Is Anyone Honestly Impressed By Troi's Overrated Ability?

I seem to recall she mentioned something about her training in the episode Tin Man. But I do not have the desire to watch that episode ever again.

 

Well, there's no denying that it does, is there? Barclays fear itself may not be rational, but it is based on a (somewhat) rational ground. Perhaps Troi's first step is to acknowledge that this ground exists, that he's not crazy being afraid for it for that reason, and then go on to show him that in spite of that ground, he need not fear those because they are quadruple redundant, it's really the safest way to travel, bla bla bla, do some desensitivation therapy or whatever, etcetera.

If Barclay has anything like my own psychological makeup, that approach might work better for him (or me) than flat out ignoring/denying his reasons for being afraid.

 

Troy=annoying and usually superfluous. No real need to have a psrink constantly on the bridge in the first place.

 

Psychologists don’t need md’s or phd’s to treat people. They earn masters degrees in clinical psychology, fulfill training hours in the field, and have testing.

For all we know she has eight phd’s as “counselor” could be supersede the other title in her field. We don’t know what kind of psychology she’s practicing, but that she’s on the bridge suggests something significantly different from today's. It isn’t her Betazoid abilities alone that earned her the spot as she 1) went to school for psychology, 2) wasn’t asked to step down from her position when she lost her abilities, and 3) I’d imagine not any ol’ Betazoid could be a psychologist without knowledge of how the mind (multiple alien minds) works and how to actually help people past the parlor trick(?) of telling them what’s on their mind.

Yet of all the people on the bridge, including highly skilled pilot Riker himself (per Chain of Command, Part II), Troi was asked to pilot the plummeting saucer herself, and no one batted an eye or jumped in when it was getting turbulent. The Big Movie Crash Scene was not her fault. I think the saucer was damaged from the stardrive’s explosion, or that’s a pretty silly way to land a skyscraper full of people, including children. Still she got the job done with no casualties. Points.

People like to rag on her for crashing the ship into the Scimitar too, but she did it on Picard’s order as he was specifically trying to surprise his doppelgänger, and maybe he chose Troi to do it because she did it with no casualties previously? Also, in both instances it was the writers looking for something for her to do and, what, didn’t want to put the camera on a nameless helmsman? More divergence from the series to the TNG Movies .

 

She probably would have seemed useful (or less useless) if we’d seen her doing psychology related tasks such as helping the crew deal with the aftermath of the Borg in Q Who or BoBW. We never saw this though as TNG portrayed humans unrealistically for the most part, so we rarely saw our heroes emote. Maybe her primary duty was making sure everyone was taking their allotted antidepressants every day.

 

Troi is my third-favorite TNG character, after Riker and Worf.

 

Yet she's the only counselor on a Starfleet bridge routinely, I think that was solely owing to her empathic abilities. There was no third chair next to the captain and first officer on the Voyager bridge. Ezra was on the Defiant bridge yes, but not IIRC as a counselor. McCoy hung around the bridge and was a space psychologist, but he didn't have a duty station on the bridge.

Troi was the only person on the bridge essentially doing nothing when the helms-person was injured/killed. Riker was in command of the ship during battle and needed to be aware of the whole situation, and not be tied down operating the helm.

Kirk once all but threw Yeoman Rand into the helmsman chair, when she was the only person available.

In Generations, Picard's last log entry spoke of casualties.

 

We don’t know that. There were counselors in the lit, but it's unfortunate they didn't do more with that onscreen.

I hope not. It’s kind of icky. Why doesn't everyone include a full telepath on their bridge? Or teams of mind-hacking/attacking assets onboard?

Voyager was a smaller ship not intended for long-term mission? It didn't have the extra side-seating for additional personnel or visiting dignitaries either.

The Defiant was missing a lot more than a counselor. I wonder who DS9's counselor/staff was before Ezri arrived.

McCoy was a century, and before Trek came up with counselors yet possibly in-part the inspiration for one?

But did she have sufficient piloting skills? I could be the only one free in a cockpit too, but if I have no idea what I’m doing while the captain is right there, it doesn't matter what else is going on on that plane. If Troi isn’t a capable pilot, she (as a full bridge commander) can take over acknowledging status reports and redirecting power supplies while Riker saves all their lives at the helm. Honestly, Riker could probably do both from the helm.

I dunno, Picard barely noted light casualties in a sentence mainly concerned with the fact that the saucer couldn’t be salvaged. No mention of names or even a somber tone for the lost makes me think the light casualties could be pets or Crusher’s moss samples again.

 

Yeah, with all the thrusters they have, one could imagine setting down that saucer nice & gentle like, without a scratch. It went down like it did because she couldn't gain control over it, after it got caught in the warp breach wake that sent it careening into the atmosphere

I honestly have no idea what she is even doing as the ship descends, because the helm is offline, & primary stabilizers are down. Then Data takes over by rerouting auxiliary power to the lateral thrusters, to level the descent. At that point, his is the only action being taken & it's already too late

TBH, I never understood why everyone was evacuated to the saucer to begin with. It was that delay that kept them from getting to a safer distance, where they might not have succumb to the explosion force that pushed them down on the planet. Why the hell didn't they employ any escape pods to save time?

 

The obvious answer is TPTB needed the saucer to crash. As far as the in-universe answer; Maybe large parts of the stardrive section was inaccessible due to damage or radiation from the warp core and the only safe way was “up” to the saucer section.

 

Any crash you can walk away from...

 

Slightly off topic, but has anyone notice the similarities between these scenes?
Generations-



Yesterday's Enterprise-

 

"What do you think?"

 

It's funny when she tries to psychoanalyze Picard's "son" and he makes a pass at her. Some empath! Like she couldn't "sense" that coming...

 

Troi: "I'm sensing that you are becoming aroused."
Picard's son: "Your Betazoid senses tell you that?"
...

 

Maybe people went to Quark's and told him all their worries.
If that was the case no doubt Quark would want some compensation for his time. Especially during the war.

 

Perhaps Picard wanted her on the bridge because of her empathic abilities.
It could be an advantage in a dangerous situation. And it was on some occasions.

 

Mostly, though, she is just simply stating things that are so goddamned obvious that she was just being annoying than actually useful.

 

Hey, I get it. Making your way in the world today takes everything you got. Taking a break from all your worries...with maybe a synth-ale, well, it sure would help a lot. Who wouldn't like to get away? Sometimes you want to go where Quark, and Rom, and Morn, and everybody knows your name. And where they're always glad you came. You want to be where you can see, well, that the sector’s troubles are all the same. You want to be...at Quark's Bar, Grill, Gaming House, and Holosuite Arcade.

But sometimes you need professional help. And you can call into the sector’s subspace radio shrink, for whatever good that’ll go ya, or you can visit Ezri in her office proper.

 

As a matter of fact, Morn is actually a homage to Norm a character from Cheers.

 

Morgan Bateson: "I'm listening,"

 

Scrambled eggs...