Synopsis: In responding to a distress signal, the crew of the Enterprise finds two survivors from a Romulan ship on an inhospitable planet in Federation territory.
“The Enemy” offers us an illustration of two ways in which opposing forces relate to each other. This is analogous to the ways that the Logos-driven rational conscious ego responds when bits of Eros-driven unconscious material enter into its sphere of awareness, through a complex. In depth psychological terms, a complex is not considered a negative situation, as we all have them, but can be understood as an opportunity for psychological growth and psychic health.
The action of the episode begins with First Officer William Riker, Lt. Worf and Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge beaming down to the surface of the planet, Galorndon Core, which is so inhospitable to life and the Enterprise’s technology, that the only way that the away team can get back to the ship is to set a specific time and location to beam back up. They find debris from the crash of a Romulan ship and a badly injured survivor. La Forge falls into an underground cavern and is separated from Riker and Worf and is left on the planet when Riker and Worf return to the Enterprise with the wounded Romulan. La Forge then discovers that he is not alone in the cavern, that there is a second Romulan survivor, Centurian Bochra, and this one is armed and dangerous. On the Enterprise, the injured Romulan needs a transfusion from Worf, the Klingon officer who was orphaned when Romulans killed his parents.
The injured Romulan aboard the Enterprise dies because Worf refuses him the transfusion. This represents how the conscious ego initially tries to avoid any contact with the unconscious material and suppresses it. There can be no healing or growth at this point, but sometimes the ego will just do what it wants to do until there is no choice but to engage with the unconscious.
On the planet, La Forge and Bochra, while initially at odds with one another, forge first a truce, and then a friendship, as they work together to get out of the cavern. This represents how when the conscious ego acknowledges unconscious material and integrates it into itself, the whole psyche becomes stronger and more whole.
Original post created 30 July 2021
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