In Star Trek: The Next Generation season 6, episode 15, "Tapestry", Q (John de Lancie) offers a dying Captain Picard the chance to go back to 2327 for a do-over of Picard's early Starfleet career. After avoiding the fight with a Nausicaan that necessitated Picard's artificial heart in the first place, Q returns Picard to the present-day USS Enterprise-D in 2369. Instead of being the Enterprise's captain, however, Lieutenant j.g. Picard is a mild-mannered astrophysicist that Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) believes is too timid and risk-averse for command.
Star Trek: Lower Decks' Alternate Reality Mariner Calls Back To TNG's Lieutenant Picard
Engineer Mariner And Astrophysicist Picard Are Both Risk-Averse Junior Officers
Beckett Mariner also wore a gold operations division shirt when Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) promoted Mariner to lieutenant as punishment in Star Trek: Lower Decks season 1, episode 4, "Most Vessel". After Mariner's actual promotion to lieutenant in Lower Decks' 4th season, Beckett still wears command division red.
Picard's Do-Over Reality From "Tapestry" Might Still Exist In Star Trek's Multiverse
Small Changes Can Have Big Effects On Star Trek's Timelines
Jean-Luc Picard's do-over reality from Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Tapestry" might still exist in Star Trek's multiverse. Ostensibly, the "Tapestry" universe with Lieutenant Picard only existed to teach Jean-Luc an important lesson, because the episode ends with Q returning everything to TNG's status quo. Recent Star Trek shows from Star Trek: Discovery to Star Trek: Prodigy have spent more time on the concept of the multiverse, however, suggesting even one-episode alternate realities might be timelines Star Trek can't erase. Instead, all Star Trek realities still exist in Star Trek: Lower Decks' "bubble bath" of universes.
So what does Star Trek's 24th century look like without Captain Jean-Luc Picard going quite so boldly? The resulting timeline bears out Q's statement that Picard won't "cause the Federation to collapse or galaxies to explode," but a single change can still have far-reaching ripple effects, like in Star Trek's Kelvin Timeline. The "Tapestry" timeline's timid Lieutenant Picard certainly doesn't have the same inspirational effect on the USS Enterprise-D crew. A version of Beckett Mariner that isn't so reckless might also make Star Trek: Lower Decks' USS Cerritos a vastly different—and far more boring—ship.