Synopsis: Captain Freeman decides to eliminate a practice known as “buffer time.”
This episode can be seen an illustration of what can happen when the conscious ego suppresses bits of unconscious material.
In “Temporal Edicts” Ensigns Beckett Mariner and Samanthan Rutherford tell Ensign D’Vana Tendi about a practice known as “buffer time,” which is basically padding the anticipated time frame for an assignment, to allow a bit of breathing room between tasks. Ensign Brad Boimler overhears this and inadvertently mentions this to Captain Carol Freeman. Freeman is outraged and tightens the schedule for the entire crew, believing that this will make the operations of the U.S.S. Cerritos more efficient. The result was just the opposite. The entire crew becomes so stressed and hard pressed to complete assignments on time that they start making mistakes that have a disastrous result, they are being attacked by the very species that they had come to honor with a gift. Freeman then orders the crew to break any rule that they need to in order to stop the onslaught. And the crew is able to get the ship back.
In this episode, the crew’s need for buffer time, to relax and take a breather between assignments, can be analogized to the need of the unconscious to be acknowledged and honored by the conscious ego. When the ego tries to blindly force its will on the psyche, the psyche becomes unbalanced and unstable. Carl (C. G.) Jung called this being too one-sided. But when the crew was allowed to do the practical thing, instead of following all regulations to the letter, they were happier and more efficient. Just as the ego is made stronger and the psyche made more whole when the ego acknowledges and integrates bits of unconscious material into itself.
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