Synopsis: Colonel Kira is abducted by Dukat, who has become the master of a Bajoran religious cult.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of inflation, a necessary but potentially dangerous step in individuation, what Carl (C. G.) Jung called the process of making the psyche more whole. Individuation being the ongoing process by which the Logos-driven rational conscious ego acknowledges and integrates bits of the Eros-driven irrational unconscious into itself, to become stronger and more balanced.
In “Covenant” Vedek Fala comes to see Colonel Kira Nerys, only to covertly transport her to Empok Nor, the now abandoned Cardassian outpost identical to Deep Space Nine. Once there, Kira discovers that Elmo Dukat has now become the master of a Bajoran religious cult that worships the Pan-wraiths, the spirits that oppose the Prophets. Dukat and his followers believe that the Pan-wraiths are the true prophets for the Bajoran people. A birth happens among the Bajoran flock, and the baby looks Cardassian. Dukat tells his followers that it is a sign that he is the true emissary, but secretly he kills the mother of the child, with whom he had had an affair. Dukat then tells his followers that their corporeal bodies are no longer needed and proposes that they all take a poison pill to move on to the next dimension. Kira confronts Dukat and tells those taking part in this rite that he has no intention of dying with them. Dukat transports off the station. Shortly thereafter, Kira is rescued by Defiant and returns to Deep Space Nine.
In this episode Dukat, who has been stripped of his Gul title and has been portrayed as mentally unstable in the past, is an example of what can happen when the conscious ego identifies for too long with the god-like power of an archetype. An archetype being a pattern of energy in the unconscious. Dukat is inflated to the point of believing that he is a god, and because in our Western Eurocentric patriarchal culture, a god is all powerful and can do no wrong, he believes the same of himself. When Kira calls him out, like a god, he escapes his fate and leaves mortals to deal with the aftermath. And while inflation is necessary in the individuation process, it creates enough momentum to keep it going, when an individual identifies with the archetypal energy for too long, one becomes one-sided. Being one-sided is the opposite of the strength of balance, which is the goal of individuation.
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