Synopsis: When one crewmember kills another for apparently no reason, Lt. Tuvok performs a Vulcan mind meld on the murderer to try to understand his motives.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of one type of reaction that the Logos-driven rational conscious ego has when it has been made aware of bits of the Eros-driven irrational unconscious, as part of the process that Carl (C. G.) Jung calls the union of opposites or transcendent function, the way a psyche becomes more whole.
In “Meld” Lt. Tuvok struggles with the idea that someone could kill another without a logical reason. To confirm that there is a motive behind the killing of Crewmember Darwin he asks his killer, Crewmember Lon Suder, if he will submit to a Vulcan mind meld. After the mind meld Suder seems much more controlled and Tuvok starts showing signs of aggression. Tuvok eventually winds up in Sick Bay and the Doctor states that Tuvok’s psycho-suppression systems are askew. He decides that the way to treat Tuvok is to take away his ability to control violent thoughts in an effort to shock his body into restarting his ability to control his emotions. However, Tuvok escapes containment in Sick Bay and goes to find Suder to kill him for his crimes. Tuvok is able to stop himself from killing Suder, and by doing so, shocks his psyche into starting the process to return to becoming able to suppress his emotions.
In this episode, Tuvok can be seen as a physical manifestation of the conscious ego in that he perceives himself as logical, without emotional hindrance, and in control. Tuvok believes he will be invulnerable to reaching into the depths of another’s unconscious with no ill effect. Instead, Tuvok unlocks his own unconscious, and is flooded with bits of his unconscious shadow material. This causes an imbalance in his psyche so great that he almost kills another, something unthinkable to his conscious ego. But this shocks his psyche into “re-booting” if you will, which is similar to the continuous movement between inflation and deflation that is part of the union of opposites, the way by which the psyche becomes more whole.
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