Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4, Episode 9 – "The Inner Fight"
Summary
- Lieutenant Beckett Mariner's connections to Star Trek: The Next Generation are revealed in a jaw-dropping twist in Lower Decks season 4, episode 9.
- Mariner's past as a cadet at Starfleet Academy and her friendship with Ensign Sito Jaxa shed light on her self-destructive tendencies and reluctance for promotion.
- The revelation that disgraced ex-Starfleet Cadet Nicholas Locarno is behind the destruction of alien starships raises questions about why he involved Mariner and the possible return of Sito Jaxa.
Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, episode 9 revealed Lieutenant Beckett Mariner's (Tawny Newsome) jaw-dropping connections to Star Trek: The Next Generation, specifically the classic TNG episodes, "The First Duty" and "Lower Decks." In Lower Decks season 4, episode 9, Mariner's self-destructive tendencies worry her mother, Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis). Freeman sends Mariner on a routine mission with her friends to keep her out of trouble, but Mariner inadvertently meets the culprit behind the destruction of several alien starships, disgraced ex-Starfleet Cadet Nicholas Locarno (Robert Duncan McNeill).
Prior to coming face-to-face with Nick Locarno in Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, episode 9, Mariner confesses some of her secrets to a Klingon named Ma'ah (Jon Curry) she fought and befriended. The details of Mariner's life story have been revealed in dollops throughout Star Trek: Lower Decks, but in her past, Beckett was a Cadet at the top of her class at Starfleet Academy. Mariner served on five different Starfleet ships prior to the USS Cerritos, including the USS Quito, and she saw action in the Dominion War, which also meant Beckett spent time on the Deep Space Nine space station. At some point, Mariner also became friends with her mother's mentor, Commander Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) of the USS Enterprise-D. Still, there are many questions surrounding Mariner and her connections to Star Trek: The Next Generation that Star Trek: Lower Decks' "The Inner Fight" dropped in a series of bombshells.
