Synopsis: Lt. Torres and The Doctor respond to a distress signal from an alien vessel’s HD-25 isomorphic projection.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of Carl (C. G.) Jung’s concept of projection, one way the conscious ego becomes aware of bits of unconscious material.
In “Revulsion” Voyager receives a distress signal from an alien vessel’s HD-25 isomorphic projection, which seems analogous to The Doctor’s emergency medical program. The Doctor and Lt. B’Elanna Torres take a shuttle to come to the aid of the vessel. When they arrive the crew is dead, and they are told by the HD-25 that two crew members had brought back from a planet a deadly virus that killed all the organic life on the ship. The HD-25 also tells them that he was created to clean up toxic waste, but The Doctor and Torres do not connect this to the HD-25 complaining to them how messy the organic crew was. However, Torres is attacked by the HD-25, and it is discovered that the HD-25 killed the organic crew. The HD-25 then attacks The Doctor, hitting his emitter, which allows him to move around outside of Sick Bay, and he disappears. Torres eventually recovers from the attack, shorts out the HD-25 and re-establishes The Doctor. When The Doctor returns to Sick Bay he tells Lt. Tom Paris that perhaps he doesn’t need to be as fastidious as he has been.
In this episode the revulsion in the title might very well be Starfleet’s discomfort with purely artificial life forms, especially those that act on an instinct to survive. When the distress signal is received from a computer projection program, The Doctor, having developed some human qualities through adjustments to his program, immediately want to go to the aid of the HD-25. Neither he nor Torres consciously have any fear of a hologram that they assume was created as a tool to assist organic life. But it can be argued that the HD-25 was an embodiment of the worst fears of organic life, that a computer program may become so powerful that it resents how organics use it, and takes action upon them. This is projecting human traits that the conscious ego may have suppressed in the unconscious onto something else. Projection being one way that the conscious ego can become aware of unconscious material. And while Torres does not seem to be outwardly changed by the experience, The Doctor, having seen what can occur when programming is too rigid, decides to alter his program to becomes less fastidious. This can be analogized to how the conscious ego may incorporate bits of unconscious material into itself to become stronger and make the psyche more whole.
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