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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

The article mentions Star Trek and Vulcan mind melds, which continue to be an important element of the franchise today, but misses a more obvious case: there was a lot of ESP and telekinesis motifs in the Original Series in the 60s, that were severely toned down or outright abandoned by the 90s. For example, you don't hear much about Gary Mitchel anymore, except for that one episode of Lower Decks.

Also, I think a lot of sci-fi shows had direct ESP references before mid-90s, then the trope suddenly died out.

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> Also, I think a lot of sci-fi shows had direct ESP references before mid-90s, then the trope suddenly died out.

Everything parapsychology dies out very suddenly in the mid 1980s. Ghostbusters debuted June 8th, 1984, and within 18 months most universities had already gotten rid of the department. Intelligence agency experiments in remote viewing and such all just fade away nearly as quickly. Police departments using psychics for leads has a sharp downward trend from that date onward. About the only thing left was late-night 900 number commercials for Miss Cleo, that last until the mid-1990s.

Comedy is a powerful sociological weapon, able to obliterate entire memetic ecosystems.

It was always there, just that at some point in tng S2 telepathy became less of a prominent identity for characters who possessed it.

There was always this thread of exploring beyond the dimensions of space and time in star trek, beyond what our minds are capable of grasping, beyond the information channels that we can immediately perceive. Getting closer, occasionally with the help of other aliens who are on that same voyage, on the nature of reality that brought us all here.

"That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence."

TNG has several species like the Q that have evolved to godlike abilities and there are episodes where a humanoid undergoes the final stage of physical evolution and then ascends to a higher plane of existence (becomes something like the Q). Star Trek Picard (relatively new show) had a lot about exploring internal conflict and I think even in TNG one of the final episodes has Q tell Picard that the final frontier is internal and doesn't involve mapping out stellar nebulae.

Other shows like Stargate also have the concept of "ascension" as a pivotal plot point of many episodes. Farscape covers this as well in several episodes. Things like mind melds and mind reading are pretty common in these shows once someone ascends.

There is a lot of "woo" in science fiction as it is kind of hard to still believe in gross limitations for us over a cosmic scale of thousands of millions of years. Assuming we don't die out, I'd believe our ultimate potential is unfathomable to us now.

There is definitely a difference between "these beings have become so advanced as to do things we would believe impossible like reading state directly out of our brains" and "for vague and in fact aggressively unspecified reasons this critter can read the 'minds' of those around them". When people pontificate about "brain uploading" they are certainly speaking of some physical process that does what is now currently impossible, but may not be impossible forever.

But perhaps the more relevant objection is that episodic television can't really be read for more than the vaguest of philosophical content across their wholes. One episode can be written by an ardent materialist and the next by a New Age guru writing a New Age story wrapped in science terminology, and as long as they do a good enough job in general writing ability and following the series bible for consistency, it might take a lot of analysis to notice. Such series aren't so much statements themselves as platforms.

We're on the same page. I don't disagree with anything you have here.

Babylon 5 has excellent an excellent ascension arc. One of the best.

I miss 90s Sci Fi.

Babylon 5 is THE best IMO. I just love all the little character dialogue that makes the universe so expansive. I miss scifi like that.

Wasn't there this woman with purple uniform, who's mother had a crush on Piccard, who could read peoples emotions from a great distance and speak in their heads?

I don't think I liked her character or episodes built around her. But I don't really remember why.

Deanna Troi

She was half human and half Betazoid, her empathic abilities coming from the non-human half. She only managed full telepathy in rare circumstances, like with a lover (Riker) or her mother (a full Betazoid).

GP is talking about characters who were 100% human - there was a second one in that same TOS episode, and they mentioned a standardized test all members of Starfleet were given to determine how strong their natural ESP abilities are.

Telepathy played a pretty big role in 90s Star Trek. TNG had Deanna Troi. It appears repeatedly in DS9. Voyager had Kes.

The idea of multi person “melds” abounds too: the Borg collective, the Contiuum.

Agree except about the Borg. They used technological assistance, something like subspace wifi.

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