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In the DS9 episode "The Jem'Hadar," Eris the Vorta has telekinetic powers. Later, throughout the Dominion War, no other Vorta have telekinetic powers. Do they just never use them, or was Eris the only one who had them, or what?

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    Unfortunately I don't know of any canon material that can prove of disprove it, my impression was that Eris somehow faked her psychokinesis as part of the plan to gain Sisko's trust.
    – Nu'Daq
    Commented Jul 31, 2015 at 14:41
  • One thing, even with telekinetic potential, it requires very hard practice until it suddenly "just happens" -- one Vorta described it "like learning to wiggle your ears" which, given their large ears, is pretty funny.
    – releseabe
    Commented Jan 1, 2023 at 13:55

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I think the official explanation is that this was not a trait shared by all Vorta. The first Vorta that they encounter is unusual in having that capability. A more thorough (including out of universe details) description is given at Memory Alpha:

Only one Vorta was demonstrated using telekinesis: Eris. As the DS9 writing staff put more thought into the Vorta following their initial appearance in "The Jem'Hadar", telekinesis was discarded and deemed a misstep that the writing team hoped viewers would forget. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, p. 155)

Show writer Ronald D. Moore discussed this in an AOL chat.

Q. Also, something about the Vorta we haven't seen since their first appearance is their telekinetic abilities. What happened to this ability, and are you planning to show it again in the future?

RDM: We have no plans to use this ability again, and our internal logic is that it was not an ability shared by the entire Vorta race, but something that was specifically engineered by the Founders for that particular Vorta (or possibly a whole subset of the Vorta).

AOL Chat

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    The in universe answers make sense. The founders are famous for their genetic engineering and custom tailoring their minions as needed. In the same way that they created "alpha" jem'hadar tailored to fighting in the alpha quadrant, it is reasonable to assume that Weyoun and the other Vorta we see after that episode have be tailored specially for the alpha quadrant, lacking the power that Eris had, who was probably originally tailored to work with another species.
    – Xantec
    Commented Jul 31, 2015 at 16:19
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    Agreed. I think of Eris as a prototype that didn't work out.
    – Omegacron
    Commented Jul 31, 2015 at 16:40

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