Synopsis: Deep Space Nine receives a message from the Maquis that they have launched undetectable missiles at Cardassia, and Captain Sisko enlists the help of a Starfleet officer turned Maquis leader to stop them.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of projection, when the Logos-driven rational conscious ego projects bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious that it does not recognize as being part of its own psyche onto another.
In “Blaze of Glory” a message is received from a small group of Maquis that they have launched undetectable missiles at Cardassia, which if true, Captain Benjamin Sisko knows will cause an all out war between Cardassian and Dominion forces against the United Federation of Planets. Sisko goes to where his former security officer turned Maquis, Michael Eddington, is imprisoned. Sisko believes that the message from the Maquis was meant for Eddington, and that Eddington will be able to lead him to the Maquis member who sent the message. Sisko is correct that the message was meant for Eddington, who is able to find the Maquis group, as it was a means of communicating their location to Eddington so he can be reunited with his wife, Rebecca. Sisko is told there never were any missiles. However, the Jem’Hadar also locate the group and attack. Eddington sacrifices himself, so that his wife, the group of Maquis, and Sisko can escape. At the end of the episode Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax comments to Sisko that he may have more in common with Eddington than he realizes.
When Dax opines that Sisko has more in common than he would care to admit with Eddington, this can be seen as an explanation of how projection works. Sisko projects onto Eddington the traits in himself that he doesn’t admit to. Eddington was as devoted to the Maquis as Sisko is to Starfleet, and Eddington willingly offered his life for that of his wife and crew, which Sisko also knows he would do for his family and crew. But Sisko still doesn’t see this. What he does see in Eddington is the one-sidedness; yet he does not recognize his own. Given time, when an individual is able to reflect on what either attracts or repels one from someone else, often, as here, it is because the person that is attractive or repulsive is having bits of material from that individual’s unconscious projected upon them. If this is acknowledged, that is one way that the bits of material can be integrated into the conscious ego, making it stronger and the psyche more whole.
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