Synopsis: “Mr. Spock, Lt. Sulu, and Lt. Uhura meet Kzintis, and a confrontation incurs over the contents of a Slaver stasis box.
In Mr. Spock’s log, which sets up the mission for this episode, he records that the Slaver stasis box that is being transported to a Starbase was found on Kzin by archeologists. Yet when Spock, Lt. Hiakru Sulu, and Lt. Nyota Uhura are confronted by Kzintis working undercover on their government’s behalf, the Starfleet officers seem to completely dismiss the idea that the Kzintis might have a right to its contents, even though it was found on their planet. Instead, presumably, Spock’s, and Starfleet’s rationality is that the potential technology enclosed must be scientifically opened, and that the potential power inside the box is too great for one race to hold, since we are told that the Slaver race ruled the galaxy a billion years ago.
Here, Spock is embodying the Logos-driven conscious ego, that believes that it holds the right to power and that if power if allowed into the Eros-driven unconscious, then all hell will break loose. This is also the mindset of many Western explorers and colonizers who came into a new world and completely disregarding the rights of the indigenous peoples that already occupied the territory which they “discovered.”
As it turns out, there is a piece of technology inside the box which does include a weapon. A weapon that the Kzintis are unable to locate, until Spock, Sulu, and Uhura recover it and learn its secrets. When the Kzintis then take it back from the Enterprise crewmembers, the weapon itself tricks the Kzinti into allowing it to destroy itself, and the knowledge of the other elements of the technology, as well as the weapon, are lost to all. Just as when the conscious ego thinks it knows best, or worst that it knows all, and as a result, our psyches miss out on opportunities to become more whole.
Original post created 20 April 2021
mydailysoultrek 