Synopsis: While Captain Freeman, Commander Ransom, and Lt. Shaxs are on a secret covert mission, a visiting captain joins the U.S.S. Cerritos crew.
This episode can be seen an illustration of what Carl (C. G.) Jung called projection, when one individual projects a bit of their own unconscious material onto another.
In “Much Ado About Boimler” Captain Carol Freeman, Commander Jack Ransom, and Lt. Shaxs are sent on a covert away mission. This means that a visiting captain, Amina Ramsey, and some of her senior crew come aboard the U.S.S. Cerritos while the others are gone. Ramsey was a close friend of Ensign Beckett Mariner at Starfleet Academy, and seems surprised that Mariner holds only the rank of ensign. Ramsey asks Mariner to act as her first officer while she is on Cerritos. At first, it seems as if Mariner can do nothing right in this role, until in a dire situation aboard the U.S.S. Rubidoux, when she seems as capable as she always has been. Mariner admits to Ramsey that she may have been performing badly because she thought that Ramsey would promote her to first officer on a permanent basis. But once she admitted this to Ramsey, Mariner reverted back to her regular highly competent self, and the crew of the Rubidoux are safely evacuated back to the Cerritos.
In this episode, when Ramsey promotes Mariner to the rank of first officer, this can be analogized to when an individual projects a bit of unconscious material onto another. And when Ramsey confronts Mariner about her job performance and Mariner admits that she was afraid that Ramsey would promote her permanently can be compared to when an individual realizes that they have projected a bit of unconscious material onto another. Meaning that the projection has becomes conscious. And when this happens, then the projection can be dropped and the individual can see the other as they are rather than as who they want that person to be. This is also what happened when Ramsey was able to value Mariner as who she was, not as who Ramsey wanted her to be.
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