The nature of Soundwave's telepathic ability is very specific, very highly trained, and very powerful. Having long since learned to always keep his mental shielding in place to avoid a constant barrage of thoughts from those around him, he now has to deliberately make the effort to mentally reach out, in order to scan another being's mind. That scan can vary from a superficial surface level (for instance, to get a quick reading on whether or not someone is telling him the truth), to a precise plucking of one infinitesimal bit of information from a whirlwind of mental impulses, to a highly detailed examination of the individual's innermost thoughts, history, and basic nature, right down to feelings and memories that they themselves were no longer aware of. While a superficial scan is something he can perform almost instantaneously with only the barest amount of effort, a more detailed scan requires his careful concentration, during which he needs to remain undisturbed and undistracted, for in a really deep scan he can completely lose awareness of his physical surroundings. Soundwave is able to read the minds of both robotic and organic life-forms to an equal degree.

Such a powerful and unique ability could easily give him access to others' private thoughts and personal secrets, but his own honor code prevents him from violating another being's privacy unless absolutely necessary. He will perform a telepathic scan on a comrade when asked to do so (to recover a lost memory, for instance, or help solve a psychological problem); for matters of security in situations of high tension or confrontation when he has to asses exactly how dangerous a newcomer or disgruntled warrior may be; on a captured enemy to gain vital information; or when ordered to do so by Megatron for any other reason. He does not use his telepathic abilities for idle entertainment or cheap voyeurism into the minds of others. It's a testament to the trust the other Decepticons have for him, that most of them feel entirely comfortable in his presence, without fear that he's secretly looking into their minds; to anyone who has known Soundwave for a while, the very notion that he would go against his own stated convictions, is too absurd to even contemplate.

The exact physical basis of the telepathic ability remains unclear, though it's suspected that it involves the reading of electronic impulses which course through a living mind during thought, and which leave behind after-images as memories and personality-indicators. Soundwave himself considers the ability not so much "paranormal" as an added sensory receptivity for which the precise scientific explanation has not yet been uncovered. What is known, is that the ability appears to be heritable. In Soundwave's case, neither of his creators was a telepath, but some of their ancestors were said to have had some trace of the ability. Likewise most of Soundwave's creations manifest a very rudimentary telepathic ability, having fairly clear mental links with one another, and occasionally being able to catch a thought or emotion from someone else. Additionally, one or two of Soundwave's siblings later developed a modicum of telepathic capability, but it was only in Soundwave that the "heritage" came together in such a way as to create an extraordinarily powerful and skilled telepath - one of the few known in Cybertron's history.

In Soundwave's Own Words (47k)