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Data walking over and standing right behind a device where an energy beam has stopped and making the assumption that the test device will stop it.
It's the equivalent of manufacturing brand new never before tested bulletproof material ... then holding it over your chest and asking your friend to shoot a high powered rifle on it to see if it works.
I remember watching this episode the first time in the 90s when the show was still new and thinking the same thing at the time.
My head canon is after some politics they decided to severely limit Space OSHA. They’re just so understaffed they can’t bother to have any oversight of starships even after report after report of preventable violations keep getting added to the backlog.
Serious question here: isn't the Warp core not the best place to do this? They probably have the right equipment and sensors in the engineering section to do that test and I would also image that the warp core would be much safer because of its added protection systems than anywhere else on the ship, right? So if the weapon blows up, they shut that section off, wait for it to blow and dust off the consoles.
It also looks like they are firing away from the warp core and not at it.
As for data standing right behind it, I mean, he is an android who doesn't fear death or injury...
Counterpoint: doing anything at all with an unknown weapon next to a supply of antimatter is really bad idea. Sure, nothing might go wrong. However, the worst case scenario involves antimatter.
Interesting point but isn't that more for practice? I mean more in the range of a very controlled and secure environment in which those phasers are not being able to hurt anybody. So the actual area doesn't need to be highly shielded or protected because the phasers wouldn't do any damage.
Not sure why you’re here trying to defend an objectively idiotic setting for that scene. It could’ve happened in the observation lounge and still have been more acceptable of a location.
Same place they tested the completely unknown device there which send out an energy beam that nearly killed a crewman. And then they decided to intentionally do it again right after.