Deanna Troi: What changes would you make

Yes I know T.P.T.B. on T.N.G. would have gone with it has more of a DS9 feel to it if it was not Tasha's send off they might have done something more with Armus.

As to your first point 'Commander' rather than 'Counselor'
AGREEED or Lt. Commander and 2nd Officer Good Idea and at least if she was a partial Telepath it might come in handy when the U. Translator does not work.

 

I agree except she should know how to fly a shuttlecraft it would have saved us and her the silliness in ST:GEN crashes the ship.
Some tech knowledge (See Disaster) O'Brien HAD to spell it out for her CRINGE

 

Although I am heavily biased about Marina Sirtis, I think I'm being objective in saying that she was quite on par with Frakes, Dorn, Crosby, Burton, and McFadden. She was a good match. Like the Wesley character, I don't think it's quite fair (if understandable) to want to jettison the actor due to sub-par writing.

Because the Troi character, other than S1 Wesley, had the worst overall writing. No offense to the writers, I suspect they had tight constraints on Troi's powers and character development. I agree with those who feel the character should have had greater psychic ability.
One story element I think was missed with Troi was the conflict her powers could have caused among the crew, even her fellow bridge officers. Which brings me to another thing. This woman was a Lt. Commander if I remember right, from S1. Or was it Lt? We should have seen her in a standard uniform regularly, as well as the bunny suits. And we should have seen her operate a computer more often, use a tricorder, etc. "Ship's Counsellor" may have been her title, but she graduated from the same Academy, and had all of the basic skills any Starfleet officer has.
Sometimes, the writing would show other aspects of her job, especially its huge role in regard to the civilian population and children on the Ent-D. I think they should have portrayed her as being way, way more busy. Superindentent of schools, chief organizer of a lot of the civilian activities, chief conduit between the Command staff of the Ent-D and the civilians. On top of that, she's head of psychology for the Starfleet crew, does crew reviews with Comm. Riker (something we see too much), and works what was probably a part-time shift on the Bridge, as well as additional Bridge Duty whenever necessary.
In other words, a whole lot more than saying "I sense taint, Captain."

 

Indeed, and I should clarify I meant Commander as in LtCdr. I wasn't trying to give her a promotion.

Very well said, Stoner. I was thinking in particular about the potential for the crew being 'worried' about her or intimidated by her. I think your other points are very good too and in some ways reiterate where they failed on their follow-through.

 

Or have Dad NOT Die and she follows in his footsteps and joins Startfleet in Oerations

 

This would allow her to make major contributions to the plot and NOT sitting around on the bridge a lot of the time doing nothing.

 

Get rid of her?

She was a "get out of jail free card". Too many times she was used to as the 'stamp of Approval' with her ability to 'magically know' the intentions of otherwise completely unknown Alien minds.

Although the idea she worked for Starfleet intelligence is kind of cool.

 

[FONT=&quot]knowledge and abilities[/FONT]

Why would she want to go back to being a Humanoid?
As a result of the merger she has gained knowledge and abilities

 

More Later

 

In fairness, Betazoid ethics and human ethics are going to be strikingly different animals. Betazed's a telepathic society, devoid of secrets and devoid of subterfuge.

Some Betazoids probably see the peoples of the larger galaxy as the most disgusting liars. They're all no doubt somewhat bothered by it, even the (sigh) half-human ones.

I do echo the sentiment that other crew members might be bothered by or wary of this ability in return.

One way that occurs to me to make Troi more useful would be to have characters who are actually in some fashion screwed up. It's difficult for a counselor to be interesting when the biggest emotional problem a member of the crew faces is wanting to be left to masturbate in peace. Poor Barclay. They could've followed up BoBW for ages, though.

I don't know how much I'd have changed Troi herself, but the role of ship's counselor I'd have changed by keeping him or her off the bridge (unless they're actually standing a watch, which even then makes little sense and would probably only come up when they become for whatever reason the most senior officer on the ship). I know it's a conceit of television, that it's better for characters to be in the same room even when there's no logical reason for them to be, but screw that. If Picard needs to ask her something, that's what they have communicators for. If she can already sense deceit or terrible pain or whatever from thousands of kilometers away, I don't think she'll have any problem doing it from her office fifty meters down.

Oh, actually I do have one great idea about how to change Deanna Troi for the better: she's an orphan.

You're right. Nothing's easier than piloting a tritanium brick with no wings after it's been knocked into an atmosphere by the shock of several hundred thousand tons of combining matter and antimatter at effectively point-blank range...

 

No pilot can outpilot the power of annoying writing.

