Season 1 Troi had the potential to be quite ruthless in that role. They could have stepped away from using her empathy as a crutch and made really politically and psychologically astute. Coaching Picard in language skills was one example.
Misogyny and Racism in STU
- Thread starter thewanderingjack
- Start date
Suspension of disbelief is a pretty important part of engaging with works of fiction but the casual and unrealistic way Trek has always approached inter-species reproduction has long been something I've had great difficulty taking seriously.
Exactly. I's highly unrealistic that Spock, B'Elanna or any other human / alien hybrid could exist without significant medical intervention, yet there's never been any indication that anything of the sort took place, for any character. It's never been a dealbreaker or anything but it is something that I find too unrealistic to completely ignore.
True, though I still think a fully telepathic Betazoid would have been far more useful still. Compare the usefulness of 'captain, I feel he's hiding something' to 'captain, he's providing the Tal Shiar with information, and is due to meet them in three days on the third moon of Intransigent 7 to hand them a sample of the mysterious debris found here for further analysis on their side'.
Deanna had a double role in my view, being the Captain's empathic advisor, and Ship's counselor. Even though I wouldn't think the 'advisor' role would be a fulltime job, I still doubt one could easily combine the two functions.
Agreed. Diplomatic officer/Captain's advisor should've been one (bridge) role. Ship's counselor should've been a different (non-bridge) role.
One of Roddenberry's early explanations for Troi precluded her being a full telepath because it'd drive the character crazy. Being bombarded by the thoughts of everyone around you, hearing everyone say one thing and think another, etc.
It makes perfect sense, but somehow that didn't stop the show from making every other Betazoid a full telepath, with no attendant problems. I think Roddenberry was just throwing out more of his BS. (By that logic, Elbrun should've been the rule, not the exception.) Gene, you idiot!
One of Roddenberry's early explanations for Troi precluded her being a full telepath because it'd drive the character crazy. Being bombarded by the thoughts of everyone around you, hearing everyone say one thing and think another, etc.
It makes perfect sense, but somehow that didn't stop the show from making every other Betazoid a full telepath, with no attendant problems. I think Roddenberry was just throwing out more of his BS. (By that logic, Elbrun should've been the rule, not the exception.) Gene, you idiot!
BABYLON 5, I thought, had a good take on what it means to be a telepath, explained pretty well by Byron, actually.
Garibaldi once was coming toward Byron, and he immediately told Garibaldi 'no'. He was obviously confused at the moment because he didn't ask Byron anything yet, but Byron let him know he could hear his thoughts from all the way across the deck. Byron wasn't even trying to scan him... his thoughts were simply loud.
Byron then went on to explain that it takes constant distractions to just avoid picking up thoughts every second... singing songs, doing nursery rhymes, etc. It painted being a telepath as being extremely exhausting just to live.
Tam Elbrun is a good ST equivalent.
Garibaldi once was coming toward Byron, and he immediately told Garibaldi 'no'. He was obviously confused at the moment because he didn't ask Byron anything yet, but Byron let him know he could hear his thoughts from all the way across the deck. Byron wasn't even trying to scan him... his thoughts were simply loud.
Byron then went on to explain that it takes constant distractions to just avoid picking up thoughts every second... singing songs, doing nursery rhymes, etc. It painted being a telepath as being extremely exhausting just to live.
Tam Elbrun is a good ST equivalent.
I'm very slowly working my way through TOS. I'm at "Wolf in the Fold." Oooooof. Scotty's involved in a minor accident caused by a "female crewmember" and Bones thinks the best way to cure his "total resentment of women" is to take him to a nightclub on the sexy lady planet. I can appreciate explorations of sex and sexuality, but it would be nice if the women had the same agency as the men do in these stories, instead of being merely set dressing.
