Synopsis: The U.S.S. Protostar and her crew are reunited with the the U.S.S. Voyager and her crew, but only after going through some unexpected detours.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of what Carl (C. G.) Jung called the unconscious shadow
In “Cracked Mirror,” the U.S.S. Protostar has finally arrived at the coordinates of the U.S.S. Voyager. The Protostar crew beams aboard, only to find that Voyager is in a different timeline. In fact, different parts of the ship are now located in several distinct timelines. Captain Chakotay hypothesizes that if the crew can return to their previous timeline then they can seal the temporal paradox and return Voyager and her crew to their original timeline. But this required Chakotay, Dal R’El, Jankom Pog, Murf, and Gwyndala (Gwyn) to make their way to the bridge. In doing so, they found themselves being transported to the Mirror Universe, where they were confronted by Mirror Captain Kathryn Janeway and Mirror Commander Chakotay. They are captured and then escape custody when Mirror Chakotay underestimates Murf. When Chakotay, Dal R’El, Jankom Pog, Murf, and Gwyn take over the bridge, only to see Looms attacking Mirror Voyager. With the help of the Mirror Voyager’s bridge crew, who Chakotay has convinced to help, the Protostar crew finally boards the Voyager of their original timeline.
In this episode, the crew of Mirror Voyager can be seen as representing the shadow of Voyager crew of the original timeline. And when Chakotay enlists the aid of Mirror Voyager’s bridge crew, this can be analogized to when an individual’s conscious ego acknowledges and integrates into itself bits of that individual’s unconscious shadow. Jung defined the shadow as “the ‘negative’ side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide, together with the insufficiently developed functions and the contents of the personal unconscious” (1943/1966, p. 66n [CW 7, para. 103n]). Later, Jung defined it more neutrally as: “a personification of the inferior side of the personality” (1948/1976, p. 484 [CW 18, para. 1158]). Harmonizing these definitions, in Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche, American Jungian analyst and author Robert A. Johnson noted that sometimes the shadow contains not only negative traits, but also hidden gifts of an individual that may have had to be quashed in order to fit into society (1991, pp. 5, 7). Through the acceptance of unconscious material not only is the conscious ego made stronger, but the individual is made more whole. Just as in this episode, Chakotay needed to engage the help of the Mirror Voyager’s bridge crew in order for the Protostar and her crew to return to their timeline.
References:
Johnson, R, A. (1991) Owning your own shadow: Understanding the dark side of the psyche. HarperSanFrancisco.
Jung, C. G. (1966). On the psychology of the unconscious (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung: Vol. 7. Two essays on analytical psychology (2nd ed., pp. 1–119). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1943) https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400850891.1
Jung, C. G. (1976). The structure and dynamics of the psyche (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). In H. Read et al. (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung: Vol. 18. The symbolic life (2nd ed. pp. 457-511). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1948) https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400851010.457
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