Synopsis: A Starfleet cadet’s resolve to follow orders is tested.
This episode can be seen as yet another illustration of how the conscious ego tries to suppress bits of material from the unconscious.
In “Ask Not,” Starfleet Cadet Thira Sidhu, serving on Starbase 28, is asked to guard a prisoner who’s identity has been hidden. The prisoner, alleged to have committed mutiny, is revealed to be Captain Christopher Pike. After the security officers that brought him there have left, Pike tells Sidhu that he is being confined because against orders he tried to rescue the vessel that Sidhu’s husband serves on. Pike tries to use technicalities in Starfleet rules to justify his actions and after Sidhu and Pike recite codes and regulations to one another, Sidhu tells Pike that loopholes are not her style. When Sidhu refuses to release Pike, it is revealed that this was a test on her abilities and she will now serve aboard Enterprise.
In this episode, testing Sidhu’s resolve to follow Starfleet regulations, even at the expense of her husband’s life, can be compared to how the conscious ego will go to great lengths to try to suppress bits of unconscious material, in the belief that it alone can control the psyche. Training oneself to ignore ones natural impulses can be dangerous in that the individual can become psychically one-sided. And while Starfleet, and other hierarchal organizations might deem this necessary in a wartime situation, it can come with great costs to the individuals who serve. Ironically, while in an episode from Star Trek: Discovery Pike has been held up as an example of all that is good in Starfleet, his own actions seem to temper his military training with following his gut instincts when needed. And this can be compared to the conscious ego acknowledging and integrating these very bits of unconscious material that sometimes it chooses to suppress, to become stronger and the psyche more whole.
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