Synopsis: Enterprise rides through a neutronic storm, with her crew and their unexpected guests sheltering in a catwalk.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how it can feel uncomfortable for the Logos-driven rational conscious ego when it acknowledges bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious.
In “The Catwalk” Enterprise is hailed by an alien ship, her crew seeking shelter from an incoming neuronic storm – lethal to life forms aboard Enterprise. The crew will shelter in the heavily fortified catwalk area inside one of the ship’s nacelles, but that will mean turning off the warp engines. When the engines go back on line, Commander Charles (Trip) Tucker dons an environmental suit to ascertain the cause and discovers that there is a group of alien soldiers on Enterprise looking for refugees. Dr. Phlox then examines the aliens seeking shelter and learns that they are immune from the storm. They admit to Captain Jonathan Archer that they are who the soldiers are looking for. They are deserters from the Takret Militia. The militia is trying to take over Enterprise, but Archer contacts their captain and tells him that he will destroy Enterprise before he lets them have her. Archer instructs Ensign Travis Mayweather to pilot Enterprise toward a plasma eddy and this causes the militia members to leave the ship. Enterprise makes it through the storm and the three deserters head out for a distant system.
In this episode, the crew can be seen as embodying the conscious ego and the aliens seeking refuge, compared to bits of material from the unconscious. The aliens saved Enterprise by alerting them to the dangers of the storm, but then also put them in danger, because of the militia that came to find them. This can be compared to how some bits of unconscious material do alert us to danger and keep us alive, if we listen to them, but at the same time, can also present other complications that the ego is unable to foresee. This can be analogized to what can happen, both potentially helpful and potentially harmful, when the conscious ego acknowledges and integrates bits of unconscious material into itself to become stronger and the psyche more whole.
mydailysoultrek 