Synopsis: Garak and Odo investigate an attempt on Garak’s life.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of the relationship between the archetypes of the Senex, the wise old man, and the Puer, the eternal youth, as described by James Hillman.
In “Improbable Cause” former members of the Cardassian Obsidian Order, a CIA-like organization, are killed and an unsuccessful attempt is made on Elim Garak’s life. Garak being the lone Cardassian residing on Deep Space Nine and rumored to have been exiled there for some mysterious reason. Garak and Odo, the changeling head of security at the station, go out to investigate and find that the person behind the killings is none other than Garak’s former mentor, Enabran Tain. Tain asks Garak to join the Romulan-Cardassian assault on the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant, and he does.
When Garak and Tain finally meet toward the end of this episode, the two figures embody the archetypes of the Senex, the wise old man, and the Puer, the eternal youth. Tain was a leader in the Obsidian Order and took Garak under his tutelage when he was young and there is a pronounced father-son relationship between the two men. Garak knows instinctively where Tain may be found and then is driven to go to him to save him, only to find out that Tain is in charge of a covert operation and the attempt on his life. But all is forgiven when Garak is in Tain’s presence, as this relationship is so strong. That the powers are archetypal and beyond the scope of the Logos-driven rational conscious ego are shown when Odo reminds Garak that Tain is the one who put him in exile and also just tried to have him killed, and Garak responds that it doesn’t matter. When such profound emotional unconscious feelings are present, we know that archetypal energy is also there.
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