 

I really like the orphan bit,
What I meant by being able to to pilot a shuttlecraft is that it would give her a reason to be on the bridge since she would then be able to work at conn some of the time and what happened in the movie would NOT come across as shoehorned in.

 

Actually I remember she took some officer qualification courses late in the series... The fact that the ship DIDN'T spike edge first into the ground and flip ass-over is a credit to her and Data working together. No doubt she kept it level while Data used his High Speed Fingers to reroute commands to the working thrusters, coordinate the SIF and IDF systems and whatnot.

Remember, what happened was a borderline beyond-design-basis accident. Had they had gotten clear sooner they could have either impulse'd out of orbit or put the bulk of the planet between them and the explosion.

They were going for dramatic, but one would assume in that situation they'd detach first and evacuate the secondary hull via transporter, shuttles, and lifepods rahter than have the bulk of the population hang around in harms way.

 

that is a good idea. Her character got a lot better around season 5. They should have started off like that with her and developed her into a complicated, possibly conflicted character, but not too obvious.

 

Or, at least if they had shown her successfully piloting something before, it wouldn't have seem like the crazy female driver crashing the ship the first time she flew it.

 

That always bugged me too. Why the hell did they need to wait so long when they had transporters?

 

A few variations on the above:

As mentioned earlier Deanna is a FULL Telepath and Telekinetic, actress instead of actor to play the part of Armus (for ALL of the following).

Armus and Deanna Troi merge as above and separate the away team rescues Deanna from the planet, an hour or so later Deanna starts to transform into a being like Armus with the sum experiences of herself and Armus her personality stays the same.
How will she interact with the crew and how will they react and treat Deanna Troi Version 2?
Or
Deanna transforms into a being like Armus with the sum experiences of herself and Armus her but personality inverts. (Evil Twin Version) How will she interact with the crew and how will they react and treat Deanna Troi Version 2?


Armus and Deanna Troi merge as in above quote BUT this time the merger is successful and permanent, the New Phoenix D-A Troi is 50%/50% blending of their personalities and memories as well as their abilities, in addition Phoenix D-A Troi learns how to shape-shift AMORAL orientation instead of MORAL or IMMORAL

Armus and Deanna Troi merge as in above quote BUT this time the merger is successful and permanent, the New Deanna Armus Troi is 50%/50% blending of their memories as well as their abilities in addition Deanna Armus Troi learns how to shape-shift. In regards to their new personality Deanna personality is dominant 75%/25% MORAL in orientation instead of AMORAL or IMMORAL

Armus and Deanna Troi merge as in above quote BUT this time the merger is successful and permanent, the New Armus Deanna Troi is 50%/50% blending of their memories as well as their abilities in addition Armus Deanna Troi learns how to shape-shift. In regards to their new personality Armus personality is dominant 75%/25% IMMORAL in orientation instead of AMORAL or MORAL

 

Right ON

 

I'd settle for the better actress bit.

Or just one who could at least ... Oh, I don't know ... act?

 

Would have kept her as originally envisioned: At first a "Ship's Counselor " was a "Ship's Councilor". Not a psychologist, but a civilian rep of The Federation itself... a protocol officer of sorts. Like a Soviet era Political Officer, though significantly less insidious.

Not in uniform as she isn't in Starfleet, and can never be in Starfleet, as that might bias her decisions. Her sole allegiance is to the Federation.

The reason she's on the bridge, in a spot that implies that she's an equal to the first officer, is because she must observe all aspects of ship's operations, to make sure they fall within federation protocols. She's also there to represent the Federation government in all interactions with aliens, particularly in first contact situations.

Because ships of exploration regularly encounters unexpected situations, there are times when existing protocols aren't exactly adequate to the task at hand. In these situations, the job of Ship's Councilor is to reinterpret existing protocols to accommodate the new situation, or to help craft new protocols that are consistent with Federation's general philosophy, and to advise the ship's Captain accordingly.

I think that the reason the above concept never made it as far as the finished Writer's Bible was that it inherently tempted writers to use the Captain and the Councilor against one another in an adversarial way; to create an "Us vs Them" dynamic between Starfleet and The Federation. And that, unfortunately, just didn't jive with Roddenberry's bullshit Utopian view of "our main characters are too enlightened to have conflicts with one another".

Once they pared away all aspects of the character that could have led to such conflict, they were left with a character that served no real purpose, and most assuredly didn't warrant a command seat. So the main thing I'd do to change the way Troi was presented, would have been to scrap the prohibition on interpersonal conflict, so that such conflicts could occur. So that there could be an "Us and Them" diachotomy between the Starfleet and The Federation, so that Troi and Piccard could, from time to time, get up in one another's grill.