B - 4 B - 4 was a prototype android constructed by Doctor Noonian Soong on Omicron Theta in the 2330s . He was one of three failed prototypes before the construction of Lore was successful . ( ) Although B - 4 was outwardly identical to both Data and Lore , the two final androids built , B - 4 was not equipped with a positronic brain as sophisticated as those of his brothers , with the result that he asked simple questions such as " " Why does the tall man have a furry face " ? " , and describing engineering as being simply " " A room . . . with lights " . " The existence of B - 4 was not known to Starfleet until 2379 , when the disassembled pieces of the android were found by the crew of the on Kolarus III . The pieces had been planted there by Shinzon as part of an elaborate scheme to lure Jean - Luc Picard near Romulus in order to capture him . B - 4 was also used as an unwitting spy ; he was equipped with a second memory port that contained subversive programming that compelled him to download vital data about the positions of all Federation starship s and their coded communications frequencies . Although he recognized B - 4 ' s limitations , Data wished to give his brother the opportunity to expand his capabilities , much in the same way that he himself had in years past . Towards that end , Data willingly copied all of his memories to B - 4 , hoping that the added experiences would help B - 4 to expand beyond his original programming . However , soon afterward , B - 4 had to be deactivated because of the danger he posed to the " Enterprise " crew , as a result of Shinzon ' s tampering . A short time later , Data was killed while destroying the " Scimitar " , having voluntarily sacrificed himself to save his crewmates . B - 4 was reactivated so that Picard could tell him of his brother ' s death , but Picard sadly departed the meeting when his attempts to explain what Data meant to them only confused B - 4 . Although some of Data ' s memories began to surface as Picard left the android in his ready room , B - 4 beginning to sing the song that Data had sung at Riker and Troi ' s wedding shortly before B - 4 ' s discovery , his future was uncertain . ( ) Appendices . Background information . B - 4 was played by actor Brent Spiner . According to the original " Star Trek Nemesis " , the android B - 4 ( " before " ) was named " B - 9 " ( " benign " ) . Also according to the script , the android was taken from its homeworld by the Pakled s and traded to the Bolian s . He ultimately encountered some Cardassian s , who tossed him into a garbage chute and out into space , where he was found by Talosian s . It was also revealed that Shinzon had learned of the prototype android through a Cardassian historian . None of this , however , made it to the final version of the script . The novelization names him as " Be - Fore " . Captain Picard ' s interactions with B - 4 after Data ' s destruction at the end of " Nemesis " hint at the possibility of a Spock - like rebirth of Data through B - 4 , although actor Brent Spiner has called this unlikely due to the fact that he himself has " visibly aged out of the role " of an android who supposedly does not age . Of course , this is not necessarily true since the TNG episode states that Data does , indeed , have the capability to age . Apocrypha . B - 4 is deactived and sent off to the Daystrom Institute for Analysis in the novel " " , Picard and La Forge having come to accept that the moments where B - 4 acts like Data are merely random sparks rather than any sign that B - 4 has significantly progressed as a sentient being . In the novel " " : " " , Doctor Bruce Maddox is contemplating deleting Data ' s memory engrams from B - 4 , who is kept in storage along with the remains of Soong ' s other prototype , Lore , and Lal , Data ' s daughter , when they are stolen by the Breen . Doctor Soong – who survived his death by transferring his mind into an android body far more Human in appearance than Data ' s – manages to recover his " children " , and transfers Data ' s memories from B - 4 into his own body , unable to complete the new body he had been attempting to construct for his " son " . The comic book series " " ( a tie - in to the 2009 film ) and the timeline established for the " Star Trek Online " game depict Data as alive in 2387 . Sometime prior , Geordi La Forge installed Data ' s emotion chip into B - 4 ' s neural net . This caused the uploads to B - 4 by Data to fully activate , allowing Data ' s full memory and personality to assert itself , essentially resurrecting him . Starfleet decided to reinstate the android to service , and by the time of " Countdown " Data had become captain of the . The " Guardians " story in " Strange New Worlds VII " dealt with the Horta culture being transplanted to the planet where the Guardian of Forever resided . The Crystalline Entity visited the world almost a thousand years after the events of " Nemesis " and described an encounter where it was forced to destroy B - 4 .