Betazoids and The Breen
- Thread starter Gordie
- Start date
I'm not sure it ever came up.
Is this for a fanfic?
Yes possibly, doing some research.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/star-wars-a-new-order.303524/
Data said in "The Loss": "Indeed, there are many races that are not empathically detectable. The Breen, the Ferengi..."
Awesome! Thank you!
Data speculates in "Menage a Troi" that the inability to read the Ferengi is due to their brain structure. That there is a biological reason behind it is reinforced in DS9 "The Forsaken" where Odo correctly assumes that the close biological relationship between Ferengi and Dopterians makes the latter unreadable, too.
With the Breen, it could be because they wear those helmets, though! I mean, they also seem to jam universal translators somehow, so that their language is unintelligible to outsiders. And they mask their faces and all. Without the protective gear, they might well be easy to read.
Timo Saloniemi
With the Breen, it could be because they wear those helmets, though! I mean, they also seem to jam universal translators somehow, so that their language is unintelligible to outsiders. And they mask their faces and all. Without the protective gear, they might well be easy to read.
Timo Saloniemi
Yes that's what I was wondering too.
Well, empathically doesn't rule out telepathically either.
Though if you bring in the novelverse, it may be that some Breen are detectable while others are not.
Troi could read Ferengi minds in "The Battle". Continuity was weak in early TNG.
Then again, what Troi could and couldn't do wasn't always specifically nailed as part of her inborn abilities. She's skilled at reading people, is all: when she says she "senses" considerable deception in Bok, it only makes sense that everybody on the bridge nods, because one would have to be blind and deaf not to sense those things in Bok's transmission!
Indeed, Troi is reading a transmission there, while her mother's far greater abilities always appeared to have a limited range, often being blocked by mere walls. So there'd be little need for Deanna to specify that she's doing "ordinary" reading rather than applying her empathy powers when the reading is directed at an image on a screen...
What delights me in this is that continuity doesn't matter, because the half-Betazoid powers don't matter: they never amount to anything real. Troi may say this or that, but the heroes won't build their strategy on it or anything. Now, true telepaths may give real information on which to base actions, but Deanna Troi never was one of those. Which is why she isn't the ship's Chief Intelligence Officer, but her Counselor instead. And why we can have plots instead of immediate resolutions...
Timo Saloniemi
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