Captain Seth entered the laboratory to meet his next crewmember:  his Chief Engineer, Jean LeCroy.  Of all of his senior staff, LeCroy was actually the most publicly known.  He was a highly accomplished engineer, and worked on some of the most ambitious projects over his career in the Federation.  He was responsible for many of the new design aspects of the Dragonfly, most especially the ship’s engines.  It was one of the major reasons why he assigned to the ship, according to Admiral Roth.  His artistic flair was also legendary, as evidenced by the slick appearance of the ship that he was largely responsible for.  His parents often argued that he should have been an architect, but an engineer was just as good.  And now, it appeared that he was also quite the scientist, as he was undertaking a major new project:  creating a new android.

In the center of the laboratory stood a six-foot tall half-finished artificial humanoid.  It had a skeletal structure of some hard, glassy material, but the bones were also interconnected with what seemed like artificial muscle.  The muscles were clearly shaped to mimic that of human muscle, but they were silvery in color.  They appeared to glisten under the light.  Only half of the muscles were “installed.”   Most other models of robots and androids used a complex array of pistons and joints to mimic intricate human movement.  This model would use complex polymers that could respond, that is, contract and relax, to electrical stimuli, presumably from the android’s brain much in the same way the human brain transmitted nerve impulses.  If the polymers were arranged precisely the way a humans were, they could allow the android to move with human grace.  But, of course, it made it look like something out of a medical school textbook.  From outer space.

In the center of its chest, the captain could see a beating heart.  Fascinating, if you were into that sort of thing, Seth thought.  The android just seemed to stare into nothingness, his face disturbingly still.  It was a little unnerving to see a semi-transparent skull with a mass that the captain could only assume was a brain, with only partial jaw muscle, but complete with very human-looking eyes.  For humans, they say the eyes are the window to the soul, but for machines, the eyes gave them a soul.

Seth raised his hand to see what the ‘muscle’ on the android felt like.

“DON’T TOUCH THAT!” came a voice.

Seth looked around to see where the voice was coming from.  He looked up to see his engineer sitting upside down.  What the hell was he doing?  The engineer immediately jumped down to the ground to face his captain.  But when he stood up, Seth saw that he stood up only partially.  He remained mostly slouched, bent at the hip.  He had the oddest stare.

“Oh,” he said.  “My apologies, I didn’t realize that it was you, captain.”  He was not at all what the captain had expected.  He looked particularly nerdy, wearing massive blue goggles that were so dark that you couldn’t see his eyes, and wild red hair that flared out in all different directions, the token characteristic of a mad scientist.  He had a pointed chin, and at least a pleasant enough smile.  He wore a standard engineering uniform, but he wore it sloppily, with his sleeves rolled up and his outermost layer fully unzipped.  His skin was pale and a little frail.  Like the rest of his crew, he seemed surprisingly young, maybe in his early thirties.  He seemed like one of those fellows who was extremely passionate about his work and cared for little else.  It was clear that he was the type that just loved to tinker around with things.  That was a good thing for an engineer.  “I hope you are impressed with my work.”

“No doubt,” the captain began, ”…I take it you are my Chief Engineer?”

“At your service…” he said, in a slithery manner.  Not exactly a good first impression.

“You’ve got a fascinating project here, Chief,” he began, “but I take it that it has nothing to do with my ship’s engines.”

The Chief let out a laugh.  “Well, I hope someday it could be VERY useful in engineering,” he began.  “But that depends more on him.”

The captain just stared, as if beckoning for more explanation over what this ‘thing’ was.  “Him?…”

“Ahem…well, about five years ago I was assigned to the Daystrom Institute to assist scientists in the development of an ambitious and ongoing project.  I was recently then assigned to this ship by Admiral Roth, but I insisted that I take this project with me so that I could finish it.  We ran into a number of what seemed like insurmountable problems that most of the senior scientists decided to give up on, so I really didn’t have to twist anyone’s arm to take it.”

“What are you exactly trying to do here?” the captain asked.

“What does it look like?” he said, jovially.  “I’m trying to build a robot.”

“Looks like more than that, Chief.”

