Synopsis: The first contact team aboard the U.S.S. Discovery establishes communication with Species Ten-C while Ruon Tarka takes over Cleveland Booker’s ship for his own mission.
This episode can be seen as illustrations of what Carl (C. G.) Jung termed inflation, when the conscious ego identifies with the godlike power of an archetype.
In “Species Ten-C” the U.S.S. Discovery arrives at the hyperfield orb, the location of Species Ten-C and the Dark Matter Anomaly (DMA). The first contact team tries to engage Species Ten-C with hydrocarbons and Discovery is pulled into the hyperfield along with Cleveland (Book) Booker’s ship. Species Ten-C sends another message, but when they are unimpressed with the response they receive, they stop trying to make contact. The Discovery crew tries to reestablish communications with Species Ten-C. While this is going on, Ruon Tarka takes control of Booker’s ship for his own mission to remove the DMA’s power source, to use it to travel to join his friend in another universe. The first contact team discovers a way to communicate with Species Ten-C, but when Tarka takes Booker’s ship, creates a rupture in the hyperfield orb. and flies Booker’s ship through it, the talks cease.
In this episode, Tarka is on a mission that he believes only he can complete and that is more important than anything that anyone else is trying to accomplish. Tarka’s taking control of Booker’s ship and burning a hole through the hyperfield orb to gain possession of the DMA power source, without any regard to how this will affect anyone else, can be seen as an illustration of inflation, when the ego identifies too closely or for too long with the godlike power of an unconscious archetype. And as negatively as this drive is represented by Tarka, another illustration of inflation in this episode is Captain Michael Burnham and the first contact teams’ unshakable belief that they will find a way to find a way to communicate with the much more advanced Species Ten-C. This amount of ego inflation can be analogized to the necessity amount that is required to begin or move the individuation process forward. By acknowledging and integrating a bit of unconscious material into itself, the ego begins this ongoing progression toward making itself stronger and the psyche more whole.
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