Synopsis: Odo is stricken with an unknown illness which forces him to return to the Founders in the Gamma Quadrant.
Just as in the prior episode, “Body Parts,” this episode can be seen as an illustration of what depth psychologist Erich Neumann would call the tension between an old ethic and a new ethic. This is also the psychic tension that exists between the Logos-driven rational conscious ego and the Eros-driven irrational unconscious.
In “Broken Link” Odo is unexpectedly struck down by an unknown illness that Dr. Julian Bashir cannot treat. This requires Odo to return to the Gamma Quadrant to seek out the Founders on their new homeworld. The Defiant and her crew set out, and once through the wormhole are soon surrounded by Jem’Hadar ships. A Founder is aboard one of the vessels and she comes aboard to speak to Odo. She tells him that the Founders caused his illness, to make him come back to them, to join in the Great Link and be judged for killing another changeling. Odo, the Founder, Captain Benjamin Sisko, and Bashir beam down to the Founder homeworld. Odo and the Founder enter the Great Link while Sisko and Bashir wait for Odo to return. When Odo does emerge from the Great Link he is changed. As his punishment he has been turned into a human, except for his face, which continues to have the appearance of a changeling trying to assume human form.
In this episode, similar to how in the prior one, in which Quark’s actions, or transgressions against Ferengi customs caused him to lose everything, Odo is seen as needing to be punished for his violation of the most basic code of the Founders, that one changeling can never harm another. And just as Quark was accused of going Starfleet, Odo is judged for having killed a changeling in coming to the defense of the crew of the Defiant. Finally, Odo is in the same situation as Quark, in that the disdain projected onto him is what occurs when one perception of the world is in the process of being changed by someone who doesn’t necessarily fit in with everyone else in society. This shift in perspective is what Neumann wrote about in Depth Psychology and a New Ethic (1969/1990). And in this book he also compares this process to what happens when the conscious ego starts accepting bits of material from the unconscious shadow into itself, causing it to be more flexible and therefore stronger, and allowing the psyche to become more whole.
Reference:
Neumann, E. (1990). Depth psychology and a new ethic (E. Rolfe, Trans.). Shambala. (Original work published in 1969)
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