Synopsis: Voyager is attacked after entering the space claimed by an alien race.
This episode is an illustration of what it looks like when the Logos-driven rational conscious ego starts to integrate bits of material from the Eros-driven unconscious into itself, to become more whole.
In “The Swarm” Lt. Tom Paris and Lt. B’Elanna Torres are in a shuttle seeking out the source of an energy reading when their shuttle is boarded by aliens who knock them unconscious and then leave. Back on Voyager, the aliens hail the ship. They communicate in a way that Captain Kathryn Janeway and the rest of the crew cannot understand, but they do get across the idea that they control this part of space and they do not like other ships passing through it. Lt. Tuvok reminds Janeway that it is against Starfleet regulations to invade alien space, but because not doing so would mean adding 15 months onto the trip home, Janeway says she doesn’t care. Commander Chakotay and Ensign Harry Kim devise a way to cross the border into the alien territory without being detected. But when Voyager comes across a freighter that has been attacked by a swarm of aliens, with one of the swarm ships still attached to it, this alerts the other alien ships and Voyager is attacked. Voyager manages to fight off the swarm ships.
In this episode, Janeway’s change in attitude that I remarked upon in my last post, is even more evident here. Where before Janeway held onto each Starfleet regulation as if breaking one was breaking them all, here, when reminded what she is planning on doing is in violation of Starfleet protocol, she doesn’t care; causing Tuvok to raise an eyebrow to her decision. Where in the last episode she proceeded in a way that might not be condoned by Starfleet to accomplish her goals, here she completely went against them, behaving more like the crew on the Excelsior that Tuvok served on long ago in the episode “Flashback.” This can be seen as analogous to the continuing process of psychic healing, in that the ego is allowing bits of material from the unconscious to be integrated into it, to make it stronger and the psyche more whole.
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