Telepathic Projection
I was making a new character for a game and was thinking of a Telepathic Betazoid Security Officer in the TNG era and then I went looking through the Esoteric Talents and saw Telepathic Projection, which reads as:
>Your telepathic ability is more potent than most, and you are accustomed to projecting your thoughts into other minds. You can send your thoughts into the minds of other creatures—other than those immune to telepathy—even if those creatures are not telepathic themselves. You can ‘hear’ their responses by reading their minds. You are also capable of using this ability offensively, overwhelming a target’s mind with pain-inducing psychic noise. This requires a Presence + Security task with a Difficulty of 2 (increasing by 1 for each range category beyond Close); success inflicts a Stun or Deadly Injury with Severity 3 and the Piercing effect.
This got me thinking of all the times we've seen Telepathic types on the shows and how the telepathic abilities are portrayed. In most cases, the races have a reverence of some sort for the powers. I know Luxwanna Troi would engage in Telepathic conversations with Deanna, but that was family members. All the times I remember telepathic 'crimes', like the TNG episode where the telepath was forcing people to relive memories against their will or the VOY episode of underground black market of violent thoughts.
So, the attack portion of this would probably be a worst case scenario for all but the antagonists. Reading the 'inflicts a Stun or Deadly Injury', would you say that is up to the intent of the Telepath to decide if they are just trying to knock out or kill the person?
As for the initial part of it, how 'accepted' would a telepath reading the minds of people, even just the 'surface thoughts' to have a conversation with them.