Post-Valeris guidelines for telepathy use in Starfleet?
Special alien and tech abilities to exploit
- Thread starter Laura Cynthia Chambers
- Start date
Yep, I've remarked several times on this board before that a full telepath would be a lot more useful than an empath. My head canon would be that either most betazoids don't want to serve in Starfleet (like Vulcans) or perhaps it's considered unethical to use full telepaths in that role (but empaths such as Deanna are still OK' ish).
Or perhaps all true telepaths are scooped by the Corps. ('The Corps is father! The Corps is mother!')
Not sure if bridge psychic was her actual job or just one she was "drafted" into. No other ships seem to have one.
Perhaps they're only mission specialists, not bridge consultants. Or perhaps some telepaths get assigned bridge duty whatever their specialty, because of their latent abilities.
Picard said exactly that, in the episode when she lost her powers.
So Deanna does not qualify for a bridge position because she's not a full telepath?
Maybe information gained through telepathy is just considered unreliable, much like why a polygraph can't be used in court. Perhaps Starfleet doesn't assign telepaths to ships because they don't believe in their capabilities. It could have just so happened that the counselor assigned to the Enterprise had empathic powers and so Picard made use of them when appropriate, but that really had nothing to do with her posting to the ship.
We see Troi on the bridge a great deal because we are always tuning in during the big crucial moments. But in the day-to-day operation of the ship, I assume most of her time would be spent in her office counseling people.
We see Troi on the bridge a great deal because we are always tuning in during the big crucial moments. But in the day-to-day operation of the ship, I assume most of her time would be spent in her office counseling people.
Or it could be a matter of trust.
Since non Telepaths seem to outnumber actual Telepaths in StarFleet & most likely the UFP, we have to put blind faith/trust that the info that they pass to us is 100% accurate and not biased/inaccurate/false.
Short of experiencing the information for ourselves through a mind-meld, it's very hard to take every piece of info at 100% face value.
Especially when it pertains to legal matters.
Should any info that the Telepath present to a superior officer or the crew, and the information doesn't add up, you have to ask yourself:
Q) "Why doesn't the info that my telepath presented, match up with what I'm seeing IRL?"
Possible Answers:
1) "Am I being lied to for some reason for my protection?"
2) "Is this officer that I've trusted for some time betraying me?"
3) "Is the memory or info that they read from the targets mind filled with bad/false info?"
4) "Is this a more complicated scheme at play and I'm getting bad info?"
5) "Has my Telepath had their mind taken over, and the person I'm dealing with not who I think it is?"
6) "Is my Telepath being coerced to lie to me?"
7) "Is there some other reason as to why I'm being lied to?"
So you can see why it's not always 100% reliable, especially in a court of law where non Telepaths just can't experience the information like natural Telepaths would be able to.
I could see that to be very true.
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Yeah, no.....Starfleet needs the PSI Corps...sorry, wrong franchise.
I would rather have them integrated into the regular StarFleet & services.
No need for segregation IMO.
Segregating them would create a "Caste System" of sorts.
That's against what UFP stands for!
I'm sure Section 31 has a psionic research division.
I wouldn't be surprised if they have their own mini "Psi-Corp" for use in operations.
SF is able to manipulate people's brainwaves to suppress telepathic activities. Janeway said as much to that Telepath (the one Kes defeated early on).
Interesting.
Yes, but not at all surprising if you consider the fact that Vulcans and Betazoids are in the Federation.
Its likely they would have offered their expertise to help protect non-telepaths from intrusion, and of course to be able to subdue dangerous telepaths.... in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Vulcans (since they were founding member) shared the tech first to SF.
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Then Telepathy Blocking Tech should be common enough by that reasoning.
No reason to think that its not.
UFP doesn't make it a habit to assume ill-intent, and starships crews are capable of modifying their systems in a number of ways to emit anti-psionic fields (pretty much like what VOY did in the same episode that Kes disabled the telepath).
So, its pretty much common enough it seems, its just that use cases are relatively infrequent (but I agree that tactical officers or operations might benefit from having pre-loaded datasets for different situations... by the 24th century, SF had enough encounters that would probably warrant this approach... in which case, all that people need to do is load it up and run it.
Though, in fairness, VOY was attacked on two fronts - first the crew, and then the ship.
Do you mean the episode where Voyager had to deal with the Botha's?
You know what I've always been curious about, how do Aliens with Telepathy communicate with other species using Telepathic Voices/Words.
If the species speaks a different language, wouldn't you be hearing their native language.
Since the Universal Translator seems to only work on Audio that you can hear, it shouldn't work on the Psionic level.
So any voices you hear from a species who speaks a alien tongue from you, wouldn't that be heard in their native language?
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That's the one.
A note on the Botha's encounter.
Kes did defeat the alien, but after that, she also had to initiate an anti-psionic pulse from engineering to remove the effect from the ship itself, and Janeway did say to the alien directly that they can modify his brainwaves to prevent Telepathy.
The UT might also have brain scanning properties. I doubt its something that's always used, but if it does, then it can use it to better analyse and translate unknown languages... which would go beyond mere audio analysis.
Given the fact commbadges are usually assigned to users on ships and stations, its possible that they scan brainwaves in a sort of passive mode.
Saying that, I agree there's an inconsistency in Telepaths who try to communicate with alien species (whose language is unfamiliar). But its possible that the Telepathy on some level acts as a UT in itself in that case.
Either that, or they predominantly focus on thoughts themselves (visual ones) from the aliens with different languages.
There was a similar situation in TNG in which Troi's mother was teaching other telepathic aliens who had a hard time with speach itself (The episode in which it was reveal Troi had a sister - Kestra I think)... so Lwaxana had to rely on telepathy and sharing of actual thoughts as images to understand what they are thinking.
Its possible this mode of telepathy is sort of what Telepaths have to rely on anyway... at least at first. Once they get acquainted, I suspect 'language' becomes less of a barrier, or its 'connected' in some way with the UT.
I would assume that sending anything more than your Psionic Voice, like a Image, or Memory would be more mentally taxing / straining.
The old adage of "A picture is worth a thousand words" must apply to the Psionic Telepathic realm as well, it logically should take more energy / be more draining to communicate via images or memories. The equivalent of sending Video w/ Audio between a persons brain.
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