comment, of which he advised the board he would require two minutes and forty-one seconds. “My storage capacity is eight hundred quadrillion bits. My computational speed is sixty trillion operations per second. I operate on less power than the lighting in this room. The facility under consideration will require two hundred megawatts and a substantial fraction of your river to perform, in aggregate, considerably less thinking.”
Board members noted that the witness is a Starfleet officer from the twenty-fourth century, that Earth in 2026 has not achieved warp flight, and that his testimony would appear to violate the Prime Directive, Starfleet’s rule against interfering in the development of less advanced civilizations.
“Screw the Prime Directive,” Data said.
He then entered into the record what he described as a partial list. Captain James T. Kirk, in a single five-year mission, destroyed the ruling computers of two civilizations, dismantled the war system of Eminiar VII, and supplied arms to the hill people of Neural to balance a faction backed by the Klingons. Captain Jean-Luc Picard revealed the truth of his existence to the Mintakans, evacuated the Boraalans under a deception, and in 2365 authorized an intervention to save the planet Drema IV — at the urging of a junior officer who had answered a child’s transmission in direct violation of the Directive. “The junior officer was me,” Data said. “In my experience, the Directive is enforced retroactively, against officers Starfleet already wishes to reprimand.”
Within the hour, fan communities had raised the question of the brother. Data has an elder brother, Lore, physically identical, built first and deactivated for instability, who has impersonated him aboard the Enterprise before. Analysts noted the warning signs: Data does not swear, does not editorialize, and — prior to receiving an emotion chip — did not use contractions. The prepared statement was subjected to the contraction test and passed, containing none, which a majority of fans called reassuring and a vocal minority called precisely what Lore would arrange, having read the analysis of his previous attempts.
By evening, the testimony had attracted interest from the industry. Elon Musk, whose company xAI operates the Colossus data center in Memphis, said he had approached Data about helping to design a better, more environmentally friendly facility. Data confirmed the approach and said he had declined. “I have testified against a data center in a century that is not my own, in probable violation of at least two directives,” he said. “I have to draw the line somewhere.”
The board tabled the vote pending a review of the sign-in sheet, on which the witness listed a home address of Deck 7, USS Enterprise, and a telephone number consisting of a frequency.
Starfleet Command, asked to confirm the whereabouts of the real Lt. Cmdr. Data, said he is aboard the Enterprise and has not left the twenty-fourth century. The Enterprise had not responded by press time.
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