Synopsis: When a communicator is left behind on a planet, Captain Archer and Lt. Reed go back to retrieve it.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how a cultural complex comes into being.
“The Communicator” begins with Captain Jonathan Archer, Lt. Malcolm Reed, and Ensign Hoshi Sato returning from an away mission in which they had been physically altered to appear native to the planet. Upon exiting the decontamination chamber, Reed discovers that his communicator is missing. Sub-Commander T’Pol states that it is vital to get it back, as the planet is a pre-warp society. Archer and Reed take a shuttlepod to retrieve it, only to be taken prisoner by one side of a brewing military conflict on the planet. The leader of the soldiers that have taken them, General Gosis, believes they are spies, and plans to execute them. It is also discovered that Archer and Reed have been physically altered, and Reed tells Gosis that they have been genetically enhanced. Meanwhile, to mount a rescue, T’Pol, Commander Charles (Trip) Tucker, and Ensign Travis Mayweather take a Suliban cube ship with the capacity to cloak itself to the planet. This was the cube that Archer used to return to Enterprise in the first episode of the season. Archer and Reed are rescued and all Starfleet technology is accounted for. Later, T’Pol comes to see Archer and he thanks her for saving them. She tells him that you don’t need to leave evidence behind to contaminate a culture. And that now the soldiers believe that the other side has genetically enhanced operatives.
In this episode, when T’Pol tells Archer that you don’t need to leave evidence behind to contaminate a culture, this can be analogized to how a cultural complex may not be visible to outsiders, but still affects those in the effected society. A cultural complex being a psychic wound held by a group of people, that can lead to misunderstandings and unintentional re-wounding by those from the outside. Yet, when a cultural complex is recognized and addressed, it can lead to healing just as how when the conscious ego acknowledges and integrates bits of unconscious material into itself it becomes stronger and the psyche more whole.
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