Synopsis: The crew of the U.S.S. Discovery is victimized by a time bug.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of what Carl (C. G.) Jung called projection, one way one’s conscious ego becomes aware of unconscious material from one’s psyche.
In “Face the Strange,” the U.S.S. Discovery is victimized by a time bug that takes affect just as Captain Michael Burnham and Commander Rayner are trying to transport to the bridge. When this does not work, they take a turbolift to the bridge only to find that the bridge crew are all unconscious and Burnham realizing that they have been taken to an event from the ship’s past. Once this observation has been made, Burnham and Rayner are sent back to their same location as when the initial incident occurred. Rayner then recognizes this technology and they realize that they are immune to the shifts in time because they were trying to transport at the moment of the first attack. Burnham recalls that Commander Paul Stamets would also be immune to the time travel because of his tardigrade DNA that lives outside of time. The three work together to devise a way to disengage the time bug, but to do so they must convince the crew from an earlier time period to trust them, and this includes an earlier version of Burnham herself. They do this by convincing the crew members and the earlier version of Burnham, that they are not the enemy.
In this episode, when Burnham and Rayner are brought back to the time when Burnham first came aboard Discovery, and Burnham comes across her younger self, her younger self sees Burnham as an enemy appearing to be her. Younger Burnham notes Burnham’s rank and cannot believe that she will have the opportunity to become a captain because she is currently a prisoner with no rank. Younger Burnham projects her frustration and negative feelings onto Burnham and Rayner, and does everything in her power to stop them from completing their mission. However, when Rayner convinces the younger version of Burnham that Burnham has indeed become captain, the Younger Burnham stops projecting upon Rayner and Burnham, and sees them as who they really are. This can be compared to when the conscious ego projects bits of unconscious material onto another individual. When this happens, the ego cannot see the person for who they are, and also does not recognize the unconscious material as being part of its own psyche. But when the ego withdraws the projection from another and acknowledges and integrates the unconscious material into itself, then it is made stronger and the psyche more whole. And the other individual can be seen for who they truly are.
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