Synopsis: Lt. Paris enters the Delta Flyer in a race created to keep the peace between warring species.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how challenging it can be for the Logos-driven rational conscious ego to acknowledge and integrate bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious into itself.
In “Drive” while Lt. Tom Paris and Ensign Harry Kim are taking the newly repaired Delta Flyer out for a test flight, they come across an alien vessel that challenges them to a race. The Delta Flyer wins the challenge when the other ship is damaged. The alien pilot, Irina, is beamed aboard the Delta Flyer and she tells Paris and Kim about the race that she is about to enter. Paris asks Captain Kathryn Janeway for permission to enter the race, which Paris tells her is a peaceful contest among species that had formerly been at war with each other. Janeway gives him permission to enter and the status of the race as a method of keeping the peace is underlined when the Race Coordinator, Ambassador O’Zaal arrives on Voyager. In the excitement Paris forgets that the race conflicts with a romantic getaway that Lt. B’Elanna Torres has planned for them. To solve this issue, Torres replaces Kim as co-pilot on the Delta Flyer. During the race Paris and Torres discover that the Delta Flyer has been sabotaged by Irina, so that it will cause an explosion that might reignite the war. Paris and Torres devise a way to keep the explosion from destroying the Delta Flyer or any other ships, and during the crisis Paris proposes marriage to Torres. At the end of the episode, the couple, now married, get their romantic getaway.
In this episode, the concept behind the race, that enemy species may engage their competitive instincts in a non-lethal way, can be analogized to Carl (C. G.) Jung’s concept of the union of opposites, when the conscious ego acknowledges and integrates bits of unconscious material into itself. This is further reflected in how Torres decides to join Paris’s racing team instead of attacking him for ignoring her plans. In the end, although one of the warring species tried to disrupt the race, the peace held. And although Paris and Torres were facing death, by working together they also survived. This can be compared to how although the union of opposites is not a smooth or easy path, it can generate benefits along the way.
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