What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

Sarek can talk to Michael across many light years.

:shrug:
The power of Mind Melded folks allow long range Telepathic communications to individuals you've melded before.
Leaving a portion of your Katra with those you've mind-melded with before allows easy long range Psychic Comms.
It's a pretty handy power IMO.
Imagine if you can mentally link & communicate with loved ones several light years away w/o technology.
 
Let's consider Troi for a moment as an example of a Betazoid's telepathic range. Someone noted this above about a page or 2 back, but it's worth exploring.

The FX scenes really distort scale. Whenever Troi reads the emotions of a ship's captain whom Picard is sparring with on screen, that ship captain is tens of thousands of Km away. They really aren't within a few feet of each other.

Earth's diameter is 12.75 thousand km. Circumference is 40 thousand km. A typical class M planet.

So, if Troi can read the emotions of a specific individual that's tens of thousands of Km away, then she should be able to read everyone on the Enterprise from wherever she is on the ship simply by focusing or concentrating. Likewise, the same holds true if she's on a planet - anyone within range is open to being read.

Let's assume this is typical for a full Betazoid. At any given time there are anywhere from a few hundred to a few billion people within telepathic range. If, as Nyotarules keeps emphasizing, non-telepaths just broadcast their thoughts the way people have conversations in public, then that's upwards of billions of "voices" telepathically bombarding the senses of a Betazoid (or any telepath) all the time without letup.

With all that noise, maybe it takes extreme focus to pick out 1 specific individual. Does a telepath really need to work at not eavesdropping on the billions of stray thoughts bombing their senses or does it all become telepathic white noise?

That is, if there is a distance range limit. Perhaps it's line of sight and the target must be seen either in person or on screen in order to be read by a telepath. Can't see them? Can't focus on them.

Then again, Spock made a telepathic connection through a wall to an unseen target on the other side, Tam Elbrun made contact with Gomtuu across light years (didn't he?), Wyatt Miller did the same when he made telepathic contact across light years through Dreams. Spock even sensed the loss of the Intrepid from light years away.

So, who knows?

It’s a great point about how theoretically Troi can hear millions of voices in a cacophony - you would presume that it takes great skill and training to filter those so they don’t become overpowering.

You look at Cordelia in Angel where the demon causes her to experience the visions from TPTB all at once rather than in the targeted manner that she normally gets them or, I believe, as was done with Superman where he was made to hear all of Earth’s cries for help at once and with both how debilitating it was - I would expect it to be a similarly painful experience for Troi were she not able to filter etc
 
Exactly my point :techman: If a concept is basically the one thing your character has, you better sit down to define that concept properly. But they didn't. Which sucks because I always liked the basic idea of Troi and her telepathic species. If i

I thought Betazoids were empathize, not telepathy. I guess they're both?
 
I thought Betazoids were empathize, not telepathy. I guess they're both?

Full Betazoids are telepaths, half-Betazoids (and sometimes quarter-Betazoids) are an extra-sensory form "empathic". Though even Deanna was occasionally shown to venture into full-telepathy, particularly early on.
 
Though even Deanna was occasionally shown to venture into full-telepathy, particularly early on.
It's shown/stated that 'Hybrid Off-spring' of Betazoids & Non-Telepathic species usually don't get the full standard power set of Betazoids which are Natural Telepaths & Empaths.
Interspecies reproduction involving Betazoids often affected the psionic abilities of the offspring – most commonly the children of such a union developed empathic abilities as their primary psionic talent, while their telepathic abilities, though existing, were rather below average for Betazoids. Usually, the telepathy of those of partial Betazoid heritage, without extensive training, was limited to communication with other empaths or telepaths and full telepathic contact with emotionally very close persons (for example, an imzadi).
So Deanna being limited on who she can telepathically communicate with, somebody who she's emotionally very close with (her imzadi: Will Riker), her mom, her children makes the most logical sense in how limited her powers are on a telepathic level.

But it makes me wonder, how strong of a telepath would a (½ Betazoid / ½ Vulcan) hybrid offspring be?
 
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Deanna is an empath because she's only half Betazoid. Full Betazoids are full telepaths.
Yeah. The story goes that originally the Troi character was going to be a full telepath but the writers quickly realized that would make it really tough to do mystery stories or stories where the crew was fooled for the majority of the episode. So they decided to make Troi empathic instead of telepathic. That way we got a lot of "He's hiding something, Captain, but I'm not sure what."

The writers for the Justice League cartoon made a similar decision when they were starting up the series in 2001, for pretty much the same reason. They decided to not give Wonder Woman's magic lasso its traditional ability to force people bound in it to tell the truth because they realized that, logically, any mystery could be resolved in 30 seconds. ("Who's behind this mysterious jewel theft?" <lassoes suspect> "Oh, it was me. I did it for the insurance money.") Later on in the series, they gave WW's lasso the truth telling ability as an upgrade from the Greek gods. But even then, Wonder Woman still didn't use that ability much.
 
Yeah. The story goes that originally the Troi character was going to be a full telepath but the writers quickly realized that would make it really tough to do mystery stories or stories where the crew was fooled for the majority of the episode. So they decided to make Troi empathic instead of telepathic. That way we got a lot of "He's hiding something, Captain, but I'm not sure what."
.

Which I will again say I disagree with the writers. You can very much have fully telepathic characters without them solving every episode in five minutes. But for that you will have to define what they can do.
Of course it would have also helped if Troi had been allowed to be more than "the ESP lady".
 
Yeah. The story goes that originally the Troi character was going to be a full telepath but the writers quickly realized that would make it really tough to do mystery stories or stories where the crew was fooled for the majority of the episode. So they decided to make Troi empathic instead of telepathic. That way we got a lot of "He's hiding something, Captain, but I'm not sure what."

It makes you wish Gem could talk while Troi couldn't.
 
The writers for the Justice League cartoon made a similar decision when they were starting up the series in 2001, for pretty much the same reason. They decided to not give Wonder Woman's magic lasso its traditional ability to force people bound in it to tell the truth because they realized that, logically, any mystery could be resolved in 30 seconds. ("Who's behind this mysterious jewel theft?" <lassoes suspect> "Oh, it was me. I did it for the insurance money.") Later on in the series, they gave WW's lasso the truth telling ability as an upgrade from the Greek gods. But even then, Wonder Woman still didn't use that ability much.

The funny part is, in the earlier WW comic stories, the lasso didn't merely force the captive to be truthful. It gave Wonder Woman total control over them while bound, which is why it was changed in later stories. :rommie:
 
The funny part is, in the earlier WW comic stories, the lasso didn't merely force the captive to be truthful. It gave Wonder Woman total control over them while bound, which is why it was changed in later stories. :rommie:
William Moulton Marston was WILD, man. Those early Wonder Woman stories are full of more of his personal kinks than Gene Roddenberry Star Trek episodes, and that's saying something.
 
The funny part is, in the earlier WW comic stories, the lasso didn't merely force the captive to be truthful. It gave Wonder Woman total control over them while bound, which is why it was changed in later stories. :rommie:

William Moulton Marston was WILD, man. Those early Wonder Woman stories are full of more of his personal kinks than Gene Roddenberry Star Trek episodes, and that's saying something.
Yup https://www.cbr.com/wonder-woman-funny-context-panels-dc-comics/#submit-to-me

For those who don't want to click the link: it's a panel from an early Wonder Woman where she declares "If girls want to be slaves there's no harm in that. The bad thing for them is submitting to a master or an evil mistress like Paula. A good mistress could do wonders with them!"
 
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