Lal
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Lal was a fictional gynoid from the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. She was portrayed by Haley Todd.
Background
Lal, which in the Hindu language means "beloved", was created by Lt. Commander Data in an effort to propagate himself.
Lal actually started off in a gender-neutral body and was allowed to pick and choose from thousands of bodies, including that of an Andorian male, a Klingon male and a Human male. Lal finally settled on the image of a young Human woman in her twenties.
While she is slowly trained and programmed by her father to be more human and sentient, her creation has sparked major controversy with Starfleet. Eventually an Admiral arrives on board the Enterprise to determine whether Lal should remain on board or be separated from Data and taken to a special facility. Lal is even allowed to work in the ships bar, in order to learn more about the way people socialize. She also displays the ability to speak with verbal contractions, something her father is incapable of doing.
Lal eventually has a meeting with the Admiral and fights for her right to stay, and afterwards suffers a malfunction which gives her emotional awareness. Following a pre-programmed response to the malfunction, she returns to the lab where her father and the Admiral work to repair the cascade failure. They are both unsuccessful, and she eventually goes offline in front of her father. Data later states to the crew that he reincorporated all of her memories and experiences back into himself, so she would still live on in a way.
