Why are the Betazoids described as an empathic species in SFA? Troi was an empath, but that’s because she’s half human. Lwxana and the Betazoid “delegates” in LDS are all telepathic. They all regularly use telepathy to speak to each other and to humans they’re close with. Why are the Betazoids in Academy signing to each other to communicate subtly instead of thinking?
Also, was the Betazoid president’s taking off of the speech device supposed to be symbolic of something in lore? I know the actsman is Deaf, but is there some kind of link between Deafness/muteness and the psionic wall?
I did wonder about that, but it’s entirely possible Lwaxana was on the more powerful end of a whole spectrum of levels of telepathy that exist on Betazed. Add on to that an 800 year gap during which things might have progressed in any number of ways, and I think it makes sense to accept Academy’s portrayal on its own terms and wait and see if we get more backstory/explanation as we go.
There definitely seems to be a spectrum - on one end, there’s Lon Suder, who says he can’t read much of anything, and on the other, there’s Tam Elbrun, whose abilities were completely out of control.
And, of course, Tarima is another example from Academy itself, so presumably they’ll delve into it a bit.
Although, thinking about it, I wonder if the 100 years of isolation from other Federation races might play into this. It would make sense if communicating with different races took training and practice, and it would be thematically appropriate if it took time for the Betazoids to relearn how to read human minds.
I kept thinking throughout the episode that maybe they need the sign language because they’re spending their powers on the wall.