Lt. Commander Data has wowed fans for almost 40 years with his super-human strength, childlike naivete, artistic pursuits, and legendary boning skills. But one thing Data simply cannot do, is tell a decent lie. In season 4 episode 14 “Clues” Data does his best to protect the crew from the truth of a (minor) mystery, and in the process he tells some of the most transparent lies ever recorded on video tape. His word salad explanations sound like technobabble even to the other senior officers. Geordi is offended, frankly, both by the lies and their increasing implausibility. Eventually the mystery is solved (without Data’s help) his lies are revealed to have noble origins, and as the 45-minute mark approaches all is calm once more on the bridge of the Enterprise-D.

In an effort to provide assistance to the Alpha Quadrant’s favorite artificial intelligence on his quest towards humanity, I created a handy-dandy guide to lying. I call it: