Summary

• Deanna Troi's empathic abilities were vital on the USS Enterprise, but her character development was a challenge for the writers.
• As a half-human half-Betazoid, Troi could sense emotions and speak telepathically, but this ability was rarely used after the pilot episode.
• Troi's empathic powers were used to determine if someone was lying and played a major role in saving the galaxy in Star Trek: Picard. However, the writers struggled to fully explore her character's potential.

Introduced in the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) had empathic abilities that proved to be vital for many missions aboard the USS Enterprise. Troi served as the ship's counselor aboard the Enterprise under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). Although Troi rarely wore a standard Starfleet uniform, she held the rank of Lieutenant Commander until she took the Bridge Officer Test and was promoted to Commander in TNG's seventh season. While Troi became an integral part of the USS Enterprise crew, the writers of TNG sometimes struggled to write for her character.

In "Encounter at Farpoint," the Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deanna Troi experiences and expresses all the intense emotion she senses in others. While Troi does maintain her empathic abilities throughout the series, she does not seem to feel others' emotions as deeply as she does in the pilot. In fact, her character changes quite significantly after the pilot, as the writers, and Sirtis herself, seemed to still be developing the character. Also in the pilot, Troi speaks telepathically to Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), with whom she'd had a previous relationship. While it's unclear whether Riker hears her in this scene, Troi never again speaks to him via telepathy.

Counselor Troi’s Betazoid Powers Eplained

As a half-human half-Betazoid, Deanna Troi could sense the emotions of those around her. She could communicate telepathically with other Betazoids, such as her mother Lwaxana Troi (Majel Barrett), but her abilities were more limited than those of naturally telepathic full Betazoids. She may have been able to speak to Commander Riker telepathically because of the pair's closeness, but this ability only appears in TNG's pilot episode. On a few occasions, aliens or other entities take advantage of Troi's telepathic abilities and use them to take over or assault her mind.

Troi's empathic abilities allow her to determine whether someone is lying, a skill that is proven to be useful many times over the course of Star Trek: The Next Generation. While there were certain species that Betazoids could not sense, such as the Ferengi, most species could not hide their emotions from Troi, even if she only saw them via the Enterprise's viewscreen. Troi also uses her empathic abilities in Star Trek: Picard season three to locate Commander Riker and Captain Picard on the invading Borg cube. While the writers of TNG were not always sure what to do with the character of Deanna Troi, Picard gave her the chance to play a major role in saving the galaxy.

Why Star Trek: TNG Changed & Hardly Used Troi’s Powers

The character of Deanna Troi was originally meant to be very intellectual and cerebral, with early concepts for the character even likening Deanna to Leonard Nimoy's Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series. However, over the course of TNG, Deanna Troi would become more the heart of the show than the brain. After the pilot, Troi becomes less outwardly emotional, but the character did not truly come into her own until the second or third season.

As the series progressed, Deanna got to be an actual counselor on the ship more often, and her empathic abilities took a bit of a backseat. Troi's ability to sense the emotions and intentions of an enemy could remove the suspense from confrontation scenes, and the writers seemed to struggle to find other ways to incorporate her empathic powers.

Marina Sirtis looks back fondly on her time playing Deanna Troi, but she would've loved for TNG to have explored more about her character. In a 2020 interview with TrekMovie.com, Sirtis said: "I’ve always said we didn’t really know very much about Troi. We knew she had a crazy mother, she was from Betazed, she liked working out, but really that was it." Although Deanna Troi did not always have as much to do as many of the other characters, she remained a charming and compelling character throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation's run.