Wagner notes that Counselor Troi in The Next Generation actually mentions this in one of many Trek split-personality episodes, "Frame of Mind," in which she advises Riker to "own" his other self. Like Kirk before him — split in two in one episode ("The Enemy Within"), and elsewhere ("Mirror, Mirror") propelled into an alternate universe of literally devilish "others" (the alternate Spock particularly fits the bill, not only equipped with his requisite pointed ears but sporting a goatee) — Riker also faces his other self at least twice, as do sundry Trek characters. Most intriguing is the android Data, a "double" himself who time-travels — and whose remains are discovered in his "future" — and who encounters Lore, his manufactured "evil twin."
As Wagner comments, such splitting/doubling allows for "explicit interaction" between the separated aspects of self. I'm especially attracted to this, since one of the pleasures of Trek characters — and more than that, something that I believe lies at the center of all the Trek myths — is a fundamental principle: "to boldly go" cannot occur until one achieves Jungian "unification with the shadow self" (coincidentia oppositorum). The real "strange new world" is the divided self, that is, the Prime Directive-bound passive observer vs. the explorer/intruder. Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer; they all lead us, not just out but in, not merely toward the Peter Pan-ish "second star to the right" (as Kirk commands in the sixth movie, The Undisocvered Country/1991) but to Pan himself, unwilling to grow up, aggressively "striving, seeking, finding and not yielding," to semi-quote Tennyson's "Ulysses." (And why not, as long as I'm writing about a series that loved to quote the old warhorses?)
From Kirk's Cold Warrior to Picard's empathetic concensus-builder, from Janeway's Wanderer to Sisko's frontier sheriff-cum-Emissary, and, once more time-traveling, back to Archer's — well, exactly what I'm not yet sure; Jim Hawkins saving everyone from the pirates in Treasure Island? I haven't seen enough episodes yet to decide. But taken together, these characters — and their split motivations — seem to vacillate between Self and Double, until they recognize and reconcile, as Wagner and Jung remind us, with the truth that the grotesque figure in the dimness is ourselves.
It is a sly myth because it is an open-ended one: the ultimate sequel. Gene Roddenberry toyed with the basic stuff, sometimes softly yielding, sometimes rock-jagged, that we feel beneath our feet as we make our way through this mythic terrain, accompanied as well as accompanying.
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