HOW INFO CAME TO THE CASUAL:

(at least, it's how he tells it...)

Back in the mid-twentieth century on Terra, during the technological revolution, a man took the computer world by storm. His Disk Operating System was such a smashing success that he was quickly elevated to the status of Minor Deity in the business world. He became the richest man on Earth for his widely successful Microsoft Corporation. This corporate giant grew by leaps and bounds for years. This pioneer's name was Bill Gates.

In the 21st century, just prior to the Eugenics Wars, Bill (or Prime, as he now called himself) decided that he needed to get the hell off Earth before things got ugly (and before his latest version of Windows was released...lots of bugs in that one). He was now the richest man on the planet several times over, and quickly contracted a large aeronautics corporation to design and build a custom spacecraft for him. Space travel being in its infancy then, the ship had to include a cryogenics system to facilitate the long sublight journey...and his designers were also afraid that awake, Prime might have time to design his next OS, and enough was enough. He made his final preparations, purchased Lockheed, and blasted himself into the cosmos.

It was a pity that the on-board computer system on Prime's vessel was operated by one of Microsoft's operating systems. The machine suffered a stack overflow soon after breaking orbit and totally forgot about waking Prime when he had arrived at Alpha Centauri.

>Prime floated for hundreds of years in deep-freeze while the universe went on just fine without him. Computers began to function efficiently, operating systems hit markets without having more bugs than an ant trap, and all was working well with the computer world.

Eventually, Prime's vessel was discovered by a newly-spacefaring race. These generous, caring, and charitable creatures known as the Ferengi quickly revived him and, eventually, made him their leader. Prime enjoyed his time with them as they would do just about anything he asked so long as he rubbed their ears...which he found curious, but didn't ask too many questions.

As time went by, Prime worked with Federation scientists and was amazed at what he could do with the current level of technology. He also learned that Microsoft still existed, but due to a curious fluke of fate, now manufactured only soft drinks and synthehol. Prime was a recognized figure from Earth history and enjoyed the admiration on a daily basis until a young computer scientist named Daystrom punched him very hard in the face after he suggested improving Daystrom's M-5 computer by making it look and act more like a Macintosh.

So Prime left and decided to do what he had always wanted to do: Create an artificial being. He pieced together some parts from servos and pieces of department store mannequins that he had collected and had put aboard his vessel back in the 21st century. (Why he had the mannequin parts in the first place remains one of the universe's great mysteries.) He installed a negatronic brain and state-of-of-the-art components (state-of-the-art in the 20 th century, anyway) into his creation and named it Bill. He loved that name.

The android Bill functioned well for a time. Soon, however, Prime discovered that something was wrong. He had given the machine more than enough capability to interact with humans and act as naturally as possible, but had not anticipated that he would develop many of the bad habits of humans as well. Prime had reached an impasse.

A short year later, Prime ran into an artificial intelligence expert named Soong. Dr. Soong had been doing some experiments with androids, but was having little success. He traveled to Dr. Soong's lab with Bill to see if Soong could be of any assistance in correcting Bill's flaws. After a lengthy examination, Dr. Soong's expert opinion was to "disintegrate the hell out of him."

As was his usual knack, Prime convinced Soong to purchase the defective android from him - at a significant profit - and returned home to Ferengenar. He had been gone for several years, and was surprised to learn what a profound effect his leadership had had on their gentle, generous culture. In fact, this effect is still quite evident today.

Meanwhile, Dr. Soong had been tinkering around with his newly acquired android. He did what he could with the circuitry and components. He was particularly perplexed by Prime's use of a Negatronic brain, but vowed to make due. While he didn't have much to work with, he was able to make some significant changes to the android, making him look and act much more human. He renamed the android "Info " - the doctor was a technical genius and a very creative man, but he fell a tad short when it came time for android names. Still, the compulsive and often annoying behavior of the machine was getting on his nerves.

Eventually, after decades of failure, Dr. Soong got entirely too sick of trying to work on the stupid thing and set out to build his own model. He drew up plans for his creation and began working on it. Info became insanely jealous and began drinking copious quantities of alcohol in an attempt to drown his sorrows. This made him even more upset, since he was a machine and couldn't become intoxicated, so he reprogrammed himself to slow his servos and higher brain functions when enough alcohol was introduced into his system. Dr. Soong had also given him other functions that mimicked humans in the form of sexual desires...bad mistake there. Info is thus proficient in multiple techniques (a function Soong later repeated, although on a smaller scale, for his android Data...and Soong was still having no luck with names). Info's wanton desires and constant drinking drove Dr. Soong to near insanity, so he finally lured Info into a small room using a bottle of Yukon Jack and a semi-respectable woman of better-than-average attractiveness as bait and locked the door. The room was equipped with multiple experimental phaser arrays, and Dr. Soong calmly pressed the button to disintegrate the hell out of Info.

A curious event then transpired; so curious, in fact, that had Soong actually known about it he would probably have given up robotics and moved whole hog into the field of temporal mechanics. The particular combination of experimental arrays did not, in fact, disintegrate the hell out of Info; rather, they instead transported him both physically and temporally. He materialized in deep space near the Beta Quadrant two years prior to the attempted androidicide (along with the semi-respectable woman, who did not fare nearly so well as Info in hard vacuum). Lacking any form of motive power, info had little choice but to hang around in space for a while. He tried to amuse himself by doing little dance routines with the remains of the woman, but she was a terrible dancer...at least post-mortem. During the months that followed, Info's systems began to suffer from stellar flares, interstellar radiation, and passing ships throwing beer bottles at him.

Info eventually became tired of his boredom and switched himself off. This was not a monumental effort, since Dr. Soong had equipped him with numerous off switches all over his body. He floated in deep space for nearly 30 years until a passing Ferengi vessel picked him up. Ironically, the Ferengi never realized he was an android, or they would have gotten a much better price for him. As it was, they sold him as a mannequin to a reputable tailor's shop on the Promenade at Deep Space Nine, where he spent a good deal of time modeling the latest in swim apparel.

A small child running amok in the Promenade poked him with a stick one day, and Info was reactivated. After 30 years floating in space, he was relieved to find himself somewhere new. He began exploring the station, and was promptly arrested for shoplifting the swimwear he was wearing.

After repeatedly inquiring as to whether or not Constable Odo could morph himself into a guacamole and, if so, would he taste like it, the Constable struck a deal with him. Info could be released from the brig if he would just agree to get the hell off the station. Info replied that he would be quite happy to get away from all of the ""tight-assed Starfleet types"" and get on with some serious partying somewhere. Odo tried to disintegrate the hell out of him, but the brig forcefield saved him. Eventually, Info was given a somewhat worse-for-wear Runabout with the sendoff, "Here, just take it...and no, I would not get drunk if I turned into a rum and coke!" He set off into space once again, this time with a bit more control over where he was going, and a fully functional replicator.

He wandered the cosmos for a while, growing more and more bored, until he came upon an older starship with a particularly amusing smiley-face painted on the navigational deflector. To Info, this was the calling of his heart...he vowed to become a crewman on this vessel. He was astonished at what he found aboard...