Synopsis: Khan takes McGivers with him on a survey expedition and discovers more than he bargained for.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of Carl (C. G.) Jung’s concept of typology. How each of us have traits that seem to come more naturally to us and others that are difficult for us to use without working on developing them. Jung’s work was continued in the work of Katheryn Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myer to develop the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The type functions are thinking, intuition, feeling, and sensation; with each one having both an extroverted and an introverted approach to the world. Extroverts tend to look outward for information and introverts tend to look inward.
As “Scheherazade” began, Khan and Marla McGivers had been avoiding each other since their last confrontation, until Khan ordered her to join him and his survey party to explore the area around the camp. The individuals who have been invited to join the camp all seem to have their own special abilities. Erica, for example, had knowledge of which plant species were edible and which were poisonous, and Khan granted her the honor of naming any plant or animal species that they might come across. Khan, Joachim, and Ivan left to go hunting, while the others, including McGivers, were ordered to make camp. The hunt was successful, and around the camp fire that night, Khan ordered McGivers to tell the group a story, since she was the historian among them. McGivers told the tale of Scheherazade, the bookworm daughter of the grand vizier who told the sultan tales for 1,001 nights until he fell in love with her. Spared her life, and made her his queen. McGivers then asked Khan to tell a tale of one of his adventures, because history was written by the victors and unfair to the vanquished. Khan did not want to. Later he told her privately that he wasn’t used to self-reflection. He earned being in charge. She told him that he was the first person who saw her. She choose freedom for herself in joining him. Khan told her that he was designed to lead men into battle, but not to explain to them what he envisioned.
In this episode, there were various instances where individuals relied on their dominate type to experience and relate to the world around them. Khan told McGivers that he was bred to lead and earned being in charge. Which as an augment, was exactly the case. This explained also why he was uncomfortable in his dealings with McGivers, because much like the sultan in the tale of Scheherazade, he was not in total control of her. He also admitted to McGivers that he wasn’t used to self-reflection, which would indicate that this was for him a less dominant trait. McGivers, however, in her work as historian had honed her skills of looking back at past events as a profession. This was illustrated not only as the reason she was on Ceti Alpha V to begin with, but in being asked to be the one to tell a tale around the campfire that evening. Other characters too were asked to perform tasks in the camp and on the hunt according to their gifts, such as Erica, with her knowledge of living things, to identify, name, and categorize them. However, in Jung’s concept of typography, not only were our strengths identified, but also our less developed traits, and it is in the development of the skills that come less easier to us, that we are able to round out our personality and become more whole. This is because anytime we are using only our superior function, which is the one that naturally comes most easily to us, we are in danger of becoming one sided. In other words, we can easily lean too much on that skill and not developing the others. While this can make us feel valuable in our careers, it leaves us a bit lopsided psychically. But frequently working on the less dominant traits leads to healing, and then seeing them as gifts.
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