Synopsis: Enterprise locates the wreck of a Xindi vessel on a planet that contains a hatchery of Insectoid Xindi, of which Captain Archer becomes unusually protective.
This episode can be seen as how a feeling-toned complex can force the Logos-driven rational conscious ego to acknowledge the existence of bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious.
In “Hatchery,” Enterprise’s sensors locate the wreck of a Xindi vessel on a planet. Captain Jonathan Archer leads a team of Sub-Commander T’Pol, Major J. Hayes, Lt. Malcolm Reed, and Commander Charles (Trip) Tucker to investigate. The team comes across dead Xindi of the Insectoid species and in a sub chamber, a highly protected hatchery. Archer gets close to an egg which projects a fluid, which lands on his face, burning it. Dr. Phlox heals the minor burn, but Archer becomes increasingly protective of the hatchery, placing its welfare above that of Enterprise’s mission. T’Pol, and then Reed, object to Archer transferring Enterprise’s antimatter reserves to the hatchery in order to repower it. Tucker also objects to this as harming Enterprise’s mission, and eventually is forced to stun Archer when he starts bonding with the newly hatched Insectoids. Phlox then discovers that the fluid contained a neurochemical in it which caused Archer to take on the role of the Insectoids’ protector.
In this episode, the Insectoid egg propelling the neurochemical fluid onto Archer’s face that in turn changes his behavior in a way that he has no control over, can be compared to how a feeling toned complex alters the reactions of the conscious ego. One knows that one is in the throes of a complex when one cannot help oneself but to act in a certain way, as is the case with what happens to Archer here. But when the unconscious material that the complex alerts the conscious ego to is acknowledged and integrated into itself, self-knowledge and sometimes change can happen.
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