The Star Trek Character Falsely Blamed For Creating A Monster
On Star Trek: The Next Generation, Geordi La Forge made many mistakes, including creating a deepfake girlfriend with his colleague’s face and then letting the colleague find out. Arguably, though, his biggest mistake was accidentally creating Moriarty, a holographic villain smart enough to endanger the lives of everyone aboard the Enterprise. However, what most fans overlook is the clear evidence that this hologram was already self-aware even before Geordi tinkered with the program.
A Mistake That Comes From A Good Place
Our tale begins with the excellent Season 2 episode “Elementary, Dear Data.” Like seemingly everyone on the Enterprise, Geordi La Forge and Data are fascinated by ancient Earth literature, and they use the holodeck to recreate the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Data has already memorized every single Sherlock adventure, allowing him to immediately solve every mystery scenario the computer can throw at him.
Proving Data’s Detractor Wrong
Because Geordi La Forge is a problem-solver, he comes up with what seems to be an easy solution. Fueled by his anger at the android-hating Dr. Pulaski claiming Data could never solve an original mystery, the engineer asks the computer to come up with a new mystery as well as a foe capable of defeating Data. On paper, this would take out two birds with one phaser blast, allowing Geordi and Data to have more fun in the holodeck while proving the doubting doctor wrong.
Moriarty
The computer is (shockingly enough) very literal-minded, and the only way it can create a foe capable of defeating Data and his perfect android brain is to create a self-aware holographic villain based on Sherlock’s nemesis, Moriarty, who has access to the ship’s computer. He uses the latter to mess with the ship’s stabilizer controls and negotiate for existence in the real world.
Picard convinces him this isn’t possible (they were still a few years away from having portable holo-emitters) and allows Moriarty’s program to go on, but the bad guy returns years later to threaten the ship again until Picard traps him in an ongoing illusion of galactic freedom.
La Forge Made The Typical Sci-Fi AI Mistake
Understandably, most fans blame Geordi La Forge for Moriarty becoming self-aware and endangering the ship on multiple occasions. The Starfleet officer had no idea what would happen, of course, but that’s part of why he gets the blame. It stands to reason that the Chief Engineer of the Federation flagship might know better than to give the ship’s computer super-vague instructions that could blow up in his face (apparently, Geordi’s love of 20th-century literature didn’t extend to any cautionary sci-fi).
Moriarty Displays A Level Of Self-Awareness
If you take a closer look at “Elementary, Dear Data,” though, it’s clear that Moriarty’s super-intelligence isn’t Geordi La Forge’s fault… at least, not entirely. Even before he tells the computer to create a foe worthy of defeating Data, Moriarty notices the holographic arch, something that other programs are unable to do. This implies the villain had at least some level of self-awareness and hyper-intelligence long before La Forge gave the computer the command to create a villain worthy of Data.
Geordi La Forge Needs To Stay Away From The Holo-Deck
The Next Generation never addresses why a hologram might already have self-awareness, though this makes about as much sense as anything else involving the holodeck. Still, we’re glad that this often-overlooked moment in the episode lets Geordi La Forge at least partially off the hook. Now, we can go back to blaming him for more legitimate things, including falling in love with an AI girlfriend and then turning into a shrieking incel when talking to the real thing.