“Quite right, captain,” LeCroy said enthusiastically. There was a slight European accent to his speech, although the captain couldn’t pinpoint from which area it was from.  His name alone sounded French, but Seth couldn’t be certain that he was from France.  Seth noticed that his fingers were quite long and slender, and he gestured a lot with his hands as he was explaining.  At rest, he seemed to always have his index finger of his left hand at the base of his lips, as if deep in thought.  His mannerisms almost reminded him of a bug.  “Alright, it’s not just a robot, it’s a new android.  At the moment, we call him by his experimental name, which is BX-12.  Coming up with names, unfortunately, was never my strong point,” he admitted.

“I was about to say…”

“And quite frankly, I would prefer that he be activated first with full confidence that he will succeed, so that he may choose his own name.”

“So this is a new sentient android?”

“Of course!  Of course!”

“The next generation of android design?”

“Well…not exactly.  He’s more like a side-step in android evolution.  He’s not necessarily better than androids of current design, but he sure is different.”

The captain was taken aback by such an ambitious undertaking.  No one has been able to successfully make another sentient android for fifty years.  There were simply too many complexities to contend with, both on a mechanical level and on a ‘mental’ level.  Even those that were successfully made sentient went what you could describe as ‘insane,’ after they reached a certain stage in development, and it also quickly became too costly to take care of them.  Research funding into this type of work had been abandoned, particularly at a time when the Federation needed to conserve resources.

The Chief took several steps, as if to think carefully as to how he would craft his next words.  “Alright alright…how do I put this?  How do I put this?”  he muttered to himself.  “We’ve been trying to re-think our definition of a robot.  Robot, android, cyborg, even hologram, whatever term you’d like to use – we’re taking another step in what you describe as an artificial humanoid.  We’ve moved from robots that were made entirely of metal, clumsy, with simple programs, to those that that look, walk, and talk like the real thing.  I’m working together with Dr. Min to help me with certain issues related to its ‘human’-functions. 

“As you can see, BX-12 uses a lot of synthetic materials that mimic human looks and function.  Bone, blood, muscle, organs, joints, even brain, and eventually skin, all very much closely resemble that of you and me.  Whenever we mention the word, ‘machine’ or ‘robot,’ we automatically think clunky metal and flashing blue and red lights.  Over the years, they have gotten more sophisticated, performing tasks that are much more intricate that even you or and I can do.  But rather than continue in that direction, which has its limitations, we’re using almost every aspect of human physiology as a template for BX-12.  His musculoskeletal system will allow him to move very much like you and me.  His eyes will see like ours do, his ears will hear what we hear.  When we’re finished, we will give him a face.  We will add artificial skin tissue that will complete his profile.”  As he explained, he used a small hand tool that appeared to ‘shock’ certain portions of his arm muscle, and he was actually able to manipulate his arms and hand quite elegantly by doing so.

“This may sound a little naïve, but if he’s just like you or me, then what’s the point?” the captain wanted to know.  After all, throughout the ages machines have been created to serve the needs of the creators.  They were always meant as tools to assist in the development of the civilization.  To merely imitate the creator without serving any other purpose seemed, rather pointless.

“Ah, good question.  We’re not making him to be some sort of tool.  Ultimately, we’re trying to answer a different question.  Our goal is to understand how we literally ‘build a human’ from the ground up.  We now know how to throw in the right laboratory chemicals together and let biology do the rest, but do we know how to build one without the genetic blueprints?  That’s not so easy.  This is the ultimate test of human understanding.  What will be his role in society?  Well, that will be his choosing.

“But unfortunately, the only real fully functioning, sentient artificial lifeforms in the Federation were those made from Dr. Noonian Soong.  The man, of course, needs no introduction. To this day we do not fully understand exactly what made his androids tick.  How they were able to develop sentience, consciousness, personality, and even ambition.  Data was the culmination of Soong’s efforts and genius, the android who developed on his own, with a sense of ethics and a strong desire to become more human. 

“However, by all measures, someone as simplistic as Data by design should have failed.  How it was able to operate as an individual, without emotion, just doesn’t make sense with current understanding of human psychology.  We need emotions to make decisions, especially when information is limited.

“But Data was ultimately destroyed,” he added, “with no chance to find out what made him who he was.  And B4 never took off the ground.”  He looked back at the android that stood before them, standing there motionless.  “The only real blueprints we had to work off of,” he said, “was Lore.”

And with the mere sound of that name, the memories of the stories the captain learned in grade school about Data and Lore came back to him.  It was the classic battle of good vs. evil (android, in this case).  “You’re telling me that you’ve brought an evil android aboard my ship?” the captain demanded.

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