Synopsis: A Bajoran from Odo’s past comes aboard the station.
This episode is an illustration of how sometimes self-knowledge comes to us at the price of embracing the darker unconscious aspects of our psyche, that Carl (C. G.) Jung would call the shadow.
“The Alternate” begins with Quark selling off pieces of a dead Ferengi, as is his race’s custom, complete with the “Ferengi Seal of Dismemberment.” The idea of dismemberment is a foreshadowing as to what is to happen to Chief of Security Odo once Dr. Mora Pol, the doctor who was in charge of Odo when he was discovered on Bajor, comes onto the station.
When Mora arrives on the station he asks Odo: “Don’t you miss it, Odo? . . . The exploration of you, what you are, where you came from” (Dial & Carson, 1994). Mora then tells Odo that he thinks he may have clues to his origins in the Gamma Quadrant, and together with Lt. Jadzia Dax and Dr. Weld, they take a runabout to a planet designated as L-S VI. On the planet they are all exposed to some sort of gaseous substance. Which although dangerous to Dax, Weld, and Mora, has a life-changing impact on Odo.
Somehow the gas releases violent tendencies in Odo, tendencies he has never had before and doesn’t know how to control. He is somehow able to drain power from the station, which creates something separate and independent from the entity known as Odo – that acts on instinct alone. This is much how the unconscious shadow feels to the conscious ego. Odo seems to want to attack Mora, perhaps because of how he was treated under Mora’s care. At the end of the episode, they are able to remove the gaseous substance from Odo, and Odo seems to be back to his usual self, except he has had to confront his animosity to his treatment by Mora when he was young. This is analogous to what happens when the rational conscious ego is able to acknowledge and integrate bits of unconscious shadow into itself. The ego becomes stronger and the psyche more whole.
Reference:
Dial, B. (Writer), & Carson, D. (Director). (1994, January 9). The alternate (Season 2, Episode 12) [TV series episode]. In M. Piller & R. Berman (Executive Producers), Star trek: Deep space nine. Paramount Television.
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