Summary

• The Soong family in Star Trek consists of brilliant scientists who prioritize their research above all else, committing crimes to achieve their goals.
• Dr. Noonian Soong pioneered positronic technology and created Data and Lore, but his devotion to his work caused him to neglect others.
• Dr. Arik Soong, Dr. Adam Soong, and Dr. Altan Inigo Soong all followed in their ancestor's footsteps by specializing in genetics and/or robotics, disregarding laws in their pursuit of advancing synthetic life.

The Soong dynasty in Star Trek may have been full of brilliant scientists, but they committed a lot of crimes in their pursuit of improving humanity and creating artificial life. The Soong family was first mentioned in Star Trek: The Next Generation season 1, episode 13, when Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the USS Enterprise-D visit Omicron Theta, the planet where Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) was created. At the time, Dr. Noonian Soong was known as a disgraced robotics scientist, but Data learned that Soong was the man responsible for creating Data and his evil brother Lore. Since Dr. Noonian Soong's introduction, several ancestors and descendants of his (all portrayed by Brent Spiner) have appeared in various Star Trek shows.

In addition to Noonian Soong in TNG, the other Soong family include Dr. Arik Soong in Star Trek: Enterprise season 4, Dr. Adam Soong in Star Trek: Picard season 2, and Dr. Altan Inigo Soong in Star Trek: Picard seasons 1 & 3. All of these men were brilliant scientists who specialized in genetics and/or robotics, and they did not let pesky things like laws stop them in their pursuit of their goals. They perhaps should have listened to the axiom that just because you can does not mean you should, but at least all of their research eventually led to Data. He stands out as the best of the bunch, a triumph of technology and human ingenuity that took many years and some questionable methods to create.

5 Dr. Noonian Soong - Star Trek: The Next Generation

The first of the Soongs to be introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Dr. Noonian Soong may also have been the best of them. He was the pioneer of the positronic technology that enabled him to create Data and Lore as sentient beings. Noonian cared deeply about his creations, thinking of them as his sons, but he neglected others around him in pursuit of his goals. After he was unable to achieve what he had promised as a Federation scientist, the disgraced Soong moved to the planet Omicron Theta to continue his research in relative obscurity. While there, he met and fell in love with Juliana O'Donnell (Fionnula Flanagan), and the two married.

When the Crystalline Entity attacked Omicron Theta, Juliana was fatally injured, but Soong transferred her consciousness into an advanced android body. Though he remained married to the artificial Juliana, she eventually left him because he placed his work above all else. Although Noonian followed Data's Starfleet journey and continued to work on updates for him, Soong believed that Lore remained deactivated. Because of this, Soong did not work to improve Lore's emotional instability, which prompted Lore to steal the emotion chip meant for Data. Soong was undoubtedly a brilliant scientist and the creation of Data makes up for many of his flaws, but his devotion to his work sometimes came at the expense of those around him.

4 Dr. Arik Soong - Star Trek: Enterprise

Arik Soong was a brilliant geneticist who believed that humanity should not have abandoned genetic engineering after the Star Trek history's devastating Eugenics Wars. While working as a doctor, Soong stole Augment embryos from the top-secret research facility called Cold Station 12. Soong went on to raise his Augment "children," until he was arrested in 2144. He was later recruited from prison by Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) to help track down his children, who had killed the crew of a Klingon Bird-of-Prey.

After the Augments came to the NX-01 Enterprise, they helped Soong escape, and he resumed his work with them. Although Arik tried to convince the Augments to refrain from killing, they became increasingly violent. Soong eventually left and aided Captain Archer in stopping his children from committing mass murder. Soong was then sent back to prison, where he decided to move on from genetics to researching forms of artificial intelligence. This would of course lead to future generations of Soongs who focused solely on synthetic life, which would eventually result in the creation of Data and Lore.

3 Dr. Adam Soong - Star Trek: Picard

Another Soong dedicated to his work above all else, Dr. Adam Soong lived during the 20th and 21st centuries. His life's goal was to create artificial human life and use his work in genetics to improve humanity. Soong created dozens of "daughters" using genetic engineering, but none of them lived more than four years until Kore Soong (Isa Briones). Although Kore grew into a young woman, she lived her life in a bubble because she could not breathe unfiltered air or be exposed to sunlight. Adam even created a fabricated history for Kore, telling her she had a mother.

In trying to find a cure for Kore's condition, Soong partnered with organizations involved in illegal human experimentation, eventually losing his license and access to funding. After being approached by Q (John de Lancie) and later the Borg Queen (Anne Wersching), Soong attempted to kill Renée Picard (Penelope Mitchell) in order to secure his own legacy. While Soong did not succeed in killing Renée, he did kill Tallinn (Orla Brady), a Traveler who had been tasked with watching over Renée. Thankfully, Picard and his crew were able to preserve their version of the future. Kore then deleted all of Adam's files, leaving him with nothing but a report on Project Khan from 1996.

2 Dr. Altan Inigo Soong - Star Trek: Picard

The son of Dr. Noonian Soong, Altan followed in his father's footsteps, devoting his life to working on artificial intelligence and synthetic life. After Mars was attacked by synths in 2385, the Federation banned all synthetic life, dismantling any androids still in operation, including Data's brother, B-4. Despite the ban, Altan Soong continued his research, building a laboratory on the planet Coppelius with Dr. Bruce Maddox (John Ales). Soong stayed on Coppelius, acting as a surrogate father to the androids he and Maddox had created. On Coppelius, Soong worked with the androids to create a beacon to the alliance of synthetic life, which would protect synthetic life even at the cost of all organic life.

Soong eventually realized that his so-called children were no better than their enemies, and he aided iral Picard and his friends. Soong then helped to transfer Picard's consciousness into a synthetic golem body after Picard succumbed to his terminal illness. Soong later came to see the problems with some of his earlier methods, and he created a new organic golem body to house pieces of his own consciousness, as well as that of Data, Lore, B-4, and Data's daughter Lal (Hallie Todd). Picard and the reunited crew of the Enterprise-D later rescued this golem, who became a new, updated version of Data.

1 Lore - Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Picard

As the first of Noonian Soong's creations to possess a functional positronic brain, Lore should have been a great success. And while he was an extremely advanced android with the ability to experience emotions, those emotions proved to be his downfall. After his creation, he began to grow emotionally unstable, making the colonists of Omicron Theta uncomfortable and even afraid. After being disassembled, Lore was later reactivated when the Enterprise-D found him, and he wasted no time before taking a villainous turn. The first words out of his mouth were a lie about being created after Data, and he quickly proceeded to the crystalline entity that had wiped out the colony of Omicron Theta to offer it the Enterprise crew.

Lore pretended to be Data on multiple occasions to fool those around him, even using this tactic with Dr. Noonian Soong to steal the emotion chip meant for Data. Lore later became the leader of a group of Borg who had become disconnected from the collective, and attempted to coerce Data into ing him. Lore's ultimate goal was to destroy the Federation, and though Data briefly sided with him, it was only because Lore was manipulating Data's emotions. By any century's standards, Lore broke dozens of laws throughout his existence in Star Trek. He was eventually deactivated permanently before his consciousness was later incorporated into the Daystrom Android M-5-10 android that became an upgraded Data in Star Trek: Picard season 3.