Synopsis: A transporter malfunction causes Captain Picard, Ensign Ro, Guinan, and Keiko O’Brien to materialize aboard the Enterprise as children.
In my last post on the episode “True Q” I wrote about how it could be seen as an illustration of James Hillman’s acorn theory from his book, The Soul’s Code. The acorn theory being that inside each of us, even before birth, there is an internal daimon that contains the knowledge of what our purpose in life is to be. This episode takes a bit of a spin on that idea, when a transporter malfunction returns Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Ensign Ro Laren, Guinan, and Keiko O’Brien to the Enterprise as children.
In “Rascals” there is genetic material, RVN, a developmental factor that develops in humans during adolescence, that was eliminated in the transporter. But, not stripped away was each individual’s adult knowledge and unique personality, or in Hillman’s terms, each individual’s inner daimon. Young Picard is a born leader, young O’Brien cares for plants and her child, young Ro is rebellious yet also highly competent and resourceful, and young Guinan is philosophical and has a certain mysterious knowledge. And while this is not a perfect analogy, as the affected individuals retain their adult knowledge and life experience, it does suggest how being true to one’s inner self is when we are most comfortable in our skins and able to achieve great things.
The transporter malfunction here can also be seen as creating an in-between place, much like Hillman’s idea of a metaxy, where soul is made. This plot device has created some thought provoking episodes, going all the way back to the episode “The Enemy Within” from Star Trek: The Original Series. In that episode Captain James T. Kirk materialized on the Enterprise as two entities, one containing all the traits deemed positive, the other with those characteristics society perceives as negative, and when he was reintegrated, illustrating how he was stronger with both aspects of his psyche than he was as a one-sided personality.
Original post created 1 November 2021
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