Synopsis: Voyager’s crew comes across a trio of con artists impersonating them.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how the Logos-driven rational conscious ego may respond when it is confronted by bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious which Carl (C. G.) Jung called the shadow.
In “Live Fast and Prosper” we learn through a flashback that Mr. Neelix and Ensign Tom Paris were taken in by a group of con artists when they took the Delta Flyer on an away mission. That a heating coil that they traded supplies for, in order to aid in a relief effort for starving orphans, was a fake. Captain Kathryn Janeway asks Neelix about this exchange after she has been confronted by Orek, the Chief of Mining Operations on Telsius Prime, who accuses her of swindling his operation. It is discovered that the con artists had the opportunity to download the database from the Delta Flyer and were now impersonating Janeway, Lt. Commander Tuvok, and Commander Chakotay to scam various species in the sector. Voyager’s crew is able to locate the con artists, and through various devious methods, discover their ill-gotten gains and return the items to their rightful owners.
In this episode, Janeway, Neelix, Paris, and The Doctor tricking the con artists so that they can locate the items that they stole from others, can be compared to when the conscious ego acknowledges and integrates these bits of unconscious material into itself to become more whole. Janeway even admits to the female con artist who has been impersonating her that they share many traits; they are both intelligent, resourceful, and ambitious, but as Janeway explains to the con artist, she is not a liar and a thief. Janeway’s denial of these attributes can be analogized to when the conscious ego temporarily allows itself access to the unconscious shadow, in order to achieve a goal it can not obtain by purely rational means, and then once again suppresses it, not wanting to associate itself with it. This is all a part of the union of the opposites, the conscious and the unconscious, which in turn is part of the individuation process; the way in which the ego becomes stronger and the psyche more whole.
mydailysoultrek 