What would daily life on Betazed sound like?

Also, “telepathic pop-culture.” Discuss.

 

The Jem'Hadar cloak explicitly does fool tricorders and other sensors, though - or at least it fools the users of those sensors, so that when the Jem'Hadar sneak up to a group of heroes, their tricorders may in fact start beeping madly, but the heroes (and the audience!) remain utterly oblivious to this.

This would appear to be a common and desirable feature in "mental cloaks": they don't fool with the thoughts of specific victims specifically, but cover all the bases generically and automatically, making the victims do the customizing.So e.g. the Salt Vampire projects a young Nancy to McCoy, an old Nancy to Kirk, and a ravishing blonde to Crewman Randy N. Doomd, without actually needing to comprehend the concept of ravishing or even the concepts of young or person.

He robbed a bank of Bolarus, actually. Although I'm sure this bank also employs telepaths, and sniffer beasts that are too dumb to be fooled by mental cloaks, and automated guns that fire on people who have the wrong kind of chemical markers on their sweat. And Harry beat 'em all by simply attempting the heist a zillion times and never despairing over his failures, because there would always be a new first attempt.

To the contrary, I think all visitors are regularly assaulted as a matter of routine and national pride - and remain completely oblivious to it, not being telepaths themselves. What possible reason would the Betazoids have for not scanning all these uptight aliens against their perverse will? It's the barbaric aliens who are being rude for finding offense in the practice.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I think that's where the 80 Years War with the Talarians came in...

Also, re telepathic pop-culture, I'm thinking of Feeling Artists who prepare an experience performance to go through that is then shared with others. Maybe something sexual? Maybe something alien that no Betazoid has experienced before that the artist goes through and then shares? Maybe (looking at the pop part) a meditation of contemporary society broadcasted like an insta-Andy Warhol project or Nirvana album.

 

I'd think extensive telepathy would have an effect found in all extensive communication, that of decreasing individualism and of emergence of collective forms of expression. Artists may produce more, or innovate more, when they arrange themselves into Schools that do Island Resorts - but the end result is that they then all do the same new thing. Enter the internet, and suddenly there is only one School, even if it only lasts for seven and a half days. And then enter a biological net that has been around for tens of thousands of years and can never be turned off or logged out from. I don't see individual arts flourishing - but I can see collective waves of consensus pulsating across the community, propagating at the speed of individuals coming to telepathy range with others, and washing over entire planets since there are no dead spots in the coverage even if it isn't actually global in immediate range.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Not according to DISCO: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Betazed

Spoiler

In 23rd century, con man Harry Mudd robbed a bank on Betazed. Using a Time crystal, Mudd was able to learn everything about the bank's complex security measures, a fact he bragged about to Ash Tyler during their imprisonment in 2256. (DIS: "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad")

Is season 1 still spoiler embargoed?

 

Oops, true - Bank of Betazed. Or a bank on Betazed: the online transcript page has this one in Dutch only...

The "infinite attempts" card still would help Harry past telepaths, probably. I mean, his prowess in the episode is based on physically dodging people, and a Betazoid probably wouldn't go "Oh, somebody behind those two walls is plotting robbery!" but would have to come face to face with Harry to realize this. We don't really have examples of Lwaxana reading through walls, now do we?

Timo Saloniemi

 

We have some reason to think a properly trained mind could obscure his thoughts from telepathy.

 

Privacy is more than just ... intimacy. Betazoid weddings may be in the nude, but that doesn't mean they don't have concepts like throwing surprise parties or having secure information. Someone mentioned schools and tests. There are also those stray negative thoughts when someone irritates you.

 

As long as they don't start calling it "occlumency", I'm willing to accept that.

 

Peace and quiet

No mental/telepathic personal boundaries

Lots of public nudity

 

It would be peaceful so long as you avoid the violent thoughts black market Street dealers.

 

"Dark Page" had to do with a Betazoid trying to connect with a different race of telepaths - the Cairn - who seemed to convey entire ideas and thoughts in single bursts, rather than the word-for-word telepathy we always got from Lwaxana and Deanna. It was overwhelming for Lwaxana, like trying to make sense of 100 words per second, but we never had evidence that regular Betazoid-to-Betazoid telepathy was taxing (except for the exceptionally gifted such as Tam).

On a sidenote, I wonder if the writers originally conceived the name "Betazed" to be "Beta-0" (employing the Greek letter and the British version of "zero"), like calling a planet "Gamma-8."

 

Lots of nudity I imagine. And lots a crazy coloured hair.

 

Less noisy. Thread over.

 

Well, if there's a video website in the mind, imagine the NSFW horror shows that would follow.

I'm just glad telepathy is limited to sci-fi/fantasy (especially when done right). In real life, thousands of years ago, an early yet astute human probably saw perception and body language and extrapolated it into something akin to "telepathy". It'd be fun to get a time machine, go back in time, and find out for real. And bring back some air and soil samples and video recordings not suitable for kids and end any umber of hypotheses and misdirected beliefs once and for all (especially if various folklore told throughout history solely as verbal stories since those tend to get altered with each new telling because nobody remembers every plausible detail so verbatim, not even Sheldon Cooper...) but everyone would say it'd be staged anyhow, with maybe one or two asking where the power came from (lithium batteries but B+ for effort) so...

 

Weren't you pushing for an entire show about this on page 1?

 

I think Betazoids' first interactions with non-telepaths would've shown them that other species generally don't want their minds read as an open book, and would consider it an offense at the very least. I doubt it would take long to take that to heart, especially since non-telepaths would probably also consider it to be a security risk, possible violation, etc., not just a preference issue.

 

What would be the internal societal expectation of Betazeds?

Mind open as a book all the time? Idealistic. Seems like even in internal society only, among themselves before first contact, they'd have to have some awareness of and discussion about the idea of PRIVATE thoughts that aren't to be viewed without permission.