Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5, Episode 4 - "A Farewell To Farms"
Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5 sees the USS Cerritos facing a major multiverse problem that could have far-reaching consequences. Star Trek became a Multiverse when the iconic Star Trek: The Original Series season 2 episode, "Mirror, Mirror" introduced the Mirror Universe. Several Star Trek shows have revisited the Mirror Universe, but the franchise has also offered glimpses into other alternate realities. In 2009, J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot introduced the Kelvin timeline, with alternate versions of Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and his USS Enterprise crew.
From Star Trek: Strange New Worlds to Star Trek: Prodigy, modern Trek has continued to explore the multiverse in several unique and fun ways. Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5 is taking on the multiverse as part of its final season-long arc on Paramount+. In Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5, episode 1, "Dos Cerritos," the USS Cerritos was sucked into a quantum fissure and encountered an alternate reality version of the California Class starship. The crews of the two Cerritos worked together to get the Prime Universe's starship back home, but the dimensional rift itself appears to be part of a much larger problem.
Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Final Story Is A Multiverse Problem
Lt. Mariner Discovered That Someone Is Ripping Holes In Subspace
When the USS Cerritos encountered the parallel universe in the Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5 premiere, Lt. Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) remarks that it is the third quantum fissure they have encountered that month. Lt. T'Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz) notes that these interdimensional rifts "have been appearing with statistically abnormal regularity." In Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5, episode 4, "A Farewell to Farms," Mariner and Lt. Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) travel to Klingon space to investigate another dimensional hole. Upon scanning the rift, Mariner realizes that these "space-time potholes" are not naturally occurring.
Someone (or something) is creating these interdimensional portals, although the hows and whys of it all remain unknown. It would likely require a great deal of power to open this many rifts in subspace, and each one increases the danger of something from a parallel universe finding its way into Star Trek's Prime timeline. This has the potential to cause even more complications and chaos than it already has, which will presumably lead to an action-packed Star Trek: Lower Decks finale that will answer any lingering questions.
Why Star Trek Is Making The Multiverse More Important
Modern Star Trek Has Embraced The Multiverse
With a franchise as far-reaching as Star Trek, creating multiverse stories makes perfect sense. Much like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are simply too many characters, stories, and timelines for everything in Star Trek to coexist in one universe in a way that makes sense. Crafting a multiverse allows Star Trek to play around more with its characters and storylines without having to strictly adhere to established canon all the time. This also gives the Star Trek franchise the opportunity to cast new actors and introduce new versions of old characters.
In Star Trek: Picard season 2, the Borg entered the Prime universe through a multiversal portal, and the Borg Queen (Annie Wersching) hinted she could sense things across universes.
Star Trek: Prodigy focused on the multiverse most directly, reintroducing Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) as an interdimensional Traveler who has visited many different universes. Because Wes grew up in the Prime Universe (and his mom still lives there), he broke the Travelers' rules to save it, even when it seemed impossible. These shoutouts to the multiverse open the door for more kinds of Star Trek stories in the future, but it remains to be seen how Star Trek: Lower Deck's multiverse story will play out.
