Telepathy

Effect

Mental communication between one person and others. The mind is used as a pattern recognition filter, so as long as the parties involved can explain what they want to communicate in such a way that the others will be able to comprehend it information can be shared without words. An understanding of culture and species norms helps here. Relatively complex subjects can be communicated in this manner, without words, so long as they can be described well enough for the recipients' minds to grasp the basics.

Side/Secondary Effects

Skin to skin touch overrides most mental blocks, intentional or otherwise. There are some abilities that will prevent this, and there are technologies that allow such touches to take place over long distances. Because of this defense bypass technique, it is generally assumed that one cannot lie to a telepath. This isn't exactly the case, but for most situations, it's accurate, as those who would be trained to interrogate a subject and require truth would also have lie detection and counter-psychology techniques in their skillset, too.

Manifestation

Special Note: Telepathy has the general notation of being put into italics in the stories. Quotation marks are not used, unlike normal speech, and actions mixed in with telepathic commiuncation shift between normal and italics to denote when someone is sending to others. It will be noted in the text when a message is being privately sent to someone, and is assumed to be openly broadcast when not.
Telepaths don't have a manifestation. Their ability is entirely silent, has no outward tells, other than the required level of concentration, and even that can be mitigated with some acting skill. But as a lot of the galaxy is actually telepathic, they aren't feared, as is portrayed in popular culture on Earth.

Source

Telepathy is regarded as a universal skill. Even latent psionic people have access to that talent because it has been allowed to flourish. Those who, for some reason, are psionically null are regarded as disabled, and typically have a very hard time functioning in most of galactic society, both Imperial and Federation. The Alliance are all 100% active psionics, and so it is never a question of whether a K'zo has telepathic abilities, but what else can he do.

Discovery

Telepathy is easy to detect, but lacking it is not. The telepathic activity is in use any telepath can tell it's going on, even when not directed at them. There's a subtle tingle in the back of the mind. Most telepaths learn to screen it out, like those who can hear electronics whining. They know it's there, but unless they're looking for it, they just ignore it.
The opposite, however, is not the case. If someone hasn't used telepathic abilities, they can't be rules out as psi-null without extensive testing. Genetic tests would be a start, followed by a brain scan and/or full biological workup. There are numerous prosthetic to help psi-nulls get by in society, including communication devices that will allow them to hear telepaths trying to speak mentally with them, generally referred to as "sending" by translating the mental impulses into audio messages. This requires the telepath to use standard image coding in their sending so that the devices can interpret them correctly.

Related Discipline

Telepahtic abilities are almost universal. It is far too useful to not at least genetic engineer into one's species.

Related School

Telepathy is one of the four major schools of psionic ability, and one of the two related to sensitivity to psionic phenomema.

Related Element

Telapthy is generally aligned with the element of Air.

Effect Duration

Telepathic communication takes only as long as is required to explain one concept to another. The effort to maintain connection is minimal, unless being blocked for some reason.

Effect Casting Time

Instant

Range

Line of Sight, Close Emotional Relationship, Physical Touch, Enhanced Range

Level

Users have to be at least capable of conceptualizing ideas as discrete foundations before telepathy can be useful.

Applied Restriction

Mental blocks, psychological damage, being a psi-null, or certain artificially created substances can effectively shield someone from being read or contacted by a telepath. Also, death is a detriment to its use, unless the user is in possession and physical contact with the remains of the one being contacted.