Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we profile B-4, a Soong android who starred in TNG's Star Trek Nemesis and then reappears in the plot of Star Trek Picard. Note that like we have with other recent segments touching on elements of Picard, major spoilers are avoided here for now.
B-4 was a prototype of the android that would eventually become Data, who was constructed well before other androids we see in the course of TNG like Lore. B-4 did not have a sophisticated positronic brain on the same level of capability as these later "brothers," and as such, he is far more limited than Data and Lore.
Our introduction to the existence of B-4 comes at the beginning of Star Trek Nemesis, when Captain Picard goes on a dune buggy joy ride and hunt through the deserts of Kolarus III. The pieces of B-4 were planted there by Shinzon in a plot to lure Captain Picard towards Romulan space to capture him. Before that plot comes fully into motion, the crew of the Enterprise reassemble B-4, and Data copies all of his memories into B-4 in an attempt to allow him to expand his own capabilities in a similar manner as Data did over the years. This was a big red flag for the fate of Commander Data later in the movie, but I digress.
B-4 was also programmed by Shinzon to download position and communications information on all Federation starships, but this latter part of Shinzon's plot was foiled immediately by Geordi La Forge and Data. Data then poses as B-4 and provides a bunch of inaccurate information to Shinzon while also helping Captain Picard escape Shinzon. Shinzon should've known better than to rely on a beta version of hardware when the other side has the upgraded version.
B-4's story is left open-ended after Data then sacrifices himself to destroy Shinzon's ship and save Captain Picard. Some of Data's downloaded memories were beginning to surface at the end of the movie, but he still could not understand much when Picard tried to explain the significance of Data's sacrifice and his long friendship with the crew.
While various comic books and novels had continued on with potential further developments of the B-4 character, the official canon did not pick up on this character until the beginning of Star Trek Picard. We see that B-4 remains disassembled at the Daystrom Institute when Picard goes to visit 20 years after the events of Nemesis. Dr. Anges Jurati observes that most of Data's positronic network was lost after the transfer to B-4, meaning the hope to keep another version of Data alive in a different body was unfortunately unsuccessful.
While this is a sad end for the character of B-4, it does introduce and lead into a couple plot lines of significant importance for the first season of Star Trek Picard. His character is one of many loose ends that come together for wrapping up as Picard effectively writes the epilogue to TNG. Thus, while I previously summarized B-4's role as fairly unimportant, he does provide more depth of background on Dr. Soong's work and does help advance the story of synthetic life, in the end.
B-4's story is left open-ended after Data then sacrifices himself to destroy Shinzon's ship and save Captain Picard. Some of Data's downloaded memories were beginning to surface at the end of the movie, but he still could not understand much when Picard tried to explain the significance of Data's sacrifice and his long friendship with the crew.
While various comic books and novels had continued on with potential further developments of the B-4 character, the official canon did not pick up on this character until the beginning of Star Trek Picard. We see that B-4 remains disassembled at the Daystrom Institute when Picard goes to visit 20 years after the events of Nemesis. Dr. Anges Jurati observes that most of Data's positronic network was lost after the transfer to B-4, meaning the hope to keep another version of Data alive in a different body was unfortunately unsuccessful.
While this is a sad end for the character of B-4, it does introduce and lead into a couple plot lines of significant importance for the first season of Star Trek Picard. His character is one of many loose ends that come together for wrapping up as Picard effectively writes the epilogue to TNG. Thus, while I previously summarized B-4's role as fairly unimportant, he does provide more depth of background on Dr. Soong's work and does help advance the story of synthetic life, in the end.
B-4 was played by Brent Spiner, like most other Soong androids. Although Spiner has not acted as much in recent years, beyond Picard he can also been seen in previous years in episodes of The Big Bang Theory, episodes of Ray Donovan, and in the Independence Day sequel. As his singing of Blue Skies plays a central role with the character of B-4, I recommend checking out Spiner's 1991 crooning album Ol' Yellow Eyes is Back, which includes some backup vocals from some other TNG memorables on one song. Enjoy!
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