The range of telepathy???

How can you be able to sense emotions from sometimes light-years away? I often see her sensing others emotions from ships light years away and I just realized it and ik curious what the range of it is? (Silly or cannon response of course).

13 comments

Well, Tam Elbrun (also Betazoid) could sense "Tin Man" several light years away. The space faring creature likely attributed to the connection, but still. As far as people on the viewscreen, that's just Deanna's usual boilerplate assessments.
- He does also have a condition where his telepathic abilities are unusually sensitive, so his range might be larger than the norm.
  
  Totally fair. As others have said, the range/ability ultimately comes down to plot necessity and there's no strict canon to be applied.

Telepathy is a subspace phenomena, at least that's my head canon.
- Also line-of-sight for some characters.
  The GM who made that ruling did not expect video calling.

depends? are you a main character?
Yes? okay. Do you look hot in a lowcut uniform?
Yes? the range of telepathy is as far as it needs to be. No? then it needs touching, you creeper you.

Very far. We're not given numbers, but Deanna's range might actually be on the lower side, because she's not wholly Betazoid, and her empathic abilities are due to her telepathic abilities only being semi-functional.
If the books and extended media are to be believed, Betazed passed First Contact restrictions because they were already reading minds for light years around.
It's likely that most of the time, all the nearby minds just get drowned out or metaconsciously tuned out. So unless you have a condition that impairs that, you're not picking up every thought for light years.
But type of telepathy matters too. Vulcan-type telepathy doesn't have nearly as large a range, and is good for about a few metres, or requires physical contact, for example.
Tin Man's telepathy was able to reach across at least a whole star system.
- When Lwaxana scanned the bar in DS9 s01e17 The Forsaken to figure out who stole her broach, she has to look at each person in the room to read them. Perhaps the range for Betazeds is very high or unlimited, but using it requires them to be aware of the person's presence, or to specifically focus on them? Or perhaps there's general vibes, but truly reading someone requires active focus?

Telepathy never had any set rules, it was just used however it made sense for the story. Even Spock had differing abilities - mostly he'd do his mind melds while touching, but there's one episode where he contacts and controls a guard through a wall. The good thing is that for Deanna as time went by they used her abilities and her job function and training better than in the beginning with the stupid side comments of "I sense they're not telling everything." No, really?
- Even when they encountered the Horta/Pizza crust bubble, Spock's first attempt is just nearby. To get a better reading, he then carefully made physical contact.

Tam Elbrun and Ariana (from the episode Haven) were outliers and should not have been counted.
I don’t think there’s a real rule. In Haven, Lwaxana Troi says basically anything is possible even for people who probably aren’t telepaths.
What’s kind of wild is all the times Deanna’s empath abilities work over ridiculous distances mainly because there’s a subspace transmission involved. Apparently the specification requires support for telepathy to the extent she can even sometimes understand the emotional state of Ferengi.