Synopsis: Captain Archer sends Commander Tucker to the aid of an alien vessel with unexpected consequences.
This episode illustrates what can happen when the Logos-driven rational conscious ego encounters the Eros-driven irrational unconscious, believing that the unconscious will act like itself.
In “Unexpected” Enterprise encounters a Xyrillian vessel in distress hiding in the ship’s plasma exhaust. Believing that they can help the disabled vessel Captain Jonathan Archer sends Commander Charles Tucker III (Trip) to assist. Trip stays on the alien vessel for three days to make repairs to its propulsion system, aided by a female Xyrillian engineer, Ah’Len. During this time Ah’Len shows Trip a holographic chamber and inside it they join hands in a bowl of granules, which gives them the ability to read each other’s minds. After repairs are complete Trip returns to Enterprise only to learn that he has been impregnated. Archer orders Enterprise to locate the Xyrillian vessel, which this time is hiding in the plasma exhaust of a Klingon Bird of Prey. Trip returns to the Xyrillian vessel and Ah’Len is shocked to learn that she impregnated him, however, she is able to transfer the fetus into another host and Trip and Enterprise warp away, undamaged.
In this episode, when Trip touches Ah’Len without thinking about any possible consequences, he is behaving as the conscious ego might, when it first encounters bits of material from the unconscious. The ego believing that its way of doing things is the only way. One of the trickiest things for the ego to learn when it consciously tries to acknowledge and integrate bits of unconscious material is that they operate in a way completely foreign and alien to the ego’s way of being in the psyche. But once this is accepted, then the ego can continue taking in these bits of material, making itself stronger and the psyche more balanced and whole.
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