Synopsis: Trying to evade a Vidiian attack by traveling through a plasma drift results in the duplication of Voyager and her crew.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how the Logos-driven rational conscious ego becomes aware of bits of material from the Eros-driven unconscious through what Carl (C. G.) Jung called a complex. Although in common parlance, having a complex has a somewhat negative connotation, Jung did not see complexes as being necessarily negative. Instead, he saw them as being learning opportunities, and the way to incorporate bits of unconscious material into the conscious ego in order to strengthen it.
In “Deadlock” in order to avoid detection by Vidiian vessels, Voyager enters a plasma drift. However, the vessel encounters subspace turbulence when it comes out of the drift and inadvertently a spacial scission occurs creating two Voyagers. Each crew believes that firing proton bursts into their ship’s warp engines will get them started but doing this also damages the other ship. Captain Kathryn Janeway realizes that there are now two Voyagers and they stop emitting the bursts. But in the process both ships are damaged and have no weapons. The Vidiians board the least damaged of the Voyagers, and that Janeway destroys her ship and the Vidiians, and the crew of the other Voyager is able to repair that ship to continue their mission.
In this episode, viewers first experience the events aboard one Voyager through the eyes of her crew, which can be seen as similar to how the conscious ego interprets the world. This is until Janeway realizes that there are two Voyagers, that a spacial scission created two identical vessels and crews. That she is able to understand that there is another Voyager and that the two crews are able to work together so that one ship may survive the attack can be analogized to how when the rational conscious ego acknowledges bits of material from the unconscious through a complex, it can have a positive strengthening effect on the ego as it integrates bits of unconscious material into itself, making it stronger and the psyche more whole.
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