Synopsis: Admiral Cornwell comes aboard Discovery and takes her to Section 31 Headquarters in an effort to disable Control.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how sometimes the conscious ego fights off acknowledging and incorporating unconscious material.
In “Project Daedalus” Admiral Katrina Cornwell comes aboard Discovery covertly. She tells Captain Christopher Pike that she needs to speak with Lt. Spock. He tells her that Section 31’s mission is now different from Starfleet’s. Cornwell then tells Pike and the crew about Control, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system that was created to help command level officers detect and avoid threat, but that now was the biggest threat to them. Discovery goes to Section 31 Headquarters on a deserted penal colony. Once there, Control is able to manipulate Lt. Commander Airiam through her cybernetic augmentation. Commander Michael Burnham, Commander Nhan and Airiam beam down into Section 31 Headquarters only to find dead bodies. Airiam then tries to download into Control all the information about AI from the sphere archives; information that Control wants so that it can evolve. Airiam sacrifices herself so that this will not happen.
In this episode, Airiam and the other Starfleet officers can be seen as embodying the rational conscious ego. In fact, Cornwell even tells Pike that he represents the very best of Starfleet. Although it is an AI system, Control, in its ability to act in the shadows and without qualms about the outcome of its actions, here can be seen to be acting like the irrational unconscious. When Control tried to take over Airiam against her will, she struggled against it, and in the end defeated it in its abilities to manipulate her. This can be compared to how the rational conscious ego often will fight off the irrational unconscious, especially when it fears being taken over.
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