Synopsis: Enterprise’s crew comes to the aid of an alien vessel in distress, but once aboard, the aliens’ leader plans to take over the ship.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how completely differently the Logos-driven rational conscious ego and the Eros-driven irrational unconscious interact inside one’s psyche.
In “Chosen Realm,” Enterprise receives a distress call from the crew aboard an alien vessel and goes to assist them. The alien crew comes aboard Enterprise for medical care, yet their religion forbids them from allowing Dr. Phlox to scan them. Captain Jonathan Archer speaks with their leader Pri’Nam D’Jamat. D’Jamat explains to Archer that they are from the planet Triannon and that what the Enterprise crew calls the Delphic Expanse they call the Chosen Realm. And while Archer’s team is studying the spheres, D’Jamat’s people venerate them. They are on a pilgrimage. However, D’Jamat has a plan to take over the ship and take her to Triannon to kill the heretics there. But when Enterprise reaches Triannon, the planet has been decimated by mutual bombing.
In this episode, as in many, the crew of the Enterprise can be seen as embodying the rational conscious ego, and the aliens, here the Triannons, can be seen as representing the irrational unconscious – the crew believing in science, the Triannons instead explaining their world, and here their realm, through their faith. In “Chosen Realm” both groups feel that they know the truth and that the other is heretic. The Triannons believe the crew is just as heretical as those that oppose them on their own world. But when they arrive at Triannon they see what happens when two groups of people both believe that they are the ones that know the truth and are unwilling to hear what others have to say. This is dangerous when the conscious ego acts in this fashion and can be even more so when the unconscious feels this way. The only way to avoid the same type of devastation as what occurred on Triannon is for the two sides to acknowledge the other side’s right to exist. This can be analogized to when the conscious ego acknowledges bits of material from the unconscious.
mydailysoultrek 