Synopsis: Captain Burnham meets a Progenitor and is entrusted with the future of the Progenitors’ technology.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of what Carl (C. G.) Jung referred to as the collective unconscious.
In “Life Itself,” Captain Michael Burnham finds herself within the portal that holds the Progenitors’ technology. She is confronted by Malinne (Moll) Ravel. Initially they fight until Burnham convinces Moll that they should work together. When they reach an interface console at the end of the path, Burnham tells Moll the phrase she received with the clue: “build the shape of the one between the many” (Jarrow et al., 2024). Moll knocks Burnham out, incorrectly interprets the clue, unleashes a power from the interface, and is herself knocked unconscious. Burnham revives and uses the phrase to unlock the Progenitors’ technology as it was meant to be. A Progenitor appears to her and tells Burnham that the Progenitors did not create the technology. They found it and used it to seed humanoid lifeforms throughout the galaxy, but an even older civilization created the technology. The Progenitor also tells Burnham that she will now be the steward of the Progenitors’ technology. The Progenitor tells Burnham that the correct course of action is to use the technology in the way that is most meaningful to her. For the Progenitors, they valued diversity above all else, which is why they used it to seed diversity of life. The Progenitor shares with Burnham a vision of the evolution of life as they seeded it. Burnham and Moll return to Discovery and Burnham decides that the diversity that the Progenitors had envisioned has already been achieved in the Federation, and that the technology is no longer needed. Burnham orders that the portal be flung into a black hole.
In this episode, when the Progenitor gives Burnham a vision of the evolution of life as they seeded it, in its infinite diversity in infinite combinations, this can be analogized to Jung’s concept of the collected unconscious—a shared unconscious repository of humanity’s psychic heritage and possibilities. Early on Jung taught that the collective unconscious was something that all human psyches had inside them, but later in his life, he perceived the collective unconscious as something that connected all human life, similar to the rhizome of the plant world. In either definition, it is something we all share.
Reference:
Jarrow, K. (Writer), Paradise, M. (Writer), & Osunsanmi, O. (Director). (2024, May 30). Life, itself (Season 5, Episode 10) [TV series episode]. In A. Baiers, H. Kadin, A. Kurtzman, K. Lin, O. Osunsami, M. Paradise, E. Roddenberry, T. Roth, F. Siracusa, & J. Weber (Executive Producers), Star trek: Discovery. CBS Television Studios, Living Dead Guy Productions, Roddenberry Entertainment, Secret Hideout.
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