Synopsis: A Voyager crewmember thought to be long dead returns to Voyager in an altered state.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of Carl (C. G.) Jung’s concept of the ongoing individuation process, which is when bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious come to the attention of the Logos-driven rational conscious ego and are integrated into it to make it stronger.
In “Ashes to Ashes” a female alien possessing intimate knowledge of Voyager and her crew is seen piloting a shuttle of alien design and being fired upon by a larger alien ship. The pilot hails Voyager and tells Captain Kathryn Janeway that she is the long dead Ensign Lyndsay Ballard, altered to appear to look like a Kobali. The Kobali being a species that reproduces by reanimating the bodies of the recently deceased of other species, and then the newly reanimated individual is adopted by a Kobali family. Ballard explains that this is what happened to her and while she appears alien. Once back aboard Voyager, The Doctor tells Ballard that almost none of her human DNA remains, but that he can treat her so that outwardly she will appear as her human former self. Eventually though, after returning to appearing human, Ballard’s Kobali physiology reasserts itself. About the same time a Kobali vessel has located Ballard aboard Voyager and fires attacks the ship. While Janeway vows to fight to keep Ballard aboard Voyager, Ballard tells Janeway that she wants to go back to the Kobali. That this is where she belongs now.
In this episode, the human Starfleet Officer Ballard before she died can be analogized to the conscious ego and the reanimated Ballard who became Kobali after her death, can be analogized to the ego becoming aware of bits of unconscious material. The Starfleet Officer who escapes from adopted Kobali family and risks everything to return to Voyager can be compared to how the conscious ego sometimes suppresses the bits of material from the unconscious that it rejects or is uncomfortable with. The Doctor’s treatment to make Ballard appear human even though she retains her Kobali physiology can be compared to the ego creating a persona, the face we show others. When The Doctor’s treatments can no longer fight off Kobali physiology, this can be compared to a complex. A complex being when the conscious ego can no longer suppress bits of unconscious material and must confront them in order not to continue to harm itself. And when Ballard realizes that she can no longer deny that she is now Kobali, can be analogized to when the ego finally acknowledges and integrates bits of material into itself, to become stronger and make the psyche more whole.
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