Synopsis: While investigating a time portal, Ensign Boimler and Ensign Mariner are sent back in time to the U.S.S. Enterprise commanded by Captain Pike.
This episode illustrates what Carl (C.G.) Jung called a cultural complex—a common wound felt by all members of a particular group or society.
In “Those Old Scientists” the U.S.S. Cerritos is tasked with assessing the health of a time portal on Krulmuth-B, which Starfleet remembers as being discovered by Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. However, Ensign D’Vana Tendi tells her fellow lower deck crewmates that the portal was discovered by an Orion science vessel that her great-grandmother was a crewmember on. Ensign Bradward Boimler scoffs at this, implying that Orions were all pirates at that time. On the planet, Boimler is accidentally sent through the portal and finds himself on Krulmuth-B one hundred and twenty years earlier, in the company of Lt. Spock, Commander Una Chin-Riley, and Lt. La’an Noonien-Singh. Boimler is brought back to the Enterprise, just as she is hailed by the captain of another ship claiming to be an Orion science vessel. However, the Orion vessel steals the portal. Boimler helps the Enterprise crew track the Orion vessel and Pike makes a trade with the Orions so that they will return the portal to Krulmuth-B. After the portal is restored, Pike, Noonien-Singh, Spock, and Boimler go down to the planet. Boimler steps through the portal, but instead of him being returned to his time Ensign Beckett Mariner falls through. Spock devises a way for the portal to be used one more time. But when Boimler, Mariner, Pike and Noonien-Singh beam down to Krulmuth-B they are met by the Orions. Pike tells the Orions that if they let Boimler and Mariner use the portal then he will make sure history will reflect that Orion scientists discovered it. Boimler and Mariner return back to their time, in which Tendi’s point of view is now correct.
In this episode, what Tendi and the Orions felt—that Starfleet considered them pirates and thieves—can be seen as a cultural complex, a psychic wound felt by Orions in the time of Pike’s Enterprise as well as by Tendi over one hundred years later. One could also say that Starfleet has a cultural superiority complex when it comes to how they feel about the Orions, because Starfleet believes that its rules and regulations are more just than the Orions. This in turn feeds the Orion’s complex. However, in acknowledging the existence of these complexes, Pike was able to bargain to restore Boimler and Mariner to their correct place in history. Just as amazing things can happen when we recognize that we as a culture also have psychic wounds that cause us to act in the ways we do.
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