Synopsis: Sub-Commander T’Pol tells Captain Archer and Commander Tucker about a Vulcan ship that crashed on Earth in 1957.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how to help heal what Carl (C.G.) Jung called ancestral trauma, psychic wounds that we share with past generations.
“Carbon Creek” begins with a celebration that Captain Jonathan Archer and Commander Charles (Trip) Tucker are having for Sub-Commander T’Pol, to commemorate her one year anniversary with the crew. Archer asks T’Pol about a trip she made to the town of Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania before joining the crew. She tells him the visit was of a personal nature. That it was the site of the first contact between humans and Vulcans in 1957, and that her great-grandmother, T’Mir, was one of the crew. Tucker asks to hear the story. The action then shifts to 1957 when a small Vulcan vessel is sent to Earth to investigate Sputnik. The craft crash lands on Earth, killing the captain of the four person crew and leaving T’Mir in charge. After the food runs out, one of the other surviving crew members, Mestral, decides they should go into town. T’Mir and Mestral walk into a bar where they are befriended. Which leads to the three Vulcans surviving in the town doing odd jobs for several months until they receive word that a Vulcan ship will arrive to rescue them. When the time comes to leave, Mestral wants to stay on Earth, and T’Mir tells the Vulcan rescue crew that Mestral died in the crash with the captain. When T’Pol is done with telling this story, Tucker asks her if it is true, and she merely states that he asked for a story. Then she returns to her quarters and takes out a handbag that T’Mir got on Earth that was given to T’Pol.
In this episode, when T’Pol tells the story of T’Mir’s actions to Archer and Tucker, although she may not be aware of it, she is helping herself heal from ancestral trauma. T’Mir told a lie, which Vulcans are not supposed to do, so that Mestral could stay on Earth. She not only betrayed her Vulcan upbringing in doing so, but she also betrayed the Vulcan’s directive to not interfere with lesser alien cultures. The guilt of this is an ancestral trauma that T’Pol holds in her psyche, despite her respect for T’Mir. By telling her truth to Archer and Tucker she helped heal this psychic wound. This is why it is so important for individuals to feel that their voices and stories are heard, especially those who have historically not been given the opportunity to do so. When these stories are told it also helps to heal the anima mundi, or soul of the world.
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