Synopsis: Admiral Picard and Guinan learn the reasons behind their confinement, while Kore Soong learns about how she came to be.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how our society’s goal of evolution.
In “Mercy” Admiral Jean-Luc Picard and Guinan are being held in an FBI location by Special Agent Martin Wells. The two are separated. Picard continues to be interrogated by Wells and in the process learns that when Wells was a boy out looking for his dog one night he happened upon two Vulcans, and that one of them touched his face. Picard explains to him that the Vulcan was trying to perform a mind meld and erase the memory of coming upon them. Picard also admits he is from the future. In another room Q appears to Guinan and she senses that he is dying. Picard and Guinan are brought back together. They talk about how humans blame their problems on the past until they can rectify it. That humans do this because they want to evolve. Guinan says that this is unique in the galaxy. Wells then frees Picard and Guinan. Meanwhile, elsewhere on Earth, Kore Soong is contacted by Q and learns of her father’s secret shortly before Dr. Agnes Jurati, who has been compromised by the Borg Queen arrives at their home and tells Dr. Adam Soong that if he helps her, she knows how to rescue his career.
In this episode, the conversation between Picard and Guinan where they discuss what makes humans unique, they are describing the drive found in humans to evolve, to perfect themselves. However, trying to perfect oneself also comes with a cost; part of oneself that is considered imperfect is suppressed. This can be damaging to the psyche. Here, this can be analogized to Kore’s earlier sisters that Dr. Soong created but who did not survive, in his attempt to produce a perfect human. In contrast to this, depth psychology is more focused on balancing the conscious and unconscious parts of our psyches. The goal here is not perfection, but to acknowledge and integrate unconscious material that the conscious ego might consider imperfect, to make it stronger and the psyche more whole.
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