In Enterprise, sure. But by Spock's era, it was commonplace and in wide usage. No indication I'm aware of that there was anything unusual about his abilities.
Troi's powers
- Thread starter CommanderBloom
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Yes, that's what I was getting at. The concept of melding being a rare ability only came from ENT, but then the sweeping Vulcan societal changes resulting from Kir'Shara would make the Vulcans more in line with fandom's perceptions of them, including mind-melding as a commonplace ability.
Kor
In Enterprise, wasn't it less a rare ability but a forgotten one? Anyone had the innate ability do it, but mainstream Vulcan society had suppressed it, then forgotten it even existed, and only a few were trained.
Still doesn't comport with Spock being particularly adept because of his half-human side.
Still doesn't comport with Spock being particularly adept because of his half-human side.
Not only extremely rare, but BANNED in Enterprise. The few people able to do them had to hide their ability, because it disgusted 'conservative' Vulcans. It was because of the actions of Archer and others on that show that more tolerance was shown, and I guess eventually not only tolerance, but it became an accepted practice (by Spock's time). (ENT: "Stigma")
The way I 'fix' this in my own head is that they all had the potential, but very few could do it without training ("natural talent"), and those were the ones that were shunned. Once such things became accepted, those with 'the gift' were able to train others not born with it.
^ Vulcans get to live for 150- 200 years, sometimes even beyond 200. TOS is situated about 115 years after ENT. Which would mean that by TOS, there still would be enough Vulcans alive that also were alive during the ENT era. I wonder whether that means that there still would be those that retained the attitudes they picked up in their youth (much like in our society, some people will stick to the attitudes and preconceptions of the era they grew up in- and others will go along with the flow of the times), and still have trouble with things such as mind melds or those capable of performing them.
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Not just "banned", but totally suppressed. T'Pol had never even heard of a mind-meld before that episode.
Once she had become aware of mind-melds, the Vulcan government pretended that it was some sort of rare ability only a few possessed. Yet T'Pol, with little training, was able to become adept within a few months or weeks. Because as the Syrrannites knew, all Vulcans had the innate ability within them.
We later saw Vulcan society totally overthrown in Enterprise, with the fall of the lying government and the rise of a new one based on Surak's teachings. That philosophy has defined Vulcan society ever since, so it's not exactly surprising that mind-melds had become commonplace by Spock's time a hundred years later.
In this case, a once-suppressed religion was unequivocally proven to be true. In the face of that empirical evidence, it would not be logical to cling to past preconceptions.
In defence of Mojochi's point, there are manifest difficulties with writing telepathy well in a five act screenplay structure. X-Men comics get by with their telepaths because in the first place Professor X and Jean Grey are too polite to use their telepathy on their friends (allowing for betrayal stories) and in the second place they have a bucket full of 'telepathy won't work here' plot devices (Juggernaut's helmet, for instance) to get them out of jail free. Claremont repeatedly turns off Charles' mental powers for long stretches if it helps with his plotting. Roddenberry's desire for hermetically sealed episodes runs directly contrary to this kind of approach.
Honestly, that 1980s TV screenplay format is so much more demanding than the format that Claremont developed for X-Men - both in terms of the need to tie everything up at the end (Claremont does precisely the opposite - he leaves the stories open, so he can hang more off them later), and in terms of having to build to suspense at the end of each act. I really would not want to have a full telepath in the core cast of a TV show in that format if I was on the writing team, and I say this having read the entire original Claremont run of X-Men with great delight.
So I agree with you that it could have been done, but I agree with Mojochi that it would have been difficult to do well.
The full telepath just knows too much... they're an enemy of suspense at the best of times, and on the broadcast production timeline, where every script has to be completed under the ticking clock and your full telepath is a potential plot hole over and over again...? Sheesh. Definitely not to be taken on lightly at the very least.
But of course, the core issue with Troi isn't so much that she wasn't a full telepath but that they struggled with the power they decided to give her. While the official name for her ability was "empathy", her power during the first season is "point out that the people behaving shiftily are hiding something". I like to think of this Level 1 Troi power as "Stating the Obvious". She manages to use this power well - it's just not a very interesting power!
^Exactly. It was at least enough of a potentially never ending toe stub to scare them off it. It's also the fact that they made her a bridge fixture, on a show that's main concept is encountering the unknown. Talk about a would be wet blanket for every potential plot
Of course telepathy is possible to write well. It's just not very user friendly for that show, & no one probably gave it much thought until they were neck deep in it, & fumbling for ways to rein it back. TNG was a very hodgepodge deal in it's formation, where they were just throwing all kinds of things at the wall to see what would stick
Of course telepathy is possible to write well. It's just not very user friendly for that show, & no one probably gave it much thought until they were neck deep in it, & fumbling for ways to rein it back. TNG was a very hodgepodge deal in it's formation, where they were just throwing all kinds of things at the wall to see what would stick
In defence of Mojochi's point, there are manifest difficulties with writing telepathy well in a five act screenplay structure. X-Men comics get by with their telepaths because in the first place Professor X and Jean Grey are too polite to use their telepathy on their friends (allowing for betrayal stories) and in the second place they have a bucket full of 'telepathy won't work here' plot devices (Juggernaut's helmet, for instance) to get them out of jail free. Claremont repeatedly turns off Charles' mental powers for long stretches if it helps with his plotting. Roddenberry's desire for hermetically sealed episodes runs directly contrary to this kind of approach.
Honestly, that 1980s TV screenplay format is so much more demanding than the format that Claremont developed for X-Men - both in terms of the need to tie everything up at the end (Claremont does precisely the opposite - he leaves the stories open, so he can hang more off them later), and in terms of having to build to suspense at the end of each act. I really would not want to have a full telepath in the core cast of a TV show in that format if I was on the writing team, and I say this having read the entire original Claremont run of X-Men with great delight.
