Synopsis: The students and chancellor of Starfleet Academy are introduced and make their way to San Francisco.
This episode can be seen as providing various examples of Carl (C. G.) Jung’s concept of complexes, and how bits of unconscious material come to the awareness of the conscious ego.
“Kids These Days” began with a flashback fifteen years in the past, when a young Caleb Mir and his mother Anisha Mir, looked at the stars. Shortly thereafter, Anisha Mir was taken away by officers, and along with the Klingarite, Nus Braka, were sentenced for their crimes by Captain Nahla Ake. Braka was sent to a penal colony and Anisha Mir to a rehabilitation center. Caleb Mir became a ward of the Federation. Before being taken away, Anisha Mir told her son not to trust the Federation. After his mother was taken away, Ake told Caleb Mir that she was going to send him to a school on Bajor. But he escaped her custody instead.
Fifteen years later, Caleb Mir was on a transport being taken to a penal colony and again escaped. Meanwhile, on Bajor, where Ake had become a school teacher, Admiral Charles Vance came to see her to ask her to the become chancellor of Starfleet Academy. Ake was 422 years old, and resigned from Starfleet after she had to separate the mother, Anisha Mir, from her child. Vance told Ake that they found Caleb Mir. Ake told Vance that she wanted Caleb Mir to serve his time at Starfleet Academy, and she wanted to help him find his mother.
Caleb Mir and Ake took a shuttle to the U.S.S. Athena, where the half Klingon half Jem’Hadar Commander, Lura Thok, greeted them, and where Caleb Mir met Jay-Den Kraag, a Klingon who wanted to be a doctor. Other students then met each other. Series Acclimation Mil (SAM) – the first holographic student, met Genesis Lythe and The Doctor. Caleb Mir tried to contact his mom using a secure channel. This led to Braka, the leader of the Venari Ral, to the Athena and attack the vessel with programmable matter. Darem Reymi, a Khionian cadet able to survive being in space without an environmental suit, went outside the ship to get some programmable matter that Caleb Mir used to free the Athena. After the Athena arrived in San Francisco, Ake confronted Caleb Mir about his actions. Ake’s son had been a Starfleet cadet and killed when The Burn happened. Ake gave Calib Mir a second chance.
In this episode, when we met the different characters and learned why they were at Starfleet Academy, these can all be seen as examples of what Jung would call complexes. We learn that Caleb Mir was told by his mother not to trust the Federation, which was a problem because attending Starfleet Academy may be the best chance to reunite with her. Ake was motivated to help students because of her son’s fate, and more than that, she wanted to keep the cadets safe. And Kraag, a Klingon who wanted to save others instead of battle them, came to find his own path. The way in which these motivating forces were uncovered for viewers can be analogized to how a bit of unconscious material comes to the awareness of an individual’s conscious ego. And when this motivating force is acknowledged and integrated into the conscious ego, then it becomes stronger and the psyche more whole.
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