Synopsis: While the other Starfleet Academy cadets worked through their feelings by doing a play, SAM returned to her home world in order to be healed.
If last week’s episode can be seen as an illustration of Carl Gustav (C.G.) Jung’s concept of a complex, one way in which unconscious material comes to the awareness of the conscious ego, then his week’s episode can be interpreted as an illustration of Jung’s theory of projection, how one’s complex can be projected onto another.
“Life of the Stars” began with Tarima Sadal returning to campus, but not as a War College cadet, instead, it had been decided for her, to transfer her to Starfleet Academy. Chancellor Nahla Ake acknowledged that having her future decided for her was difficult, but Starfleet Academy was more science and research driven and it was done for her own safety. Meanwhile, in a training simulation, the other cadets failed to use teamwork. Shortly thereafter, Lt. Sylvia Tilly arrived to teach theater. She told the cadets that theater was statecraft. She chose Our Town as the play to read after it was suggested by SAM.Then SAM suffered a glitch in her hands and was taken to sickbay. The Doctor told SAM that he did not know how to fix her. The Doctor and Ake decided that SAM needed to go back to Kasq, and that they would accompany her. Before departing for Kasq, SAM left a note for Sadal saying that she left her Emily, a character from Our Town. In analyzing the play, Cadet Caleb Mir told Tilly and the class that Emily wanted to stay who she was. Lythe said that Emily wanted to slow things down. Tarima Sadal said that she wanted to go to the War College, but that she was not given a choice. Tilly told Sadal that she is not a ghost, like Emily. Sadal decided that she would resign but then decided to stay and rejoined the other cadets in reading Our Town.
On the shuttle to Kasq, SAM told The Doctor and Ake that three days on Earth are the equivalent of five years on Kasq. She told them how Kasq had cut off contact with the universe, but that SAM was made to be their emissary. SAM told The Doctor that he would be the perfect mentor for her. The Doctor was uncomfortable. SAM told them that she wanted to be a rebel and fall in love. She asked The Doctor if he had ever been in love. The Doctor became even more uncomfortable.
On Kasq, the Makers told Ake and The Doctor that there was no way to save SAM. The Doctor admitted to SAM that he made a holographic daughter and that she died. He did not want to feel that loss again. Ake suggested to the Makers that they give SAM a childhood. When SAM asked The Doctor to stay with her, he stated that the only thing that allowed him to bear infinity is not having to love. But after reconsidering, The Doctor then told the Makers that he will parent SAM. Seventeen years on this planet is a few days on Earth. The Doctor went through SAM’s childhood with her and then the two returned to the academy. In this episode, both Our Town and the events that took place on Kasq can be interpreted as illustrating Jung’s concept of projection. When Sadal and the other cadets portrayed the different characters in Our Town, they projected onto those characters the difficult feelings that they were coping with. Then by analyzing the characters, they were able to sort through their own emotions. On Kasq, when The Doctor realized that the reluctance he had in helping SAM was because he was projecting onto her the emotions he was carrying from his past, he was able to both heal SAM and become more whole himself. These are both elucidations how Jung taught that once an individual identified a complex and then realized that it was being projected onto another individual, then that unconscious material had been acknowledged by the conscious ego and could be integrated into it, in order for the psyche to become more whole.
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