"When we joined minds, I absorbed your pain."

[u/PhoenixUnleashed]

In "Shuttle to Kenfori," Spock mind-melds with Batel and says the line, "When we joined minds, I absorbed your pain."

It didn't hit me at the time, but that exchange was included in the "previously on" this week and it struck me: That sounds positively Sybokian, does it not?

It's not something mind-melds are generally described as doing, but it's very explicitly what Sybok does to his weird cult of followers.

I am currently not sure how much I trust the writers of this show, but I'm curious whether anyone else thinks the line held any import or whether I'm just grasping at straws.

[u/DLoIsHere]

Sounds like a typical mind meld.

[u/MagosBattlebear]

Spock has done it before in TOS: The Paradise Syndrome. So its old school canon.

[u/henkins12 → u/MagosBattlebear]

And "The Devil in the Dark" if I remember

[u/PhoenixUnleashed → u/henkins12]

He definitely senses the Horta's pain, but I don't think there's any indication he took it away.

[u/henkins12 → u/PhoenixUnleashed]

Good point. I stand corrected.

[u/DGlennH]

“Is it possible to learn this power?”

“Not from a Sarek…”

[u/Cuboidal_Hug]

When Picard did a mind meld with Sarek, he definitely absorbed Sarek’s pain… that was kind of the point, so that Sarek could do his diplomacy unencumbered

[u/PhoenixUnleashed → u/Cuboidal_Hug]

If I'm remembering the episode correctly (but it's admittedly been a minute), the description of that meld is that Picard basically loaned Sarek his mental discipline and filters more than he absorbed his pain. He did also experience Sarek's pain, especially in the resulting absence of his own faculties, but I don't read that as him having removed them from Sarek.

[u/Cuboidal_Hug → u/PhoenixUnleashed]

If Sarek is using all of Picard’s mental discipline and filters in addition to his own, and as a result doesn’t experience his overwhelming emotions for the duration of the diplomatic meeting, while Picard is in the other room experiencing all of Sarek’s emotions, with none of his or Sarek’s capability to suppress them, then I would say that Picard is temporarily absorbing Sarek’s emotions

[u/QuiJon70 → u/PhoenixUnleashed]

You don't think in a race that prides itself in having conte9l of its feelings that they would have cryptic or misleading ways to discuss it when an emotion is breaking through their controls?

[u/eatpalmsprings]

It’s a nothing burger

[u/Perfect-Campaign9551]

Never mentioned again

[u/QueenUrracca007]

Perhaps Sybok has taught Spock this skill?