Synopsis: An ensign who was at Starfleet Academy with Wesley Crusher is now aboard the Enterprise and sent on a dangerous mission.
This episode illustrates how the Logos-driven rational conscious ego works to integrate bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious.
In “Lower Decks” we first meet Ensign Sito Jaxa of Bajor when she is seated with a group of junior officers at a table in Ten Forward, while Commander William T. Riker and Counselor Deanna Troi are at another table doing crew evaluations. A waiter, Ben, moves freely between the two tables. Ben tells the junior officers that Riker and Troi are considering Sito and Ensign Sam Lavelle for the same promotion.
The episode follows the junior officers but focuses on Sito, who is repeatedly put in situations that test her resolve. First, Captain Jean-Luc Picard speaks harshly to Sito about her involvement with the scandal at Starfleet Academy at the center of the episode “First Duty,” in which a fellow cadet was killed. Then in a Klingon Mokbara class Lt. Worf singles Sito out for an unreasonable test. When Sito speaks up Worf tells her she passed the test by acknowledging it was unfair. Sito is then sent on a dangerous assignment. When she is overdue to return Picard orders a probe be launched into Cardassian space, a violation of a treaty, to find out what happened to her. The probe allows the crew to discover that she had been killed in the line of duty.
In “Lower Decks” the characters of Sito, Worf, and Picard, all had to do things that they would not ordinarily do. Picard would not routinely unfairly dress down a member of his crew. Worf would also not normally mistreat a subordinate. Sito, for her part, being a bright junior officer would not normally confront her commanding officer about his behavior. For Sito, this was required in order for her to discover the instinctual strength – from her unconscious, that had to be integrated into her conscious ego, in order for her to prove herself to be psychically strong enough to take on her new mission. As for Picard and Worf they also were required to allow bits of unconscious material into their rational egos to fulfill their mission. This is especially true for Picard. His violating a treaty to send a probe into non-Federation space in order to ascertain what happened to Sito, shows him becoming more comfortable with occasionally acknowledging his unconscious instincts and incorporating them into his rational ego and making his psyche more whole. In the process making him a more humane leader.
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