Synopsis: Following a trail of mass insanity across the galaxy, the Enterprise arrives at Devena and discovers the cause for the madness is aliens that take over the bodies of individuals.
A couple posts ago, when I wrote about the episode “Errand of Mercy” I spoke about one theme appearing in the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series – that of looking at actions of the Enterprise and the Federation from the perspective of an alien. “Operation – Annihilate!” follows another theme, that of an alien presence that takes over the free will of individuals and causes them to act out in a manner not condoned by Starfleet training. This is a major plot point in what was meant to be the second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” and continued in other episodes such as “The Naked Time,” “The Return of the Archons,” and “This Side of Paradise”; and was also touched on to various degrees in “Miri,” “Dagger of the Mind,” and the repackaged original pilot “The Menagerie.”
I believe this ongoing theme is necessary because the crew of the Enterprise is well trained, and part of that discipline comes from a grounding in military order and rational thought. This is the purview of the ego persona. But since humans, and even half-Vulcans, are not perfect, and because drama needs conflict, there has to be some way of making these highly trained crewmembers do something unexpected. Something not in line with their ego persona. One way to explain this in space is to introduce an alien presence that can reach down deep into their unconscious and bring to the surface traits which have been consciously suppressed.
In this episode the alien presence is in the form of powerful one-celled organisms that can attach themselves to bodies of other species and immediately take them over to do its bidding. From a depth psychological perspective, this alien can be seen as a psychopomp, a go between connecting the light of the conscious and darkness of the deep unconscious. This is reflected in the story by the discovery that the only way to kill the aliens is to expose them to light. This can be seen as analogous to the only way to de-toxify unconscious elements of our psyche is to bring them to life by recognizing and accepting them, and then work to integrate them with the lighter parts of our personality, in order to become stronger and more whole. This interior work, while perhaps invisible to the outer world is important to do – even for Starfleet officers.
Original post created 4 February 2021
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