Hwiii sings a lot -- casually, while working -- and states during some work with Geordi LaForge in Engineering that singing "runs in his family": Geordi tells Captain Picard at one point that what Hwiii has been singing is "some kind of delphine opera... Or I may have misunderstood him: it was hard to tell whether Hwiii was describing theater or a ceremony of some kind -- or just live performances of some sort of passion play." Later, during an instance of distress (secondary to the
Enterprise slipping unexpectedly into the Mirror universe), Hwiii breaks out into what Mr. Data describes as "part of the
Song of the Twelve...a cetacean epic sung-poetic work...".
In a later conversation with Commander Riker, Hwiii very succinctly describes the Song to him, and tells Riker that he had a "partner" who once was considering singing "one of the fatal parts" in the
Song - possibly that of the
Silent Lord. The conversation sheds no light on the issue of whether Hwiii himself is a wizard. But it is interesting that several times in his conversation with Riker he uses the word "
intervention", one of the words wizards routinely use to discuss or describe a certain class of
spell (as well as other actions carried out with wizardly intent but not necessarily requiring that one
do a wizardry).
The implication would seem to be that the universe of
Star Trek: The Next Generation, being a distant "successor" to today's modern world, also includes wizards and wizardry -- but that the culture of 23rd-century Earth remains
astahfrith. Hwiii's language to Riker regarding the
Song has, to the reader who knows about wizardry, a rather circumspect sound to it; and Hwiii does not mention either wizardry, or the
Song's specifically wizardly aspects.
