Synopsis: Chief O’Brien returns to Deep Space Nine to find things changed.
This episode is an illustration of what happens when the Logos-driven rational conscious ego believes that it is all there is in the psyche.
In “Whispers” Deep Space Nine’s Chief of Operations, Miles O’Brien is seen returning from the Parada System, where he has been receiving security training for a diplomatic mission that is to occur on the station. Everyone seems to be against him and he is feeling that he is the only unaffected individual on Deep Space Nine, that everyone else has been taken over by some sort of enemy force. At the end of the episode, we learn that the O’Brien that returned to the station was a replicant and that the real O’Brien had been kidnapped on Parada II.
This can be seen as analogous to how sometimes the rational ego will become one-sided and believe that what is conscious is all there is. Our culture actually encourages this type of one-sidedness and it can be extremely difficult for some individuals, especially those seemingly thriving in the conscious world, to understand that there is a part of ourselves beyond our ego consciousness. That would be the unconscious, the study of which is the heart of depth psychology.
The theme of “Whispers” is similar to that of the last episode, “Armageddon Game,” in that just like the two alien cultures in the latter illustrate a one-sidedness of the psyche, so does the character of the O’Brien replicant, who never for a moment thought that maybe it wasn’t that he alone was unchanged, instead of the idea that he was what was different and foreign to the status quo of the station. The conscious ego can be quite myopic in its perspective and this is what is most evident here. But not acknowledging the unconscious part of the psyche is to leave a great deal of understanding in the underworld.
mydailysoultrek 