PowerTalk is some silly thing that was overdone (and slightly ahead of its time) and overcomplicated that won't affect LocalTalk or EtherTalk traffic.
I couldn't leave you hanging, though.
Since I don't keep an install of 7.1.1 Pro around for a variety of reasons I had to install it. First I tried to use Basilisk II but I think I have an old version of the GUI thing that likes to crash and hang all the time. So then I went to mini vMac except because 7.1.1 Pro uses an obscene amount of disks, I ran into Mini vMac's disk limitation. Before that you can't load Read-Only Compressed disk images into anything except DC, and that's fine, we can just convert them and drag them over. Oh but that didn't work either.
Okay fine I'll reboot into OS 9 and install it onto a ram disk. (Note: mac mini G4s are somehow incompatible with the Memory control panel RAM disks.) I then copied it over LocalTalk to a IIci and used System Picker to run it along side the other OSs I've got projects for on that thing.
(AppDisk is a remote server volume btw, as a RAM disk. Since 7.1 includes AppleShare 7.1 by default, it causes Chooser to exit with an error connecting to any of my 40 or 120GB volumes. Use AppleShare WS 3.5.)
I installed pretty much everything in the Installer, it apparently even picked up my network card. That won't matter because even if you don't get the Network control panel then it defaults to LocalTalk regardless. If you don't have a Network control panel, then you may have OpenTransport, in which case you'd have the AppleTalk control panel instead. While I doubt you'd have installed OT 1.3 on this thing, in the AppleTalk control panel you'd only have to find "Modem/Printer Port" for Macs with only 1 serial port or "Printer Port" for ones with 2. Aside from that, if AppleTalk is on in the Chooser, you're looking at more of a hardware issue. A cable not plugged in. A bridge not powered on. Something of that sort.
By default System 7 includes AppleTalk for the LocalTalk serial ports, the only time you'd
not be able to see another machine in the Chooser and have it be a hardware issue at that point is if AppleShare was not installed. AppleShare IIRC is also installed by default, even if you don't chose File Sharing Software (which just installs the local file server element), but I'll have to double check that last part, BRB. Otherwise if you specifically don't want AppleTalk you'll have to fire up ResEdit and rip out the resources out of the System file.
edit: holy mackeral that thing is using up nearly 6MiB of space just idle connected to a file server? daaaaaang yeah let's get that thing off that machine that's 7.5 or 7.6.1 numbers. i wonder how much memory it would gobble up with OT 1.3 installed
edit 2: double check complete. File Sharing Software copies over Network Extension, File Sharing Extension, Sharing Setup and may do a few other minor adjustments to the System file or something but yeah even without File Sharing Software you still get AppleShare, Chooser and the "atalk" stuff in the System file.