Synopsis: Lt. Commander Data’s creator, Dr. Soong draws Data to him, in order to give him an emotion chip, but unexpectedly, Lore, Data’s brother takes it instead.
In this episode we learn much about the android Lt. Commander Data. How he has a homing mechanism that when activated causes him to take over the Enterprise, and Data learns that he was not the imperfect first try, but that he was created after his brother, Lore, which to Data means that he is more “perfect.”
The quest for perfection is a trait of the Puer archetype, the eternal child, and in many ways when it comes in Data’s aspirations to become more human, he embodies this, and to him Captain Jean-Luc Picard, is a physical manifestation of the Senex archetype – the wise old man, the one in charge. And for what we can see in the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation Picard seems to accept this relationship. Otherwise, how else can we explain that Data, who defined all authority on the Enterprise and mutinied against her captain and crew, but was not punished, if not for the love of a father and son?
Archetypal Psychologist James Hillman, felt that the polar relationship between these two archetypes, the Senex and the Puer, were the key to understanding the relationship between all the other archetypes found in the human psyche. If this is true, then perhaps the relationship between Picard and Data is the key to understanding all the relationships of the crew to each other aboard the USS Enterprise D.
Original post created 25 August 2021
mydailysoultrek 