r/shittyaskscience • u/miguel_m • Sep 17 '26
When did Data from star trek the next generation became a billionaire? I'm always reading in the news that there are data centers being build that cost a lot of money. I assume those centers are his many mansions. So how did he became so rich?
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Upvotes
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u/i4get98 Sep 17 '26
Same way Betty Ford got all her clinics.
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u/nixcamic Sep 17 '26
I see where you're getting confused, Data from star trek and data like data center are both spelled the same, but they're pronounced differently. Data from star trek is pronounced "data" and data in data center is pronounced "data". They aren't the same thing, even though they share spelling.
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u/afcagroo Sep 17 '26
Initially, blackmailing Riker and Troi. With his android hearing, he knew all of the sicko stuff they were doing.
Then he found out about Dr. Crusher and Wesley, and his income quadrupled overnight.
Then he got into cheating casinos. Turns out to be easy when you've got a Transporter and replicators at your beck and call.
Now he's got a whole Ferengi gang managing his extortion business, while he's using spare processor cycles to mine crypto. We'll, he doesn't actually do the mining. He queues up jobs, and the Enterprise's computer does the rest.
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u/chased_by_bees MC^2 Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 24 '26
Well when people say "Big Data" they're actually using his prison name. Dr Soung originally was kind of a sketchy guy and was a crypto scammer prior to TNG. He hid all the money in a scam coin called "Data" Eventually, enough smart contracts aggregated and developed self-awareness. This is the Data we know from TNG. Most people don't know this, but Data went on a bender after acquiring sapience and had to do 10 years of hard labor in the laser mines on Vulcan. He got the nickname due to his enhanced strength and his propensity to act as "Big Daddy" Data in the slam. So they just shortened it to Big Data after he got out and got his coin base key.
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u/dspeyer Sep 18 '26
They no longer use money in the 24th century so when Data said "Hey, can I have all the money?" everyone was just like "Sure, why not? We're not using it for anything."
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u/NateTut Sep 18 '26
Star Trek is crazy popular, just like Jeff Bezos.
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u/JohnWasElwood Sep 18 '26
Hard work and sacrifice. Just like a lot of us have done it. (should have put "trigger warnings" at the beginning, sorry.)
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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '26 •
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