Synopsis: A rescue of a ship in distress brings a dangerous consciousness onto the station.
In this episode we see a theme of certain episodes that goes back to Star Trek: The Original Series in which consciousness has so been separated from our body that bodies have become interchangeable, even between species.
This is unlike the relationship between a symbiont and a Trill host, discussed in my post on the episode “Dax,” where even though the symbiont is implanted in a new host after the death of another, neither partner dominates the other, instead the relationship makes the whole entity stronger and more integrated. However, in “The Passenger” the conscious ego is so strong that it not only outlives the body, but also transfers itself into other bodies, not caring whether or not there is a psyche already present. This trope goes as far back as at least the Star Trek: The Original Series episode from 1967, “Wolf in the Fold,” in which an evil consciousness takes over bodies of individuals throughout the galaxy, from Earth to Argelius II, in order to kill women and prey on the fears of others.
In this episode the brilliant scientist, Rao Vantika will not accept his death, and in order to remain alive, has put his consciousness in another. We have also seen this occur in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Schizoid Man,” when Dr. Paul Manheim, serendipitously slipped his consciousness into the android, Lt. Commander Data, and of course, famously in the films Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock in which the Vulcan Mr. Spock, realizing that his body was dying, deposited his katra, his living spirit, into Dr. Leonard McCoy.
But in this episode, the issue that I am writing about is the idea that in the future, humans and/or humanoid life, is so focused on the rational conscious ego that we will separate the psyche from the soma, the mind from the body, and be the worst for it. The idea that the mind, or rational intelligence is privileged above the irrational body, when in fact they are partners. As much as I love Star Trek, I do worry that this is a message that is being sent to the next generation about the future.
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