So I agree with you that it could have been done, but I agree with Mojochi that it would have been difficult to do well.
The full telepath just knows too much... they're an enemy of suspense at the best of times, and on the broadcast production timeline, where every script has to be completed under the ticking clock and your full telepath is a potential plot hole over and over again...? Sheesh. Definitely not to be taken on lightly at the very least.
But of course, the core issue with Troi isn't so much that she wasn't a full telepath but that they struggled with the power they decided to give her. While the official name for her ability was "empathy", her power during the first season is "point out that the people behaving shiftily are hiding something". I like to think of this Level 1 Troi power as "Stating the Obvious". She manages to use this power well - it's just not a very interesting power!
Never said that it would be *easy* to have a full telepath, just that it isn't as impossible to do as the writers of the show apparently thought it was.(And while Prof X and Jean might be polite about their telepathy most of the time...Psylocke definitely wasn't. Go ahead, be unhappy with having your mind probed, Psylocke don't care.)
And this is also were my often-stated opinion comes up that they should have defined Troi's telepathy better (and here comes in @Mojochi idea that they probably didn't give it that much thought, which I agree with)
In my opinion they should made her and other Betazoids full telepaths, but also the type of telepath who has to spend a lot of effort to "probe" somebody else's mind, like having to sit them down and engage in a battle of wills to enter their mind and get the information they want.
The talapathic/empathic "filter feeders" who passively pick up everything, Troi and her people were portrayed as on the show can very *easily* become "wet blankets", a telepath who has to work hard to use their power to gain information less so.
Of course this would have turned Troi's power into something that is used on occasion rather than all the time, so they would have had to develop her character more beyond her telepathy. That's also why I think she should have been Science Officer and Third-in-Command.
Well, you won't get me to argue against that they needed to do better with her telepathy lol. It had some really weak points, some of the weakest points on the whole show imho, but...
I actually don't think the empathy thing is a terrible idea, in its limited capacity. I think a stunted form of telepathy for the whole Betazoid race could've worked... but you have to commit to it as a hard rule. None of this nonsense where she's reading people miles away on a viewscreen. Not even that thing where she hints that someone is lying. That's not an emotion. They're hiding something? Well, maybe they're just a guarded person.
If they concentrate on them, they can glean how people they are in the room with feel. That's it. This person while acting jovial is actually lonely. This other person who seems perfectly under control is actually in a panic. That person might be acting duplicitously, because while they seem like they like you, I feel their contempt, etc... That's an interesting thing. Not interesting enough to be a constant focal point, but like you said, don't have it be. Build her character in other ways too.
Another problem, as well as the points you mentioned, would also be that this somewhat treads on Spock's turf, & we all know how abhorrent TNG found doing anything that could look like TOS. Spock's telepathy was almost verbatim what you describe.
I actually don't think the empathy thing is a terrible idea, in its limited capacity. I think a stunted form of telepathy for the whole Betazoid race could've worked... but you have to commit to it as a hard rule. None of this nonsense where she's reading people miles away on a viewscreen. Not even that thing where she hints that someone is lying. That's not an emotion. They're hiding something? Well, maybe they're just a guarded person.
If they concentrate on them, they can glean how people they are in the room with feel. That's it. This person while acting jovial is actually lonely. This other person who seems perfectly under control is actually in a panic. That person might be acting duplicitously, because while they seem like they like you, I feel their contempt, etc... That's an interesting thing. Not interesting enough to be a constant focal point, but like you said, don't have it be. Build her character in other ways too.
I do feel they got there with Troi in the later seasons. But they had to get past using her to either state the obvious or to fall into a near-coma because of psychic overload first.
This'll be post-Jim Lee Psylocke you're talking about. Psylocke with a perm was even more terribly polite... even to the point of being fairly useless. But honestly, my recollection of late Claremont Psylocke was that her only speaking line was "my psychic knife... the focussed totality of my psychic powers".
I don't know what happened after Claremont left, though, as I left too at that point. Anyway, probably shouldn't indulge this sidebar too far, fun though it is! In other words, what you wanted was a Vulcan.
Seriously, I understand your pitch here, and it does make sense, but I'm perfectly happy with the way the telepathic Betazoids were used so I'm perhaps a hard sell for what you're suggesting. I don't like to unravel the tapestry of 'what was' half as much as I enjoy laughing at the nonsense!
I agree that the extent of Troi’s power was plot-dependent…. It must have been difficult for the writers to work with her character, either she was just stating the obvious (“he’s hiding something, Captain”) or there was the question of “why didn’t Troi sense that was happening?” They had done a fine job using telepathic traits in TOS Dr. Miranda Jones, and Elizabeth Dehner, but those were single episode characters so it didn’t become problematic.
IIRC, the one time Deanna’s telepathic side had crucial importance was in “Night Terrors”– the whole crew was going mad from lack of REM sleep and everyone would have succumbed. Deanna’s half Betazoid brain was the only one capable of receiving the nightmare/message from the alien ship that was also trapped in the rift. And, she correctly intuited that “one moon circles” meant hydrogen atoms were being requested to cause an explosion and escape. That episode was so well done and had a great line from Dr. Crusher, “We have to dream in order to survive.”
IIRC, the one time Deanna’s telepathic side had crucial importance was in “Night Terrors”– the whole crew was going mad from lack of REM sleep and everyone would have succumbed. Deanna’s half Betazoid brain was the only one capable of receiving the nightmare/message from the alien ship that was also trapped in the rift. And, she correctly intuited that “one moon circles” meant hydrogen atoms were being requested to cause an explosion and escape. That episode was so well done and had a great line from Dr. Crusher, “We have to dream in order to survive.”
