Synopsis: Commander Tucker comes to the aid of a beautiful female alien held against her will in an alien stasis pod.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of what it feels like for the Logos-driven rational conscious ego when it acknowledges bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious, specifically one’s inner anima.
In “Precious Cargo” Enterprise is hailed by a Retellian freighter needing assistance to repair a malfunctioning stasis pod. Commander Charles (Trip) Tucker goes aboard the alien vessel to start repairs. He cannot help but to notice that inside the stasis pod is a beautiful female alien. When she unexpectedly comes out of stasis, Tucker sees that she is trying to get out of the pod and helps her. This alerts the pilot of the freighter, Goff, who has been aboard Enterprise, along with his crewmate, Plinn. Goff returns to the freighter and takes off, with Tucker aboard his vessel and Plinn left on Enterprise. The female alien, Kaitaama, the First Monarch of the Sovereign Dynasty of Krios Prime, tells Tucker that she was abducted and was being held for ransom, so they leave the freighter in an escape pod. The escape pod lands on a swamp-like planet where Kaitaama and Tucker struggle to survive until help can arrive. They become close. Goff arrives on the planet and the two of them fight him off. Then a rescue team from Enterprise comes to take them back to the ship, from which Kaitaama will be safely returned to her world.
In this episode, Tucker can be seen as embodying the conscious ego and Kaitaama can be compared to his unconscious inner anima, his inner ideal other, one bit of material in an individual’s unconscious. In Star Trek generally, the crewmembers of the various Starfleet vessels quite often are so cut off from the bits of material in their unconscious that the only way to portray them is through the aliens that they meet in their mission of exploration. For Tucker, the demands of his anima seem irrational to him, but when both Tucker and Kaitaama work together, they are able to survive, and learn to appreciate each other. This can be analogized to what happens when the conscious ego acknowledges and integrates its inner anima into itself to become stronger and the psyche more whole.
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