Star Trek: Voyager – Season 5, Episode 24: “Warhead”

Synopsis: A weapon of mass destruction with artificial intelligence takes over The Doctor’s program in an effort to complete its mission.

This episode can be seen as an illustration of what is possible when the Logos-driven rational conscious ego integrates bits of Eros-driven irrational unconscious material into itself.

In “Warhead” Voyager receives a distress signal, and when the ship arrives at the coordinates of where it originated, finds a device with artificial intelligence that can communicate with The Doctor. The Doctor says that it is injured and wants to bring it aboard Voyager. Which it is. Shortly thereafter the crew learns that the device is a warhead, a weapon of mass destruction, and that it has taken over The Doctor’s program. The crew tries to tell the artificial intelligence that the war it was part of is now over, but it won’t believe it. Eventually it recovers the data that confirms that it, as well as 32 other warheads who have now appeared to join it, were launched in error. So as to not harm anyone or anything else, the artificial intelligence leads the other warheads into an area of empty space and destroys them all.

In this episode the warhead with artificial intelligence can be analogized to the Logos-driven conscious ego, and The Doctor’s holographic program, to that of a conscious ego that has incorporated bits of Eros-driven unconscious material into it, because although they both started out as completely rational technical devices, The Doctor’s program has evolved. Further, when the warhead takes over The Doctor’s program, it to add bits of unconscious material into itself. At first, the irrational bits are militant, but then it also absorbs the traits of empathy. In the end, the device and The Doctor are both changed. The change in the warhead persuades it to alter its mission from destroying millions to a way of fulfilling its mission without harm. This can be seen as one of the goals of depth psychology, healing ourselves so that we can find our purpose in the unus mundus in service to the anima mundi, the world’s soul.