Wayward Son

by ljs1138

Five months have passed since Data was recovered from B-4. Data serves aboard the Enterprise-E, while T'Mera lives with him and assists in a civilian capacity. B-4 is living at the Daystrom Institute, with Dr. Vanzanen guiding his development. Everything seems peaceful and quiet, until someone decides to reassemble Lore. Sequel to Data Recovery.

1. Preface

Preface

This is the sequel story to Data Recovery. While Data Recovery probably isn't required reading, without it, the reader might wonder who the original characters are and how Data and B-4 are currently functioning in Wayward Son.

I do still try to stick with as much canon as I can, but since that there's really not much we're given about the Omicron Theta colony, and that there's conflicting canon in the episodes that deal with Lore, the Soongs and the colony, I found myself taking quite a bit of creative license. To that end, I did the best I could to make the timeline of android creation make sense, among the various bit of canonical information. I also tried to extrapolate the type of colonists and scientists who comprised the colony, why they were there instead of at actual institutes of science, and what would cause a sentient android to become malicious.

For the purposes of this story, and Data Recovery before it, my AU's canon has Data not having used his aging program at all. Because, if he had, then B-4 would look like Data from 2336 and would not be identical to him (and thus the Data disguised as B-4 shouldn't have worked in the film, but I don't want to get started on my rants about Nemesis). Since TNG was made in the days before CGI got to the point where a dead actor could be a major character in a movie, it's understandable that Data changed appearance because Brent Spiner aged. However, for my stories, Data remained looking as he did in the second/third seasons, and B-4 and Lore are virtually physically identical to him. For the Lore character, I leaned heavily on the episode 'Brothers', since that's where we get to see his character with depth. He's a bit too mustache-twirly in 'Datalore', with no true motivations, and in 'Descent', he's missing that extra dimension he had in Brothers.

For Stardates, I'm using Memory Beta's stardates per year and 2.7 stardates per day formula, mainly to stay consistent with my own writing.

I had to make up my own original characters to fill in the Enterprise-E senior crew, since Riker and Troi are on the Titan. I haven't read the TNG books, so hopefully everyone will excuse the new material. There will also be bits from the various Star Trek series and movies, as well as some parts taken from first draft scripts and deleted scenes. As usual, Paramount/CBS own Star Trek. Any similarities to other fan fiction dealing with Data, Lore, Soongs and Omicron Theta is due to convergence of ideas based on the same canon, and unintentional.

I had written Data Recovery at the rate of 3,000 words a day over the course of a month, which I had never done before… ever. Wayward Son is taking me longer to write, but I hope people enjoy it, as well. The first installment will be a few chapters, then I plan to write and update a chapter a week.