I sometimes figure that Picard would've gone insane with all the shit he's encountered and had to deal with (Borg anyone?) without Troi's help.
It's good to see that Nash is getting a bit of closure.
Picard's kind of high-strung in some ways, so yes.
Deanna also provides the tremendous advantage of being, y'know,
literally psychic. Sure, sometimes we make fun of her for spotting things we could figure out on our own without psychic powers, but there's a huge difference between thinking you know what a weird alien lifeform is feeling, versus
actually knowing.
It's like, I can
deduce the sky is blue, because duh. But then I look out the window and notice the sky is grey, because massive overcast. If I didn't have the "power" of eyesight, I would be entirely ignorant of the presence of those clouds, and if that somehow turned out to be important, I'd just be out of luck. Conversely, if I deduce that the sky is blue, but am worried it might be gray or black or some even weirder color, I don't have to stress about it, I can just take a look!
I mean, she can actually look at a guy over a Skype call and say "I don't sense any deception,"
and be right. How valuable is that, knowing when someone you're talking to
isn't tricking you, even though the situation would otherwise lead you to suspect them?
The combination of her being a counselor and her being an empath really does make her a valuable member of the Enterprise command team.
So that's an improvement of 10br, 5sr, 3pp, 3rp, and the crew over their 300-500 affiliate level income.
Pity we didn't get a research team though.
@OneirosTheWriter, I would
really like to get a Betazoid xenopsychology team, and have the Vulcan Science Academy pick up a different specialization. As it stands the Vulcan Science Academy is redundant with Spock. And while we may at some future date lose Spock and need a new xenopsych researcher, I literally can't think of any
species in the Federation more qualified to comment on xenopsych than the Betazoids.
Second, it does indeed get a bit disheartening to see some "war hawks" in this thread advocate for hard-line actions, and even going as far as to call our enemies garbage or talking about "putting them down" or otherwise dehumanizing (heh) them.
That's not the Federation or Starfleet's way. Sure, there are disadvantages to always trying diplomacy first and resorting to military action as a last resort, and letting more devious enemies run amok outside the borders, but the Federation is a beacon of peaceful civilization that most others aspire too, industrially and technology advanced enough to provide security and well-being, and they ultimately always respond to a crisis in time.
And staying true to Starfleet's ideals is a worthy goal in and of itself.
This. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm all for rolling up to the Dawiar in a phalanx of
Excelsiors and saying "hey, what gives, let's talk this out;" in fact, I suggested it. But the talk of how "perfidious" they are is completely overlooking what makes the Federation different from, and ultimately capable of overcoming, the Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians. All of whom are better at the whole 'realpolitik imperial' game than we are ever going to be.
). Their past history with the Federation should also be relatively known, so less chance of the catspaw argument. 
