Vulcan telepathy: unused potential

[O'Dib]

So it dawned on me a few days ago that Vulcans probably have no need for universal translators. I imagine they can mine brains that function in an unknown language for context, emotion, meaning. In fact yeah, I've seen Spock do this by touch on multiple occasions. Once he remotely implanted a suggestion in some savage lady. Now, who's to say they cannot function like Miss Martian in Young Justice, as telepathic hubs for (in this case) verbal communication between races alien to one another?

This is what I imagine it working like. This could be seamlessly integrated into the established canon(s). Basically, every ship, space station, major planetary hub of interspecies contact has one Vulcan per perhaps a hundred people, pulling a full day shift while meditating and allowing his or her mind to become a psychic freeway, all the while managing not to get swept up by all the emotions; perhaps even somehow remaining unaware of the content of everyone's exchanges. Or maybe this is a skill vital only to first contact, until the vocab can be loaded into everyone's UTs.

Either way, this could become the reason the Federation is the only truly tolerant government in the galaxy. All other species aim to exterminate and/or assimilate other cultures. 'Cause learning a new language is so! much! harder!

 

[Nerys Myk]

I don't think Vulcans are powerful enough telepaths to be a psi-hub. Remote projection seems to be very difficult. The Betazoids would be a better choice.

 

[F. King Daniel]

But Vulcans find the mind contact unpleasent, especially when it's with undisciplined (i.e. not raised to repress emotion) minds.

Your idea would fit much better with full Betazoids. Give Troi something better to do than look worried and say "he's hiding something"

 

[Tora Ziyal]

If I remember correctly, Vulcans are touch telepaths, so your idea wouldn't work with them. Like the others said, it might work with Betazoids. Not with Troi, though. She was only half Betazoid and was an empath, not a telepath.

 

[Shawnster]

If I remember correctly, Vulcans are touch telepaths, so your idea wouldn't work with them. Like the others said, it might work with Betazoids. Not with Troi, though. She was only half Betazoid and was an empath, not a telepath.

Spock made telepathic contact without touch in Omega Glory, I believe. That was the only depiction of such.

Wait. There were 2 more distance telepathic moments. In All Our Yesterdays Spock's actions and emotions when he's in Sarpedon's past were influenced by the savage nature of pre-Sarek Vulcan. It was as if he could mentally sense all of Vulcan on some remote level, and this influenced his actions.

In Operation Annihilate, Spock could sense the death of the Intrepid over a vast interstellar distance.

 

[jayrath]

You mean, hire Vulcans as permanent mind-rapists? Yeah, that's sure going to go over well. Just because they can do it -- and it's hardly canon that they can -- that doesn't mean that they'd want to, or that the Federation would want them to, or that it's even slightly ethical.

 

[Dream]

I still don't understand how Spock was able to do a mind meld on a computer like Nomad.

Also how did Uhura manage to relearn eveything she knew by reading a few books after her mind was completely wiped?

 

[Shawnster]

I still don't understand how Spock was able to do a mind meld on a computer like Nomad.

Also how did Uhura manage to relearn eveything she knew by reading a few books after her mind was completely wiped?

Better yet, how did she get her personal memories back? You can't teach someone personal memories.

 

[T'Girl]

I still don't understand how Spock was able to do a mind meld on a computer like Nomad.

My theory on that is that the second space probe that Nomad merged with incorporated an organic processor, "wet-ware."

So Spock was able to meld with a actually biological brain.

 

[Timo]

Spock doesn't merge with brains - his fingers barely touch the skin (or other shell) of the other half in the conversation!

Instead, Spock apparently taps into some sort of emissions from the chat partner, at a distance of several centimeters in the case of mind melds, at a distance of thousands of lightyears in the case of strong emotions expressed simultaneously by hundreds or millions of individuals. Different beings send different emissions; the emissions of a cold machine would simply "taste" different from those of a fellow Vulcan or a Klingon or a Horta.

Better yet, how did she get her personal memories back?

I'll raise by asking how any of her memories could ever have been removed. If memories are stored as basically chemical/physical connections within the brain, then removing them would mean removing her brain and killing her.

It sounds far more likely that Nomad did what computers do when they "erase" memory: it messed with some key connections related to the process of recollection, after which the brain would have been free to "overwrite" on the existing "memory slots" and treat them as "empty". None of the original connections would have been lost, though, so the process of re-education would be one of prying open the blockages created by Nomad. How McCoy managed to stop Uhura from "overwriting", we don't know - but it does seem that somehow the process of again learning to say "see Sally run" reopened the old memory reserves for regular recollection.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[bbailey861]

You mean, hire Vulcans as permanent mind-rapists? Yeah, that's sure going to go over well. Just because they can do it -- and it's hardly canon that they can -- that doesn't mean that they'd want to, or that the Federation would want them to, or that it's even slightly ethical.

And herein lies a great idea for a book or a trilogy of books. Perhaps there was a faction of Vulcans who didn't fully embrace Suraks teachings and who remained on Vulcan (which would eliminate the Romulans). Perhaps they worked on improving their psi abilities so they could control or better yet, manipulate other races - or Vulan itself. Unethical, of course - and why, I don't know, I'm flying by the seat of my pants here, but as a quick thought, there is potential to explore the idea that they were not just touch telepaths.

 

[jayrath]

You mean, hire Vulcans as permanent mind-rapists? Yeah, that's sure going to go over well. Just because they can do it -- and it's hardly canon that they can -- that doesn't mean that they'd want to, or that the Federation would want them to, or that it's even slightly ethical.

And herein lies a great idea for a book or a trilogy of books. Perhaps there was a faction of Vulcans who didn't fully embrace Suraks teachings and who remained on Vulcan (which would eliminate the Romulans). Perhaps they worked on improving their psi abilities so they could control or better yet, manipulate other races - or Vulan itself. Unethical, of course - and why, I don't know, I'm flying by the seat of my pants here, but as a quick thought, there is potential to explore the idea that they were not just touch telepaths.

It was kind of done in the novel, "The Lost Years."

 

[E-DUB]

Anybody ever come up with an in-universe explanation as to why the energy barrier in WNMHGB didn't ramp up Spock's psi-abilities like it did Gary Mitchell?

 

[bbailey861]

You mean, hire Vulcans as permanent mind-rapists? Yeah, that's sure going to go over well. Just because they can do it -- and it's hardly canon that they can -- that doesn't mean that they'd want to, or that the Federation would want them to, or that it's even slightly ethical.

And herein lies a great idea for a book or a trilogy of books. Perhaps there was a faction of Vulcans who didn't fully embrace Suraks teachings and who remained on Vulcan (which would eliminate the Romulans). Perhaps they worked on improving their psi abilities so they could control or better yet, manipulate other races - or Vulan itself. Unethical, of course - and why, I don't know, I'm flying by the seat of my pants here, but as a quick thought, there is potential to explore the idea that they were not just touch telepaths.

It was kind of done in the novel, "The Lost Years."

I don't remember that angle - been a long time, but I am going to have another look at that one.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Anybody ever come up with an in-universe explanation as to why the energy barrier in WNMHGB didn't ramp up Spock's psi-abilities like it did Gary Mitchell?

Because whatever it was only affected humans? I imagine Vulcan (or half-Vulcan) brains are a little different.

 

[Timo]

It would be a bit odd for humans to be special in this respect... Also, Miranda Jones, a self-confessed human telepath, was none the worse for wear after crossing the barrier.

Perhaps the effect only overcomes weak or latent telepaths, and powerful and trained ones such as Spock or Jones will instinctively shrug it off?

Timo Saloniemi