Synopsis: The U.S.S. Discovery and her crew travels to the Verubin Nebula to rescue a survivor of the Burn.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how what Carl (C. G.) Jung called projection.
In “Su’Kal,” the U.S.S. Discovery crew determines that not only did the Burn occur in the Verubin Nebula, but that a survivor of it is there. Discovery is sent to the nebula and discovers that a Kelpien research vessel, the K.S.F. Khi’eth, crash landed on a planet made up of dilithium. Captain Saru, Commander Michael Burnham, and Dr. Hugh Culber beam aboard the wreckage of the Khi’eth, and find Su’Kal in a grand holoprogram that his mother, Dr. Issa, created to keep him safe until he could be rescued from the planet. They realize also that Su’Kal might not understand that there is a world outside the program. Soon after, they discover that there is a monster present in the program that Su’Kal is afraid of. Saru and Culber go look for Su’Kal, while Burnham looks for the monster. While searching for Su’Kal, Saru encounters a holograph of an elder Kelpien who tells Saru that Su’Kal will not be able to leave this place until he confronts his fear, which is embodied by the monster. Burnham finds Su’Kal and when he asks if she is a program she responds that she is part of a program to teach him social interaction. Saru and Culber finds Burnham and Su’Kal, but so does the monster. The monster frightens Su’Kal, which causes a disruption in space. Saru, Burnham, and Culber then realize that something must have happened to Su’Kal when he was a child that caused the Burn. Meanwhile, on Discovery, the rest of the crew is dealing with Osyraa, who has confronted them with her warship, Viridian.
In this episode, Su’Kal’s entire world is made up of projections and the elder Kelpien holograph is prescient in his telling Saru that Su’Kal will not be able to leave the program until he faces it. That this is difficult is evidenced by the spacial disruption that occurred when Su’Kal tried before. But when he does face it, Su’Kal releases himself as well as the others from the holoprogram, and they find themselves on the bridge of the Khi’eth where they can be rescued. This can be analogized to Jung’s concept of how projection works. He described projection as when the conscious ego projects bits of unconscious material from the psyche onto another individual. If the bit of unconscious material is something the ego believes is unacceptable, then the “other” that is projected onto can be seen as hostile or undesirable, as here. But when the projection is removed, the ego can see the other for who they really are and the ego can begin the healing process of integrating the bit of unconscious material into itself to become stronger and the psyche more whole.
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