Lore's History
Lore was a Soong-type android constructed by Doctor Noonian Soong and Juliana Soong at the Omicron Theta colony. Built in Dr. Soong's own image, Lore was the fourth android they constructed and embodied the first successful example of a fully functional positronic brain. An earlier model Soong-type android, B-4, also had a positronic brain, but of a less sophisticated type, resulting in a simple-minded personality.
Lore was extremely advanced and sentient, possessing megastrength, speed and intelligence when compared to a Human. Lore's emotional programming was also very advanced. However, he began displaying signs of emotional instability and malevolence, leading Lore to see himself as superior to Humans. Lore frightened the other colonists, who demanded that Soong deactivate him. Lore later claimed that they saw him as "too perfect", and were envious.
Eventually, Soong capitulated, but not before Lore had secretly contacted the Crystalline Entity in a bid for revenge, offering it the planet's life to ensure his own survival. After deactivating and dismantling Lore, Soong set about constructing Lore's brother, Data, an android without destabilizing emotions. Lore's positronic net differed from Data's: it had a Type-"L" phase discriminator compared to Data's Type-"R".
Soong placed Lore's components into storage, intending to eventually correct Lore's behavioral problems. Lore later harbored resentment towards his creator for abandoning him. Yet, when he met his father again on Terlina III and learned that Soong was dying, he was sincerely upset and, for a brief moment, he displayed a genuine concern for his father. Nevertheless, Lore's malevolent streak soon prevailed.
Following Lore's communiques, the Crystalline Entity attacked Omicron Theta in 2338 and destroyed all life on the planet. Both Lore and Data were left behind, but Data was subsequently discovered by the crew of the USS Tripoli. Lore remained in Soong's laboratory until 2364, when the USS Enterprise-D arrived at the planet. The ship's chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Argyle, and chief medical officer, Dr. Beverly Crusher, were successful in reactivating the android.
Although initially presenting himself as willing to please and serve Humans, sharing some information about his 'childhood' in the colony with his 'brother', Lore swiftly returned to his previous ways. Deactivating Data, Lore stole his uniform and masqueraded as him. Lore summoned the Crystalline Entity once again, intending to feed the crew of the Enterprise-D to it. His treachery was discovered due to the differences between him and Data (such as Lore's use of contractions), and he was transported into open space.
Lore drifted in space for nearly two years, until he was rescued by a passing Pakled trade ship. Lore subsequently responded to the homing signal intended by Soong to draw Data to Soong's new laboratory on Terlina III. After Soong had reactivated Lore, Lore expressed frustration at his father's 'dismissal' of him in favor of working on Data, but was apparently as close to upset as he could come when he learned that Soong was dying, protesting that his father seemed fine despite his obvious age.
However, his grief for his father was overshadowed by his anger when he learned that Soong had summoned Data to him with the intention of giving Data an emotion chip that would allow him to feel Human emotions (as Data's emotionless "childhood" had given him a greater understanding of right and wrong). Lore became sore and resented his father's 'favoritism' of Data, despite Soong's protests that he had never designed a chip for Lore simply because he assumed that Lore had remained deactivated. Despite Soong's attempt to placate Lore, Lore nevertheless tricked Soong by posing as his brother and stealing the chip for himself. Because the chip was not designed for him, it caused Lore to become even more unstable and he mortally wounded Soong before departing the planet once again.
In 2369, Lore discovered a group of Borg that had been disconnected from the Collective after integrating Hugh's sense of individuality into the hive. Lore styled himself their leader and gave his Borg individual names, coercing them into becoming his fanatical followers. He began cruel experiments on them, attempting to replace their organic brains with positronic components. Meanwhile, Lore influenced their behavior, which made their attacks more violent – they ceased to assimilate individuals, and instead began murdering them.
Lore directed his Borg followers to launch attacks on targets in Federation space, in order to lure the Enterprise-D – and thus Data – in an elaborate attempt to use the emotion chip to manipulate Data to his side. Lore had modified the chip so that it could remotely instill anger and hatred in Data. Confused with his new emotions, and with his ethical subroutines deactivated, Data betrayed the crew of the Enterprise-D and joined Lore at his base.
While in Borg captivity, Geordi La Forge was able to instruct Captain Jean-Luc Picard as to modifying a Borg interlink transceiver in order to reset Data's ethical program with a kedion pulse, restoring his sense of right and wrong. Data would still experience negative emotions; however, he could at least choose whether or not to act upon them.
Upon realizing Lore's malign nature, Data fired upon and deactivated Lore, whose last words were "I… love you… brother." Lore was subsequently dismantled – and the emotion chip, though damaged, was removed and returned to its rightful owner. Two years later, Data finally had the chip installed.
Following the lifting of the ban on synthetics, Altan began construction on a new golem to serve as a 'totality', combining the memory data of B-4, Lal, and Soong himself with the personalities of Data and Lore into a singular being. He gave the new golem an older appearance, based on an aged Soong, hoping to reflect the wisdom of age. Unfortunately, Soong died before he could complete this golem, and Starfleet seized his work, storing it at Daystrom Station. The integration appeared to have failed, and Data and Lore were at odds with each other inside the golem, each trying to seize control. (PIC: "The Bounty", "Dominion") Following the android's activation, Lore would interrupt Data, taking control over the android. While placed into a cognitive-function-only mode, Lore interjected in Data's attempts to explain the situation to Picard, in order to insult him. Lore seized control of the android while plugged in to the USS Titan-A's computer. Lore locked Geordi La Forge out of Engineering and lowered the ship's force fields, taunting La Forge for trying to appeal to Data's memories of friendship. La Forge was able to successfully appeal to Data, who took control of the android from Lore. La Forge lifted the partition separating Data and Lore in an attempt to get Data to take full control over the android so he could help retake the Titan, but Lore began swiftly overpowering and deleting Data's personality. As he was deleted, Data handed over his own memories to Lore, including those of playing poker with his friends aboard the Enterprise-D, and, finally, his memories of Spot, stating that he was handing over the memories because while Data had everything, Lore had nothing. Upon taking those last memories, Lore completed the process of deleting Data from the android but Lore began to experience the effects of deletion himself, and Data's personality returned. Data had deduced that Lore would not be able to resist taking his memories as trophies. He had taken the things that had made Data who he was, and as such, the two personalities became "one" and Lore merged into Data. The brothers said goodbye to one another as Lore's personality was finally overwritten with that of Data. Data later tells La Forge that he's Data, but he's also Lore, B-4 and everything else that Dr. Soong programed into the android.
