Synopsis: Captain Pike takes command of the U.S.S. Discovery and has a new mission for her crew.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of a cultural complex, which occurs when there has been a psychic wounding in an entire society.
In “Brother”Captain Christopher Pike, who had until this episode been in command aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, comes aboard the U.S.S. Discovery in his role as her new captain. On the bridge after assuming command, Pike assures the crew that he knows that Captain Gabriel Lorca betrayed them, but that he is not Lorca. Pike also informs them of their new mission, to investigate seven mysterious red signals that have appeared without explanation. They follow one of the signals to an asteroid belt where they locate a Starfleet vessel, the U.S.S. Hiawatha, which has been stranded for ten months. An away team, which includes Pike and Commander Michael Burnham, rescues Commander Jett Reno and several severely wounded members of the Hiawatha crew. They are all safely transported to Discovery except for Burnham, who is injured in an explosion. Burnham sees a red angel-like figure and then is rescued by Pike.
In this episode, when Pike first comes aboard Discovery, he has been ordered to take command of a crew that has felt betrayed by their former captain, Lorca. This causes them to not automatically let him into their network of trust, although of course they followed his orders. This likely would not have been the case if the crew had not felt so violated by Lorca’s actions. Pike had to prove that he was worthy of their trust, which he did by rescuing not only the remaining members of the Hiawatha crew, but going back personally to make sure Burnham made it back safely to the ship. This can be compared to a cultural complex, a psychic wound that is felt not only by an individual, but borne by a whole society. By acknowledging that the wound is there, which Pike did when he took command and told the crew that he was not Lorca, is the first step in healing the wound. Pike’s actions further continued the healing process, and as a result, he was integrated into the crew. This can be analogized to when the conscious ego acknowledges and integrates a bit of unconscious material, such as a psychic wound, into itself, to become stronger and make the psyche more whole.
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