Mental Image Communicator

Shortly after first contact with the Cairn, Starfleet technicians began working with their Cairn counterparts to develop a translation device that allowed nontelepaths to view the mental images a Cairn would normally project into the minds of telepathically receptive compatriots.

The Mental Image Communicator contained a gelpack mimicking the chemistry of a Cairn's telepathic receptor organ. A Cairn focused on the device the way he or she would on another telepath; a rudimentary holo-emitter instantaneously projected the image sent by the user into the air about three feet away, as if there were an invisible viewscreen, two feet high and two and a half feet long, hanging in midair. The image was two-dimensional, but could be viewed from either side. The holo-emitter supported only limited image movement.

The Communicator also took spoken and written expressions and translated them into images displayed on a one-inch-square viewscreen. The Communicator's memory stores about fifteen hundred basic images, and could generate new images in a pinch.