Synopsis: Discovery arrives at Federation and Starfleet Headquarters and her crew goes on a mission to try to prove to Admiral Vance that they should remain together.
This episode can also be seen as an illustration of what Carl (C. G.) Jung called the transcendent function.
In “Die Trying,” after Discovery arrives at the headquarters of what remains of the Federation and Starfleet, Captain Saru, Commander Michael Burnham, and Adira Tal are beamed aboard. They are met by Admiral Charles Vance, Commander and Chief of Starfleet, and his Chief Security Officer, Lt. Audrey Willa. After debriefing Saru and Burnham, Vance tells them that he still cannot corroborate their story without evidence, and tells them that he will requisition Discovery and reassign her crew. However, Burnham and Saru are able to convince him to send Discovery on a life-saving mission to prove their loyalty and worth. He agrees, and Discovery jumps to the location of a ship that contains a seed vault—samples of seeds from Federation planets—to access seeds to a plant that holds a cure for a plague that is affecting the Kili species. The mission is successful, and Vance tells Saru that the Discovery crew can stay together.
In this episode, Saru can be seen as embodying the rational rules and regulation that is at the core of Starfleet, and is diplomatic in his dealing with Vance. While Burnham can be seen as representing more of the emotional feelings behind the rules and is more abrupt and less diplomatic in her dealings with the admiral. Yet, when they are united in the cause to save the Kili, their combined efforts result in a positive outcome and Vance agrees to keep the Discovery crew together, with the understanding that Discovery will go where and when he says so. The complimentary efforts of the rational and the irrational feelings here, can be compared to what Jung called the transcendent function, which was facilitated by the union of opposites, the ongoing process by which the ego acknowledges and integrates into itself bits of unconscious material. The outcome of the transcendent function is individuation, the ego becoming stronger, and the psyche becoming more whole.
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