Synopsis: Captain Picard refuses to leave his career in Starfleet to work with a former professor of his, yet when the professor is killed, the crew of the Enterprise, along with Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans uncover the answers he was seeking.
In this episode Captain Jean-Luc Picard is given a gift by Professor Galen, his former instructor in archeology, a 12,000 year old Kurlan artifact. And as Picard explains to Commander William Riker: “The Kurlan civilization believed that an individual was a community of individuals. Inside us are . . . many voices each with its . . . its own desires, its own style. Its own view of the world” (Menosky & Frakes, 1993). This is also an expression of the overall framework of Archetypal Psychology founded by the work of James Hillman.
The idea of the uniting of the various elements occurs at many levels in “The Chase.” We first see this physically manifested in the artifact that Galen brings to Picard, that inside the outer figurine are many different smaller versions of the figurine contained within it. The smaller figurines seem to be engaged in relationships to each other. This is how Hillman describes our human psyches. That archetypal energy from many different sources, which he personifies as the ancient gods from Greek and Roman myths, are all in our psyches, and that each of them speaks to us at different times or stages in our life.
Then at the conclusion of the episode, a figure appears to tell all the races assembled that “there is something of you in each other” (Menosky & Frakes, 1993), which is another aspect of archetypal psychology, the idea that the archetypes are within all of us and are a shared heritage.
Reference:
Menosky, J. (Writer), & Frakes, J. (Director). (1993, April 24). The chase (Season 6, Episode 20) [TV series episode]. In M. Piller & R. Berman (Executive Producers), Star trek: The next generation. Paramount Television.
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