Synopsis: Captain Freeman pits the Cerritos and her crew against the automated Texas-classed ships created by Vice Admiral Buenamigo.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of James Hillman’s acorn theory, that just as every acorn has everything it needs inside it to become an oak tree, we all have inner daimons, that have all the information we need to become who we are meant to be.
In “The Stars at Night,” in an effort to prove the worth of the California-class ships, Captain Carol Freeman challenges the Texas-class automated ships created by Vice Admiral Les Buenamigo, to a competition. During the mission, Freeman learns that the programming that Buenamigo used in constructing the automated ships is flawed. When she alerts Buenamigo to this, he perceives this as a threat and orders the Texas-classed ships to destroy Cerritos. Meanwhile, Ensign Beckett Mariner, has been working with former Starfleet officer, Petra Aberdeen, to rescue archeological artifacts from the black market. But when she learns that the Cerritos is being attacked, Mariner engages all the other California-class ships to come to the rescue of the Cerritos and her crew. After which, Mariner decides to return to the Cerritos and Starfleet.
In this episode, while Mariner is able to find some purpose in returning archeological artifacts to their rightful homes, when the Cerritos is in trouble, she realizes that she is a Starfleet officer at heart and cannot help but to come to the rescue of the vessel. After the ship is safe, Mariner then decides to return to her crew. This can be compared to when an individual listens to their own inner daimon, that as Hillman wrote, has all the information we need to be who we were meant to become, if we only listen to it. Here, Mariner listens to her inner daimon, and returns to the Cerritos, which she feels is her home, to the crew that is her family, and to Starfleet, and its mission that resonates with her highest ideals.
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