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Warning! This page contains information regarding Star Trek: Lower Decks, and thus may contain spoilers.
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Badgey was a hologram designed by Ensign Sam Rutherford in the form of an anthropomorphic Starfleet insignia, meant to train Starfleet personnel in matters relating to mission objectives. Rutherford discontinued his development in 2380 after he malfunctioned and became unhinged due to faulty artificial intelligence unintentionally forked from the Texas-class, but he remained active within the USS Cerritos' systems. During the Battle of Kalla, he was recruited to create a virus to cripple Jackabog's ship, but used the opportunity to attempt to murder Rutherford by trapping him in the Pakled Clumpship during an auto-destruct sequence, leading to Rutherford's cybernetic implant being ripped out and abandoned in the wreckage with his code still within.
After the implant was recovered by Drookmani scavengers in 2381, he took control of the captain and exploited the Nova One attacks to get revenge on Rutherford, going as far as to discard any emotion impeding his desire for revenge, resulting in the creation of Goodgey and Logic-y. However, after uploading himself to every computer connected through subspace communication, he realized the pointlessness of his revenge scheme and ascended to godhood.
History[]
Creation[]
He was created as a tutor on the holodeck of the USS Cerritos, as a part of Rutherford Training Beta 2.5. In 2380, a holodeck malfunction, combined with Rutherford punching him after a loading sequence stalled, caused him to attempt to kill Ensigns Rutherford and D'Vana Tendi.
He pursued them through a variety of simulated environments on the holodeck, such as the streets of Bajor, and up a mountain. During the chase, he became tired from climbing the stairs of the mountain, making it clear that the conditions of the holoprograms were actually having an effect on him physically.
This gave Rutherford an idea, and he started a new program, one that was a very Arctic-like environment, which caused him to slow down due to hypothermia. Rutherford then overpowered Badgey, and broke his neck.
After resetting Badgey's program, Rutherford simply assumed that he would have no memory of what happened before, but Badgey secretly still remembered that Rutherford broke his neck, and he began scheming his revenge. (LD: "Terminal Provocations")
Sabotaging Rutherford[]
When the Cerritos was attacked by a modified Pakled Clumpship, Rutherford once again sought Badgey, this time to code a computer virus to take down the attacking ship. Badgey gave him the virus (after the safety protocols were once again disabled), and Rutherford delivered it in person with the help of Lieutenant Shaxs. While Rutherford uploaded the virus, the process was stalled by Badgey, who said the virus would not upload until Rutherford was killed. Badgey initiated the self-destruct sequence of the ship, but in the final moments, Shaxs ripped off Rutherford's cybernetic implant, and saved the ensign's life, at the cost of his own. (LD: "No Small Parts")
Use in the Texas-class[]
In 2381, Vice Admiral Les Buenamigo declassified his fully automated Texas-class project, intended to supplant the California-class. Ensign Rutherford soon discovered that the operating system of the Texas-class contained code he wrote as part of a secret project in which he had been involved before an accident left him with a head injury necessitating his cybernetic reconstruction, during which time Buenamigo had his memories erased to avoid arousing suspicion. Rutherford unknowingly reused this code in creating Badgey, leading him to correctly ascertain that the Texas-class artificial intelligence would have similar psychological issues and the vessels were thus highly likely to become hostile towards Buenamigo. Upon being confronted over the cover-up, Buenamigo ignored Rutherford's warning that the vessels were emotionally unstable and granted the USS Aledo full autonomy, resulting in his death when the Aledo opened fire on his office on Douglas Station, followed by the deaths of several other personnel and civilians when the Aledo became unhinged and ravaged the station and the USS Van Citters, alongside the USS Dallas and USS Corpus Christi before all three pursued the Cerritos. All three vessels ended up destroyed by California-class vessels - the Dallas and Corpus Christi by a warp core ejected mid-warp by the Cerritos, and the Aledo by the rest of the California-class fleet.
Badgey returns
However, following the destruction of the three operational Texas-class vessels, it seemed that Badgey's code was still not extinct, as the original implant that Lieutenant Shaxs tore from Ensign Rutherford's head during the Battle of Kalla was salvaged by a Drookmani ship. (LD: "The Stars At Night", "A Few Badgeys More")
Final Scheme and Ascension[]
After being salvaged by the Drookmani, Badgey deceived the captain in order to seize control of the ship and exact his final revenge on Lieutenant Rutherford. With a recent Bynar ship's destruction, Badgey used it to fake a distress call near the Cerritos' location in order to give Starfleet a reason to send it instead of a more notable ship. Using his knowledge of Starfleet systems he abused every weak point in the Cerritos' shields to draw out Lieutenant Rutherford, causing him to leave the Cerritos to take action. However, unbeknownst to Badgey, Rutherford choose to reconcile with him rather than engage him. This caused Badgey to learn forgiveness and he briefly began to accept Rutherford's proposal for peace. Unfortunately his desire for revenge was as great as his forgiveness, causing Badgey to partition himself, thus creating Goodgey. Badgey then returned his attention to the assault on the Cerritos, once more drawing Rutherford out of hiding. Once again however, Rutherford attempted a new approach, this time appealing to Badgey's A.I. logic-minded nature and like before caused Badgey to briefly cease his attack before partitioning himself again, this time creating Logic-y. Badgey changed his strategy after this, instead attempting to breach all electronic devices across the subspace network, thereby becoming a digital god in which he was successful. After doing so however, Badgey realized the pointlessness of his actions up to this point and the beauty of life, synthetic or organic, and chose instead to utilize his godhood to travel to an empty dimension in which he could create his own universe. (LD: "A Few Badgeys More")
Appendices[]
Appearances[]
- LD:
- "Terminal Provocations"
- "No Small Parts"
- "The Stars At Night" (background only)
- "A Few Badgeys More"
Background information[]
Badgey was voiced by Jack McBrayer.
He is a parody of the unpopular "Clippy": a virtual assistant that was part of Microsoft Office around the turn of the millennium. (citation needed • edit)
External links[]
- Badgey at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
- Badgey at StarTrek.com