In Star Trek, especially the original series, there are a lot more mystical ideas floating
around out there that don’t really get elaborated on. And today, I want to look into one of
those ideas that seems to have been left by the wayside in later eras; that of psychic
powers! The phenomena of psionic energies in Star
Trek is one Starfleet has been aware of for some time and seems to vary from other abilities
that might resembled telepathic or telekinetic powers. We’ll start with Starfleet’s own
studies among humans. As early as the 23rd century, Starfleet included an Extrasensory
Perception Rating for its personnel. Those who had a very high ESP rating were known
as Espers and a high rating was around 89, while over 90 was very high. But even these
people showed next to no actual psychic abilities. The ESP rating therefore was not an actual
indicator of ability, in fact, another term for it was “psionic potential”.
Potential, not actual ability as humans, especially when compared to other alien species are definitively
not psychic. However, a human with a high potential can more easily have abilities awakened
or given to them, suggesting that while humanity in Trek may not be actively psychic, our minds
are not too far away from developing this ability, maybe in a way similar to Vulcans
or Betazoids. Psionic energy stems directly from the mind and is a form of its own, as
opposed to things like a Vulcan’s powers however which are rather more well understood,
in fact, let’s look into them first. Vulcan’s mind powers are inherent to their
race, but like any muscle, need to be exercised to be of any use. During the 22nd century,
Vulcans did not actively practice their mental abilities, however with the reformation, they
were assimilated back into their culture. Their powers originate from their ambient
neural electrostatic field, which they can finely manipulate. Using this, they can deliver
stunning strikes to a nervous system, as seen with the nerve pinch or the Suus Mahna martial
arts. (Quick disclaimer, humans can learn these techniques but they’re probably not
as effective when delivered by a non-vulcan.) They are also proficient touch telepaths,
although they are not limited to only touch. The Mild Meld is a trance-like joining of
minds which allows for an exploration of a psyche, exchange, or modification of memories
and many other mental acts. Vulcans can also form long lasting permanent psychic connections
with others, although it seems that the Vulcans are not as in control of these abilities as
they are the more commonly displayed ones. Such bonds are not limited by distance. And
of course, there is the Katra, which is basically the entire neural energy blueprint of a Vulcan,
including its memories and essence. This can be voluntarily imparted into another being
or vessel to ensure a Vulcan’s experiences and personality in some way can live on. So,
Vulcan’s have a wide range of telepathic abilities, but are not full psionic as they
do not exhibit forms of telekinesis. Another interesting species, one closer to
the vague definition of TOS Psionic, were the Betazoids. Their abilities are centred
in their mind, the paracortex lobe of their brain and varied in strength from individual
to individual. Their abilities were most obviously empathic, enabling them to sense the emotion
states of most species, even at hundreds of metres range, and even manipulate a person’s
emotions. They do this by sensing the neural energies of a person, energies that could
also be read in a way by a universal translator and be replicated by devices such as Data’s
emotion chip. However, Betazoids were also fully telepathic over short range and could
communicate completely without words. We also have several subspecies of a race
that developed telepathic powers, such as the Aenar from the Andorians and (in beta
canon at least) the Remans from the Romulans. In the case of the Aenar, they were completely
blind and used their perception to “see” while having full telepathy and mind reading
powers, stronger among family members. The Remans lore however is drawn from apocryphal
content, but they were originally Vulcans that departed their homeworld alongside those
who would become the Romulans. But the Romulans, ever untrusting, even of their own, exiled
the stronger telepaths to Romulus’ moon, Remus. Like their Vulcan ancestors, they were
touch telepaths, but seemed to have finer control over the ranged aspects of their telepathy.
It’s likely that their powers are also derived from an ambient neural field, like their ancestors.
These two instances however do establish that metal powers can arise, or be bred out of
a species creating offshoot biology. Which leads me back to the psionic potential in
humans that was once studied by Starfleet. There have been several instances of genuinely
psychic humans in Star Trek, however not without outside influences. The only unknown factor
I can think of is Mirada Jones, a blind human telepath, as I couldn’t find how her abilities
were made manifest. Other individuals included Gary Mitchell who
had a high ESP rating, but no actual abilities. But when he came into contact with the galactic
barrier, see here for more on that strange phenomena, he was imbued by increasingly powerful
abilities. These were seen, not only to disconnect him from humanity, but also create a strain
on his body, as his hair visibly greyed throughout the episode. As the energies of the barrier
were so immense, he was able to demonstrate telepathy, telekinesis and eventually even
the conscious creation and conversion of matter to energy.
Similar, but lesser, powers were displayed by Charlie Evans, another human who had been
raised by Thasians. Themselves a strongly non-corporeal, psychic species, they had bestowed
their powers onto Charlie. We also have the children of Darwin’s Genetic
Research Station. This was a federation allied facility that was actively pursuing genetic
research. I guess they were one of the few facilities that were exempt from the UFP genetics
ban that outlawed research for non-medical purposes. I say this because instilling touch-telepathic
and telekinetic abilities into a human does not seem very medically inspired. Alongside
this, they were also give an aggressive immune system that would actively seek out foreign
materials and prevent disease by destroying it outside of the body. Unfortunately, this
immune-action aged nearby people to death, who continued to spread the aggressive antibodies.
Just in case the Federation needed a reminder as to why creating a race of augments was
a bad idea. In all these cases though, we see humans that
are granted powers by others, genetics and the human species is quite susceptible to
many forms of telepathy, both benign an aggressive, unlike say the Ferengi, who cannot be mind-read
at all. What’s more, those who do get powers, often even develop full on telekinesis and
crazy abilities beyond even the most naturally gifted Vulcan or even Tarquin’s species.
So while humans are a non-psionic species (except hybrid-humans), they have the potential
to become so. The hardware is there, just not the software, I guess, for a Trek analogy.
From this, I suspect that humans in Trek are moving on an evolutionary path similar to
the Organians, who eventually shed their material bodies to become non-corporeal beings. But
that’s millions of years away and hoping that the Trek humans don’t blow themselves
up with Omega molecules or any number of dumb Federation experiments first, like , oh I
dunno, making aggressive immune systems that kill anything not them. Thanks for watching
this theory on psychics in Star Trek, and until next time, you already know what I’m
going to say. Goodbye!