Synopsis: Enterprise and her crew come across a small vessel adrift in space.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how unknowable the Eros-driven irrational unconscious can be to the Logos-driven rational conscious ego.
In “Future Tense” Enterprise comes across a small vessel adrift in space. Captain Jonathan Archer orders that it be brought aboard. Once it is safely in the launch bay, Archer goes inside it and discovers a human corpse. Archer reports the find back to Admiral Maxwell Forrest while Commander Charles (Trip) Tucker and Lt. Malcolm Reed inspect the vessel more closely. The are shocked to discover that the small ship seems bigger on the inside then it is on the outside. Meanwhile, Enterprise is fired on by a Suliban vessel, that’s commander says that the Suliban have a salvage claim on it. The Suliban come aboard Enterprise, but then just as quickly disappear. Archer, thinking that the temporal cold war could be at issue, goes into Crewman Daniels’ former quarters with Sub-Commander T’Pol, and they discover that the small vessel matches the schematics of a ship from 900 years in the future. However, T’Pol maintains that time travel is not possible. Then a Tholian vessel approaches and its commander hails Enterprise and tells Archer that it wants the ship and that it may emit some dangerous radiation. As it turns out, Trip and Reed get caught in a time loop, and eventually, the small ship disappears without any explanation.
In this episode, the small ship, that came out of nowhere and holds mysteries that the crew cannot give a reason for, can be compared to when the conscious ego first comes in contact with a bit of unconscious material. Because the material is unconscious, the ego cannot really understand it, but if the ego acknowledges its existence, it can work toward integrating the bit of unconscious material into itself, to become stronger and the psyche more whole.
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