Daystrom Institute
Welcome to Daystrom Institute!
Serious, in-depth discussion about Star Trek from both in-universe and real world perspectives.
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All threads and comments submitted to the Daystrom Institute must contain an explanation of the reasoning put forth.
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This entire community has a “serious tag” on it. Shitposts are encouraged in Risa.
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Episode Guides
The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:
- Kraetos’ guide to Star Trek (the original series)
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Animated Series
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Algernon_Asimov’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Darth_Rasputin32898’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- OpticalData’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
- petrus4’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
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Based on what @ValueSubtracted mentioned, maybe the signing is something to do with when you’re Tan Elbrum-level powerful, telepathic communication isn’t a good idea?
Also, I felt like they did demonstrate some telepathic, not merely empathic, ability in the episode; I’ve only watched it once, so I can’t quite recall my evidence, but it seemed they could get surface-level thoughts beyond emotion, like “you’ve lost someone” instead of just “grief”. I wonder if it’s a consent/pushing too hard thing, somewhat like soothing and rioting in Mistborn; if the average Betazoid tries to get beyond the surface level of thought, the target will be able to tell, and their privacy will feel invaded.
I've been digging a little deeper, and in "Ménage à Troi", Deanna tells Lwaxana that it's "impolite not to speak aloud" when amongst non-telepaths. It's very possible that the president is simply deaf, and they were using sign language to maintain those manners.
Yeah, that was the feeling I got. President is deaf. They were avoiding being subtle. Gotta say it's kinda funny to see aliens using ASL, though. I know it's no sillier than all of them speaking English, but it's a little more visual so it did kinda make me chuckle
I guess if "Federation Standard" is just American English, the common sign language might as well be ASL...
Exactly. It's objectively not any sillier, just made me chuckle somehow. I guess it was surprising but in the same moment I had no idea why it should surprise me, y'know?