Android slaves in Picard conflicts with TNG canon.
Yeah I hear ya on that. When you think about it, Picard S1 is the exact opposite of Measure of a Man. In Measure of a Man they start by thinking it’s ok to disassemble Data against his will because he’s a machine. But then there’s a debate about whether he’s sentient. It ends with Picard saying that since debatable that he’s sentient there is no debate about whether or not to disassemble data because if they do that if there’s even a possibility Data is sentient, they risk being horrible racist monsters and eventually creating a slave race.
Picard S1 starts with the Federation already creating a slave race AND disassembling the androids. And it’s not that they’re assuming they’re just machines, they are overtly racist against the androids. So much so when the androids malfunction they don’t even consider the possibility that it’s a malfunction (run a level 5 diagnostic or whatever), they go straight to hating androids.
I get they were trying to do an anti-racist message (which it’s Star Trek, that’s what they should do) but by doing Measure of a Man backwards they didn’t accomplish anything. Because it’s later revealed the androids were indeed just malfunctioning machines. So the Federation was being racist against malfunctioning machines? What is anyone supposed to learn from this message? If your computer doesn’t work right, don’t be racist against computers… run a virus scan instead.
TNG: Android is a machine -> maybe he’s sentient? -> disassembly might be racist? -> disassembly: NOPE!
Picard S1: Android are people -> people that the Federation is racist against -> no wait, they’re actually malfunctioning machines -> ???
By doing it backwards they watered down the anti-racist message so much it’s non-existent.