Synopsis: Captain Burnham and Lt. Tilly visit a pre-warp civilization in search of the next clue to the location of the Progenitors’ technology.
This episode can be seen as another illustration of what Carl (C. G.) Jung called the union of opposites—the conscious and the unconscious.
In “Whistlespeak,” the U.S.S. Discovery jumps to a pre-warp civilization on the planet Halem’no which is also home to an ancient weather tower that was constructed by the Denobulan scientist, Dr. Hitoroshi Kreel. The weather tower disperses rain water and Kreel placed its technology in a large natural structure that the Halem’nites called the High Summit. When the technology of the weather tower began to fail, rain dried up, dust storms began to form, and the Halem’nites believed that their gods were angry at them. The Halem’nite have a legend about a woman made a pilgrimage to the High Summit, sacrificing her life for her children and that this pleased the gods, who made it rain again. This has led to the reenactment of the original pilgrimage as an offering to the gods. Captain Michael Burnham and Lt. Junior Grade Silvia Tilly arrive on Halem’no and join a pilgrimage. Once underway, Burnham believes that yellow moss she discovers along the route will lead to the weather tower’s control panel, and sets out to find it, while Tilly continues to the High Summit. Once there, Tilly and a young Halem’nite, Ravah, are brought inside a chamber and sealed in as a sacrifice. Ravah shows Tilly the meaning of inscriptions on the walls of the chamber, which lead Burnham to discover the next clue—after she saves Tilly and Ravah from being sacrificed.
In this episode, the existence on Halem’no of ancient alien advanced technology and a native deep spiritual belief can be analogized to the human psyche containing both the conscious and unconscious. One way to think of the alien machinery is as a scientific solution to a rational problem; but the Halem’nites who do not know there is such a piece of equipment inside their High Summit, believe that it is a place where the gods can be communicated with. The etchings on the wall of the chamber, which have religious significance, are what leads the Discovery crew to the next clue. Both scientific expertise and knowledge of the spiritual were necessary to complete this part of the mission. This can be compared to how gut instincts, emotions, or dreams and visions, are just as necessary a part of the human psyche as rational equations. And when the conscious ego acknowledges and integrates these irrational bits of unconscious material into itself, it becomes stronger and the ego becomes more whole.
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