Reviewer: Nerys Ghemor Signed [Report This]
Date: 04 Dec 2011 16:24 Title: The Inevitable Undoing of House Raedan

Following our conversation about telepathic talents in Romulans, I decided to check this ficlet out.

You definitely captured the rather paranoid tone of a 1950s or 1960s PSA, where it's hard to tell if the intention is really to educate or to frighten.  I almost expected this to be followed with a reminder to children to "duck and cover."  Another comparison would be the government rhetoric used towards mutants in the X-Men universe.  One's "rightful" place is society is to be drugged into oblivion? Yeah, right.

I have a distinct feeling that this "institute" is in fact the Tal Shiar.  Admittedly that idea came to my "Cardassian" mind as thinking that it sounded like something the Obsidian Order would do, but I get the feeling the Tal Shiar would like to get hold of telepaths.

On this purported scale, where would Tomalak fall?  If, say, he were to meet a Betazoid, could he talk mind-to-mind with him or her?  And what degree of telepathy is born more naturally in Romulan society as opposed to the artificially-created degree of telepathy you've suggested Tomalak has in your stories?

Finally, does telepathy among your Romulans have anything to do with the Levaeri experiments from Diane Duane's works?

Author's Response: Hmm...good questions. At the moment, T is about a P2, maybe a very low 2.5. He knows he's got some ability, but can really only do one thing with it, as will be seen in coming chapters ;). Right now, he couldn't speak mind-to-mind with another telepath, but he would probably be able to shield his mind well enough to keep his thoughts from being read, unless it was a super-high-level teep. As for what's normally born into Romulan society...I'm not entirely sure, since things I've read keep differing, but I think fairly low, on the 2-2.5, maybe 3 level, and even that's pretty rare. The Levaeri experiments...I'll be honest and say I never really read much of Diane Duane's Rihannsu novels...just couldn't seem to get into them. But yes, experiments do play quite a part in this!