Synopsis: Voyager’s crew feels as if they are reliving a battle that they never actually fought.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of Carl (C. G.) Jung’s concept that our Eros-driven irrational unconscious holds, among other archetypes, patterns of ancestral and generational psychic wounds.
In “Memorial” Commander Chakotay, Ensign Harry Kim, Ensign Tom Paris, and Mr. Neelix return to Voyager after spending two weeks on an away mission mapping out planets. In a variety of different ways, they all seem to be reliving a battle and experiencing the trauma that follows it. Captain Kathryn Janeway orders that Voyager travel back to the planet where evidence indicates a battle such as the one the crew seems to be reliving occurred. As they near the planet, Tarakis, the entire crew, including Janeway are affected by these implanted memories. When Voyager reaches the planet, Janeway and Chakotay discover an obelisk that contains a synoptic generator, which causes those that travel to this area to relive the events of a massacre as a memorial to the event. Although Chakotay wants it destroyed, Janeway orders that it be repaired and a space buoy deployed in order to alert passing vessels to the memorial.
In this episode, the memorial that contains a synoptic generator that it is able to reach out into the crew’s consciousness can be analogized to the unconscious that can make the Logos-driven rational conscious ego aware of bits of material contained in it. In this case, the bits of material contain a cultural psychic wound. Jung wrote that wounds such as this create societal complexes that are passed on through our ancestors for generations. As with personal complexes, if the conscious ego can acknowledge and begin the process of integrating the bits of unconscious material into itself, healing can begin. Making the psyche of the individual, or of the culture, stronger and more whole.
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