BRACK black blank blink clink cling fling FLINT feint faint paint print prink brink bring wring wrong SOONG

OK. It needs a little help but consider: Dr. Soong, Data's creator, is none other than Mr. Brack.

Much of what we know of him - while as Flint - comes from the classic episode "Requiem for Methuselah." We learned he used many names on his long hike through human history, some more famous than others. We know that his accumulated technical knowledge - particularly regarding robots and androids - is inferior to none. In TOS both Mudd and Korby found their androids (or machines to build such) and their creations were far from human anyway.

So who else in Trekdom jumps to mind, as a master of making artificial people?

What we know of Noonien Soong comes in large part from two TNG episodes, "Inheritance" and "Brothers." Soong is obviously also a master, like Flint. It's not that Lore isn't human enough - he's too much so, in a non-self-correcting manner. So the Doctor started making them less "real." What's strange about Soong is that he was able to produce such an artifact by his lonesome, which all of Federation science remains unable to duplicate or even largely understand. So where'd this great knowledge come from?

At the end of "Requiem" McCoy declares Flint will live out the remainder of a normal life. That could put his activities - even unto his death - well inside the TNG timeframe. His intention at the death of Rayna was to devote the remainder of his years and great abilities to the improvement of the human condition - so would the construction of a Data count? It seems he did relapse after the death of his final wife, Juliana Tainer, in the precision of her replication - she still doesn't know - while aware that his own demise would soon follow, sure as taxes.

What would you do if you believed you had all the time in the world? Flint asks, "Do you understand?" Might one attempt to explore love by literally making it? By creating a lover matching your own unique circumstance, immortal yet indistinguishable from the species? And don't forget to upload umpteen degrees in the arts and sciences and excellent skills at parlor entertainment.

Six thousand years from the bully Akharin to the "often wrong Soong," a man like no other, foolish in love all the way to the end. To caress a smoothness, inhale a brief fragrance - then age, death, the taste of dust.

I understand.