Synopsis: Captain Janeway and much of Voyager’s crew have their memories altered and are thereby coerced into joining a workforce on an alien planet.
This episode is an illustration one way the Logos-driven rational conscious ego responds to bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious.
In “Workforce, Part I and Part II” while Commander Chakotay, Ensign Harry Kim, and Mr. Neelix have taken the Delta Flyer on a trading mission, Voyager hits a subspace mine which exposes Voyager to tetryon radiation poisoning. Captain Kathryn Janeway orders the crew into escape pods and leaves The Doctor’s Emergency Command Hologram (ECM) Program in charge of Voyager to keep her safe until the radiation can be neutralized. The escape pods are then intercepted by aliens from a planet with a severe labor shortage. Janeway and the crew are subjected to neurological manipulation, so that they forget their past lives but retain their skill sets so that they can join the alien workforce. Janeway is assigned to a power plant where she meets and falls in love with a coworker, Jaffen. Chakotay and Kim come to the planet to find the crew and manage to bring them all home. This means that Janeway must say goodbye to Jaffen, because even though she could offer him a position on Voyager, she tells him that it would be improper for her to have a romantic relationship with someone on her crew.
In this two-part episode, when Janeway, who is often the embodiment of Starfleet principles, has her memories of them and her command position removed, she becomes more human and even falls in love with someone. Janeway even reveals to Chakotay at the end of the episode that she had never been happier. This can be analogized to when the conscious ego acknowledges and integrates bits of material from the unconscious, here arguably a female’s inner animus, the psyche becomes more whole, more balanced. That Janeway is unable to have this happiness and still command her ship is evidence of just how one-sided and Logos-driven Starfleet is, much like an ego that believes that it is in control of the psyche.
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