Synopsis: Admiral Picard, Seven of Nine, Captain Rios, Commander Musiker, Cadet Elnor, and Dr. Jurati find themselves in a parallel timeline.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of what happens when the conscious ego suppresses unconscious material.
“Penance” begins with Admiral Jean-Luc Picard being confronted by Q in a parallel timeline. Q tells him that he is there not to learn a lesson, but as penance. Picard learns that in this timeline he is a feared military general, responsible for many atrocities and the owner of slaves. Seven of Nine is the president of the Confederation of Earth, and Dr. Agnes Jurati is preparing the Borg Queen for execution by Picard’s hands for the Eradication Day ceremony. Picard and Seven of Nine beam to Jurati’s laboratory, where the Borg Queen tells them that the parallel timeline that they are is a result of one change that Q made to history in 2024. Picard and the others decide to go back in time to 2024 to undo the change, but realize that they need the Borg Queen’s assistance to do it. Seven of Nine as president orders now Colonel Cristóbal Rios – at least in this timeline – to Earth, and Picard, Seven of Nine, Jurati, and the Borg Queen beam up to the La Sirena, along with Commander Raffaela Musiker and Starfleet Cadet Elnor.
In this episode, when Q tells Picard that what he is going to put him through is penance, this can be compared to what the conscious ego feels like it is experiencing when it finally is forced to work with unconscious material that it has suppressed. Often the way these bits of unconscious material come to the attention of the ego is through a complex. But in Jungian teachings, complexes are not necessarily negative. Instead, Jung viewed them as an opportunity for self-knowledge. And when this self-knowledge is gained, by the ego acknowledging and integrating into itself bits of unconscious material, then the ego will become stronger and the psyche more whole.
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