Arik Soong

Arik Soong was an antagonist introduced in the Star Trek: Enteprirse episode Borderland.

Soong was portrayed by Brent Spiner, who played his biological and artifical descendants Noonien Soong, Data, Lore, and B4 in other Star Trek franchises.

A renowned geneticist, Soong believed that eugenics could improve humanity and was crucial for them to survive. Going rogue while working on Cold Station 12, Soong stole a number of Augment embryos that had been frozen prior to the Eugenics Wars and restarted their development. He remained in hiding with his "children" for a number of years until being captured and imprisoned.

When Soong's augments stole a Klingon ship, Jonathan Archer recruited Soong to help track them down before they could start a war with the Klingons. The augments rescued Soong but imprisoned him when he refused to allow them to destroy a Klingon colony.

Rescued by the Enterprise, Soong helped them track down his children before they could destroy the Klingon colony. Malik destroyed his ship rather than surrender, but beamed aboard the Enterprise to kill Soong for betraying them. Malik was killed by Captain Archer before he could end Soong's life.

Finally realizing that he had been wrong to attempt to improve humanity through eugenics, he abandoned his research in to genetics. Soong devoted the remainder of his life to studying the creation of artifical life, but said such life probably wouldn't be developed in his lifetime. At some point Soong had children of his own, and his descendant Noonien carried on Soong's work, successfully creating artificial life.

Soong's earlier work on genetics was stored in a secure vault, which was opened in the 2380s by the Federation in an attempt to resolve the Andorian genetic crisis.