species with psychic powers that does a hivemind, but only in small groups

over your life, you develop a close circle of like three to ten individuals

who collectively form something like a cross between a polycule and a gestalt consciousness

operating as a team with perfect coordination, or like different limbs of a greater whole being

I'm into it

hivemind but it's you and the group chat

The Enterprise sends down an away team and the aliens are confused that they told Spock something and Kirk doesn’t know it

"I already told The Enterprise that but it seems to have forgotten"

"Maybe the Enterprise is too big a group, I'm picking up 300 body-signs."

wait is the crew really that big

on the Enterprise, no A, B, C, or D?

I think so but let me doublecheck

I have no idea which one

my knowledge of star trek lore is vanishingly incidental

Okay, so, depending on the episode, the USS Enterprise had between 203 and 428 crew.

that's way bigger than I thought

but that's incidental

the Bridge Team

that's how I'd organize a crew if I was this species - one cluster for each department, then one leadership cluster with fingers in each

Yeah all the Enterprises are big ass ships

I think the one in TNG has over 1000 people on board

Though most of them are like civilian scientists and such

the crew in TNG is 1024

which is actually tiny compared to the size of the ship

It’s practically a flying city

the number of background extras we see in corridor shots imply either a crew more than an order of magnitude bigger, or many decks which are almost entirely empty

let's move on from this

the plurk is about micro-hiveminds, not the Enterprise

(the second option actually makes sense, as they're supposed to have space for huge humanitarian evacuations)

sorry, moved on

Is distance a limiting factor

Or could I hive up with a bunch of internet pals?

not sure

either option has potential

maybe there's special technology for maintaining long-range psychic links

designed to keep your cluster intact during temporary separations but some clusters use it full time

Can you change your cluster if you find yourself drifting away from the hive consensus?

yeah I think cluster jumping is possible but psychologically taxing