Star Trek's Alternate Reality Mariner Is A Brilliant Picard TNG Callback

   

One alternate reality version of Star Trek: Lower Decks' Lieutenant Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) is a brilliant callback to a version of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The penultimate episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, "Fissure Quest", sees Lieutenant Brad Boimler's (Jack Quaid) transporter clone, Captain William Boimler, leading a crew of doppelgängers from all over the Star Trek timeline. When the crew of Boimler's starship Anaximander rescue Ensign Beckett Mariner, clad in an operations gold Starfleet uniform, William finds that this Mariner's temperament is milder than he was expecting.

Star Trek's Alternate Reality Mariner Is A Brilliant Picard TNG Callback

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

Boimler and Mariner eating noodles in Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5 Ep 9

The alternate reality Ensign Beckett Mariner in Star Trek: Lower Decks' "Fissure Quest" calls back to Star Trek: The Next Generation's Lieutenant Picard from "Tapestry", and not just because they're wearing the wrong colors. Like the blue-shirted Lieutenant Picard, Engineer Mariner does solid work and knows what she's doing, but lacks the drive to push boundaries or take risks. That lack of initiative keeps both alternate versions of Picard and Mariner at lower ranks for a longer period of time, and far away from the red-shirted command track that they're supposed to be on in the Prime Universe.

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 journey to the past in "Tapestry" posits that characters' choices at key points in their lives shape their realities, so the alternate Mariner must have made a different past choice, like Lieutenant Picard avoiding the Nausicaan. In Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, episode 9, "The Inner Fight", Mariner realizes she recklessly self-sabotages herself so she doesn't have to take responsibility for the deaths of others as a command officer. If Beckett changed career tracks and kept her head down instead of acting out, that would also keep Mariner from advancing in rank—and away from hard choices.

 

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

T'Pol explaining quantum realities to the crew in Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5 Ep 9

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.