acting. Spiner also portrayed Data's manipulative and malevolent brother Lore (a role he found much easier to play, because the character was "more like me"), and Data's creator, Dr. Noonien Soong. Additionally, he portrayed another Soong-type android, B-4, in the film Star Trek: Nemesis, and also Arik Soong, one of Soong's ancestors in three episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise. Spiner said his favourite Data scene takes place in "Descent", when Data plays poker on the holodeck with a re-creation of the famous physicist Stephen Hawking, played by Hawking himself. Spiner reprised his role of Data in the Star Trek: Enterprise series finale "These Are the Voyages..." in an off-screen speaking part. Spiner felt that he had visibly aged out of the role and that Data was best presented as a youthful figure. Spiner returned to the role for 2020s Star Trek: Picard, having been convinced by the advent of digital de-aging tools. He has stated the first season of Picard was his final time playing Data. Depiction Television series and films Dialog in "Datalore" establishes some of Data's backstory. It is stated that he was deactivated in 2336 on Omicron Theta before an attack by the Crystalline Entity, a spaceborne creature which converts life forms to energy for sustenance. He was found and reactivated by Starfleet personnel two years later. Data went to Starfleet Academy from 2341 to 2345 (he describes himself as "Class of '78" to Commander William Riker in the series premiere "Encounter at Farpoint"—with "honors in probability mechanics and exobiology", although canonically may only refer to the stardate) and then served in Starfleet aboard the USS Trieste. He was assigned to the Enterprise under Captain Jean-Luc Picard in 2364. In "Datalore", Data discovers his amoral brother, Lore, and learns that Dr. Noonien Soong created Data after Lore. Lore fails in an attempt to betray the Enterprise to the Crystalline Entity, and Wesley Crusher beams Data's brother into space at the episode's conclusion. Lore claimed to Data that Data being "less-perfect" which was a lie, as Soong later told Data in "Brothers"; the only real difference between the two of them "was some programming" (Lore's positronic net differed from Data's: it had a Type-"L" phase discriminator compared to Data's Type-"R"; see episode "Time's Arrow"). In "The Measure of a Man", a Starfleet judge rules that Data is not Starfleet property. Data's family is expanded in "The Offspring", which