Janet's Star Trek Voyager Site

picture: [TNG: The Best Of Both Worlds]DEANNA TROI

Page 3

picture: [#152 Inside Man]

Ship's Counsellor, and Lieutenant Commander then Commander on USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D and -E

Appears in [#130 Pathfinder] [#144 Life Line] [#152 Inside Man]

Article by ST:M with considerable additional text by Janet. The ST:M article does not cite episode references. The screenshots, which are not the same as the few in ST:M, were done by Janet.

 

 

DIPLOMATIC COUNSELLING

Deanna's telepathic abilities, coupled with her natural language skills, also make her an ideal member of away missions, where she can provide insights during diplomatic meetings. She deals easily and naturally with other races and this makes her invaluable on missions where there is the potential for first contact. For instance, in [TNG: Dark Page], she is able to assist her mother in introducing the diplomatic delegation of the telepathic Cairn species to aspects of the Federation using verbal, not telepathic, communication which the Cairn were learning.


Deanna shows the Cairn delegation around the Enterprise's arboretum, [TNG: Dark Page]


Picard as Borg, designation Locutus of Borg. This incident is referred to by Captain Janeway in [#69 Scorpion, Part Two].		Deanna's recommendations to the captain carry significant weight, and they share a close working relationship and have become good friends. Among others, it was Deanna who helped Picard cope with the horror of having been assimilated by the Borg in 2367, [TNG: The Best Of Both Worlds]. She was also able to pick up on his anguish at the death of his brother Robert and nephew Rene in 2371, and help this private man to articulate his feelings of loss and grief, [Star Trek VII: Generations].

While Deanna's Betazoid heritage affords her many advantages, it has also led to her fair share of unusual experiences and danger simply because her mind is open to incoming thoughts - and other lifeforms sense this and investigate. In 2365, in [TNG: The Child], she was impregnated during her sleep by an unknown non-corporeal lifeform seeking to understand more about humanity and as a consequence she had a most unusual pregnancy. (The normal gestation period of a Betazoid is ten months.) She named the child Ian Andrew Troi, after her late father. Betazoids are incapable of reading Ferengi, Breen or Dopterian minds, possibly a result of the unusual four-lobed construction of their brains, observed in [TNG: Menage a Troi] and [DS9: The Forsaken]. Betazoids are also unable to read Ullians, as discovered in early 2368 when Deanna was mentally raped by an Ullian telepath named Jev who tried to frame his overbearing father Tarmin for the crime. The following year, in 2369, in [TNG: Season 6: Man Of The People], Deanna nearly killed Picard and almost died herself after Ambassador Ves Alkar used his Lumerian empathic powers to transfer his negative emotions to her in order to keep his mind clear for diplomatic missions.


Alkar pretends Deanna is helping him with the funeral meditation for his dead mother but in reality he transfers his "psychic waste" (Dr Crusher's term) to her. She demands a romantic relationship with Alkar, one he refuses to give. No longer her true self, Deanna begins to age, dresses differently and acts unacceptably when she enters the midlife Betazoid 'phase' of sexually chasing men (the 'phase' is not mentioned in dialogue; her behaviour is presumably the same as that exhibited by Alkar's "mother" Sev Maylor). While trying to seduce Riker, she scratches him. Dr Beverly Crusher looks at Maylor's corpse; later autopsy reveals the body of a 30-year old and DNA samples show she was definitely not his mother; it turns out she was the previous 'receptacle' to Deanna for Alkar's emotions. [TNG: Man Of The People]


Deanna ages rapidly and is torn apart by jealousy over Alkar. When Picard gets in her way as she tries to join Alkar in beaming to the planet Rekag-Seronia, Deanna tries to stab him but is restrained and taken to Sickbay. Picard beams down and elicits the explanation from Alkar - he has the ability to channel his dark thoughts into others whom he calls his 'receptacles'. Normally they survive for years. Alkar, a peace-broker diplomat, justifies it as one life in exchange for thousands, but Picard does not agree. [TNG: Man Of The People]


Crusher says the only way to save the dying Deanna is for her to kill Deanna, let Alkar find another "receptacle" and revive Deanna. Alkar sees Deanna's dead body and orders one of his delegation to his quarters where he initiates the procedure to turn her into the next "receptacle". But Picard beams to safety the victim-to-be, and when Deanna revives the link between her and Alkar becomes a reverse one and all his negative emotions impact on him, killing him of extreme old age. Deanna is restored and wakes to find Riker by her side. [TNG: Man Of The People]

Her telepathic abilities landed her in trouble again in 2370, in [TNG: Eye Of The Beholder], when she nearly committed suicide in a plasma stream after reacting to an empathic echo left by a murderer who helped to build the Enterprise. The Enterprise-D Chief Medical Officer Beverly Crusher manufactured a psilosynine inhibitor for Deanna during her investigation into Daniel Kwan's death. The inhibitor lessened the number of telepathic images Deanna received. (The drug was given to Troi during her prolonged hallucination in that episode so it, or its effect, may or may not have 'really' existed.)

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