Synopsis: Voyager lands on a Demon-Class planet in an effort to mine deuterium.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how the Logos-driven rational conscious ego cannot control bits of Eros-driven irrational unconscious material.
In “Demon” Voyager is dangerously low of deuterium, which powers many of the ship’s systems. Seven of Nine discovers a planet with vast deposits of it, but it’s environment is deadly. Lt. Thomas Paris and Ensign Harry Kim take a shuttle to the planet to extract some deuterium and find it in a pool of silver liquid. The liquid is able to bio-form duplicates of Paris and Kim, and anything else that it comes in contact with. When it does so, the liquid becomes sentient, and tries to prevent Voyager from leaving the planet, because it wants to make duplicates of the whole crew. Captain Kathryn Janeway reasons with the duplicates, telling them that all they need is the crew’s DNA, and the silver liquid life form allows them to leave.
In this episode Kim and Paris go to the planet where the deuterium is located, not for a moment believing that it is alive, because it is so foreign from life forms they have previously encountered. But once the silver liquid entity duplicates them, it realizes that it is alone and decides to keep the whole crew on the planet. This can be analogized to how often the conscious ego does not consider the needs of the unconscious because it is so foreign to it. But when the needs of the unconscious are acknowledged and acted upon, the ego becomes stronger and the psyche more whole.
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