Synopsis: Retired Admiral Picard visits Vashti in search of a warrior.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of what it looks like when the conscious ego acknowledges bits of unconscious material and integrates them into itself.
In “Absolute Candor” Retired Admiral Jean-Luc Picard makes a visit to a Vashti, a planet that fourteen years ago was a Romulan relocation hub. Picard visits the home of a group of warrior nuns, the Qowat Milat, who are also the most feared enemy of the Romulan secret intelligence group, the Tal Shiar. The Qowat Milat live under an oath of absolute candor. When Picard goes to this place he is surprised that Elnor, who had been a young boy when Picard last saw him, still lives with the nuns. Elnor agrees to go with Picard and aid him in his mission because it meets his criteria, it is a lost cause.
In this episode, Picard can be seen as embodying the conscious ego, and the Qowat Milat nuns as the unconscious. When Picard goes to Vashti to seek them out, he finds the nuns, who live by absolute candor – something not acceptable to Romulan society or Starfleet for that matter – have something that he needs to make his mission more likely to succeed. By acknowledging that he needs help and cannot go on without it, his actions can be compared to when the conscious ego accepts that it is not the only part of the psyche, and cannot go on as if it is alone. When Elnor offers to go with him and Picard accepts his aid, this can be compared to when the conscious ego integrates bits of unconscious material into itself to make it stronger and the psyche more whole.
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