Yes I thoroughly approved of Babylon 5's take on telepathy but in fairness it was pretty much what we got with Miranda Jones, and she was awesome. Hemmer proved this again. Telepathic characters can be great but only if telepathy is incidental to them being a good character. Troi's problem was that her empathy seemed to be the core of her character after season one so we got her in therapy episodes, love interest episodes, mother episodes, and empathy episodes. Betazoid brutal honesty is largely absent from her character and we were missing any Troi as part of the senior hierarchy episodes.
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I kinda approach it like I do the fact that nobody can recognize Clark Kent without his glasses. Yeah, it's utterly absurd, but it's kinda built into the premise. Spock is impossible, but worth the leap in logic.
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Oh, I agree that story wise it's better to have an empath than a telepath. You can create tension without giving too much of the plot away.
But yeah, what I don't understand is why they created a race of full telepaths (Betazoids), and then have a Betazoid/Human hybrid that as a consequence is 'only' empathic. I mean, why would Picard pick her when there is an entire planet full of telepaths on offer for Starfleet, or do we have to believe that she's the only one in Starfleet serving in that capacity? I would think she needs to offer a hell of a lot in other fields (e.g. qualifications) to compensate for that, which we don't exactly get to see in the series.
Now, if they'd just made the Betazoid race empathic instead of telepathic, I could see the logic of it.
True! And then they could've presented Tam Elbrun as a major exception, one of the few full telepaths produced by that species. With, of course, an inability to handle his powers, and very little precedent or guidance to fall back on.
On the flip side, if a full telepath was counselor, that would be off putting to a lot of people. (Myself included... I've never liked the idea of people actually reading your thoughts. That's FAR too invasive.)
Since Picard knew his ship would have families and civilians aboard, maybe he felt a happy medium would be an empath.
Since Picard knew his ship would have families and civilians aboard, maybe he felt a happy medium would be an empath.
Surely the only useful thing Fabyron contributed to the series.
No argument there. As I said it's never been something that's made me think "I can't watch this nonsense", or something I think of every time I see Spock or Troi or B'Elanna, but it's not been something I can completely overlook, either.
Colorful, but succinct.
1. Regarding "Turnabout: Intruder," the real world explanation is that the network was barely tolerating a crew that was approximately 1/3 women, Roddenberry was himself somewhat inclined to think with his genitals, and at the time nobody expected the audience to have a problem with all captains being male. In-universe (especially in light of later ST series), it's much simpler: Janice Lester was a total nutjob.
2. Regarding "Conspiracy," the "mother creature" was a parasite in (with a nod to MIB) "a Remmick suit," rather obviously hostile, and rather obviously a threat to the Federation.
"Demons"/"Terra Prime" (ENT) established that extensive genetic modifications were necessary to produce a Human/Vulcan hybrid, and "Tears of the Prophets" (DS9) established that similarly extensive genetic modifications were necessary to produce a Klingon/Trill hybrid.
We know from "Unification III" (DIS) that Vulcans and Romulans are biologically the same species.
Given that, the only examples of sapient hybrids we explicitly know to be the result of unplanned pregnancies that I can think of are Cardassian/Bajoran hybrids, such as Dukat's children by Bajoran women (Tora Ziyal and the unnamed baby he had by Mika in "Covenant"). Personally, I find myself hypothesizing that perhaps Cardassians are the descendants of ancient Bajoran colonists forgotten in Bajoran history, and that they are thus the same species.
But either way, I think it's pretty clear that Spock was the production of an intentional conception.
What about the young lady at the Romulan camp for Klingons? She was Romulan/Klingon hybrid.
I was thinking about K'ehleyr but apparently her parents needed assistance:
TROI: I didn't know it was possible for a human and a Klingon to produce a child.
K'EHLEYR: Actually, the DNA is compatible, with a fair amount of help. Rather like my parents.
TROI: I know exactly what you mean. My father was human and my mother is a Betazoid.
K'EHLEYR: Really? It was the other way around for me. My mother was human. You must've grown up like I did, trapped between cultures.
TROI: I never felt trapped. I tried to experience the richness and diversity of the two worlds.
K'EHLEYR: Perhaps you got the best of each.
