In its fifth and final season on Paramount+, Star Trek: Lower Decks has taken on the multiverse, highlighting a problem with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and other franchises' shared canons. Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5 finds the USS Cerritos investigating a series of quantum fissures throughout the galaxy that open up to alternate universes. As Starfleet cannot close these rifts fast enough, ships from alternate realities keep finding their way into the Prime Universe. This storyline has allowed Lower Decks to incorporate characters from all over the Star Trek timeline in fun and fascinating ways.
Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5, episode 9, "Fissure Quest," reveals that Section 31 has tasked Captain William Boimler (Jack Quaid) to lead a crew of "interdimensional castaways" in search of the cause of the quantum fissures. As they close yet another rift aboard the Defiant Class starship Anaximander, Captain Boimler expresses his frustration with the multiverse, saying that it's "just lazy derivative remixes." Boimler wants to get back to exploring "strange new worlds," rather than encountering the same characters over and over again. Boimler's hatred of the multiverse points out the biggest problem with these kinds of stories.
Star Trek: Lower Decks Point Out The Problem With Marvel’s Multiverse
Can There Be Too Much Of A Good Thing?
One of the most well-known examples of the multiverse in pop culture today is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While shows like Loki and films like Deadpool & Wolverine have illustrated how fun the multiverse can be, stories involving numerous alternate realities can also have their drawbacks. Nostalgia for classic characters can sustain stories for a while, but at some point, viewers will likely want new stories to sink their teeth into. But rather than embracing new stories, like Eternals, for example, Marvel has been trying to replicate the success of the Avengers saga.
As Star Trek: Lower Decks points out, there are only so many stories to be told about the same characters. Boimler's complaint about "lazy derivative remixes" feels like a critique that has been lobbed not only at the MCU, but at many big-budget sequels and remakes. While it can be incredibly fun to see beloved characters return, that does not diminish the desire for new and unique stories. Star Trek: Lower Decks saved its multiverse story for its final season, after it had spent the previous four seasons developing its own unique characters.
Star Trek Has A Better Reason For The Multiverse To Exist
Lily Sloane Finds The Wonder In Exploring The Multiverse
After being captured by "feral Khwopians," Captain Boimler and his crew discover that an alternate universe Lily Sloane (Alfre Woodard) has inadvertently been causing the rifts in spacetime. In this variant Sloane's universe, she and Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) built a Quantum Reality Drive that allows them to explore the multiverse. While Boimler has grown tired of the multiverse and its repetitiveness, Sloane points out that visiting different realities has allowed her to learn more about humanity and their "limitless" potential.
The multiverse can also be used to explore things that fans have expressed a desire to see, like Garak (Andrew J. Robinson) and Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig) as a couple or T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) and Trip (Connor Trinneer) living happily ever after.
As Captain Sloane explains that she "has seen humans who've built rings around the sun" and "others whose ships are the size of continents," even Boimler begins to understand her wonder. From Sloane's perspective, the multiverse offers a wider look at what humans are capable of and inspires her and her crew to live up to their full potential. As Star Trek: Lower Decks illustrates, the multiverse does not have to be a tool used only for nostalgic cameos or winks at the audience, it can also be used to explore what it means to be human (or alien, as the case may be).
