Synopsis: Lieutenants junior grade, Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford go on an away mission and are trapped in a cave.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of Carl (C. G.) Jung’s concept of projection—when one’s conscious ego projects bits on unconscious material from one’s psyche onto another.
In “Caves” Lieutenants junior grade Mariner Beckett, Bradward Boimler, D’Vana Tendi, and Samanthan Rutherford are sent on an away mission in a cave on the planet Grottonus. Almost as soon as they get there Commander Jack Ransom calls to warn them that the Cerritos is picking up tremors on the planet. Communications are cut off mid-message and the four find themselves in the dark. Mariner kicks some moss, which starts to glow. But then the moss eats Tendi’s shoe. Boimler then recalls how he was trapped in a cave with Lt. Steve Levy, a conspiracy theory believer who thought that the Vendorians were giving them a morality test. As it turns out, he was right and they flunked the test because they were bickering. But then Levy told the Vendorians that he was a big fan of their work and they became friends. In another flashback, Rutherford remembers how he was stuck in a cave with Dr. T’Ana on Balkus IX, on a mission to gather ferns. During this mission, their guide through the caves, Thusa, dies after being attacked by a Grafflax, but Rutherford was able to communicate with the Grafflax and learns that the creature was protecting its baby. The Grafflax then leads Rutherford and T’Ana out of the cave. Then Mariner recounts how she was on a mission with the Delta shift and bonded with them. The moss then grabs the crew and tells them that they cannot leave until Tendi tells her story. Tendi recalls how the four got stuck in a turbolift and how she told them how worried she was about being pre-judged for being an Orion. The moss asks to be the team’s friend. He wants them to tell stories while they scan the cave. Elsewhere in the cave, we see that the moss is controlled by the Vendorians, and this time everyone passed the morality test.
In this episode, the stories that Boimler, Rutherford, Mariner, and Tendi tell all have one thing in common—they were all instances where the storyteller was in a situation where they thought one thing, and then was shown that their assumptions were completely wrong. Boimler thought Levy was wrong to believe that they were being given a morality test by the Vendorians, but this was exactly what was occurring. Rutherford and T’Ana feared the Grafflax, until they learned that the creature was protecting its young and meant them no harm. Mariner disliked the Delta shift because they were not her team, but then learned about them and bonded with them. Tendi feared what the others would think of her, but then learned that they accepted her for who she was. These instances can all be analogized to how the conscious ego projects bits of unconscious material onto another, only to learn that what is being projected is part of its own psyche. After the ego acknowledges this, it can integrate the unconscious material into itself to become more whole, and also see the individual that was being onto for who they really are.
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