Summary
ThroughoutStar Trek: Lower Decks’s 4 seasons, Lieutenant Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) has become my new favorite character. Born sometime in the late 2340s to Starfleet officers Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) and Admiral Alonzo Freeman (Phil LaMarr), Beckett Mariner has Starfleet in her blood. At Starfleet Academy, Mariner drops her parents' surname (presumably to be judged on her own merit), befriends Nova Squadron’sCadet Sito Jaxa(Shannon Fill), and excels as a student, eager to learn and succeed.InStar Trek: Lower Decks, however, Mariner is still an Ensign in her thirties; she brazenly disrespects authority, breaks"stupid"rules, and intentionally holds herself back.
Star Trek: Lower Decks’charactersare surprisingly complex for an animated comedy, andMariner stands out as particularly fascinating and deeply relatable to me.At first, Beckett Mariner seems careless and selfish, ready to ignore the chain of command and blow off responsibilities that aren’t exciting or fun. Beneath the thrill-seeking and fast-talking, though, Mariner is armed with a hyper focus on historical knowledge that would win anyStar Trektrivia night, which she uses to become a self-styled mentor to fellow lower deckers like Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid). There’s a lot more to Beckett Mariner than what’s on the surface, and every layer matters.
Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5 - Everything You Need To Know
Star Trek: Lower Decks to the franchise where it had never been before with five seasons of comic antics, but sadly the show went off the air as well.
Mariner Really Cares About Starfleet (And What Other People Think)
Mariner Is Protected From Success By A Carefully Crafted Rebel Persona
Paradoxically, Lt. Beckett Mariner’s outward cool-girl persona proves that Mariner really cares about Starfleet and about what other people think of her.Mariner’s projected identity of a slacker ensign who"loves the brig"and revels in defying authority protects Beckett from getting too close to people, even when Mariner really wants real connections. Ensign Jennifer Sh’reyan (Lauren Lapkus) finds rebellious Mariner attractive, but Jennifer’s attraction is disingenuous. Add Mariner’s own negative self-image, and Mariner and Jennifer’s romantic relationship inStar Trek: Lower Decksseason 3easily implodes. Mariner learns that real friendships come from Mariner being her real self, and that’s hard for someone so used to masking their truth.
Mariner’s rebel persona also lets Beckett believe she’s more useful as an ensign who can secretly use Starfleet resources to help the less fortunate, like providing (stolen) farming equipment inStar Trek: Lower Decks’premiere, “Second Contact”. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?
Mariner’s career matters so much that Beckett would rather fail on her own terms than actuallytrybeing an excellent Starfleet officer and wind up being terrible at it. InStar Trek: Lower Decksseason 1, episode 7, “Much Ado About Boimler”, one of Mariner’s old Academy friends, Captain Amina Ramsey (Toks Olagundoye), points out that Mariner should have been made Captain by now. Mariner responds with repeated mistakes, as if to prove that Ramsey is wrong to believe in Beckett at all.It’s easier for Mariner to ruin her career on purpose than actually live up to the pressure of potential,especially when command-level mistakes can cost lives.
There’s A Relatable Reason For Mariner’s Self-Sabotage
Mariner’s Trauma Comes From Star Trek History
The reason for Beckett Mariner’s ongoing self-sabotage clicks into place inStar Trek: Lower Decksseason 4, episode 9, “The Inner Fight”. Trapped in a cave with Klingon lower decker turned Captain Ma’ah (Jon Curry),Mariner explains that the death of her Academy friend, Ensign Sito Jaxa, showed Mariner that being a Starfleet captain actually means sending people to their graves. Mariner sabotages her Starfleet career to keep her conscience clear, but that triggers a spiral of guilt and shame that makes Beckett believe she doesn’t actually deserve success. Someone capbable of being a great Starfleet captain wouldn’t self-sabotage, right? But there’s more to it than that.
BecauseStar Trek: Lower Decksis acutely aware ofStar Trekhistory, Mariner is intentionally shaped by multiple significant events inStar Trek. TheBattle of Wolf 359happened when Beckett was a teenager with two Starfleet parents who would have been in danger from a very real Borg threat. Mariner lost Sito, then graduated from Starfleet Academy right before being thrust into the Dominion War —on Deep Space Nine, no less. Realistically,these are huge, traumatic events that Mariner didn’t expect to deal with as a Starfleet officer, so Mariner belligerently sabotages her own life to keep herself from growing and advancing, with Fight and Freeze trauma responses.
Late 2340s
Beckett Mariner born (likely)
2367
2368–2371
2372–2375
Serves on Deep Space Nine (at some point)
2376–2378
USS Voyager returns (2378)
2379–2381
Mariner’s Journey is Humanity’s Star Trek Journey
Beckett Mariner is Screwed Up, But That’s Okay
Beckett Mariner’s character arc inStar Trek: Lower Decksechoes humanity’s journey inStar Trek. Humans inStar Treknearly annihilated themselves before we helped form the United Federation of Planets. Connection and cooperation helped to dig humanity out of the pit we threw ourselves into inStar Trek’s history, and it’s no different for Mariner. Mariner’s friends and family all believe in Beckett, even when she can’t. Commander Jack Ransom (Jerry O’Connell) sees Mariner’s true potential, so Ransom won’t let Mariner demote herself through self-sabotage.Mariner doesn’t have to believe she’s worthy of friendship, love, and success in order to actually deserve those things.
I’m a former"gifted kid"diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, so Beckett Mariner’s elusive potential and ADHD-coding matters to me. Mariner’s self-sabotage, impostor syndrome, and fear of intimacy might as well be my own. Like Mariner, I’ve hidden behind a facade of bravado and ever-shifting hyperfocus.Mariner’s self-acceptance and growth towards enlightenment isn’t automatic or easy, and Beckett Mariner’s arc inStar Trek: Lower Decksshows how even those of us who beat ourselves up over perceived shortcomings are capable of amazing things when we drop our masks and embrace who we are, instead of who we think we’re supposed to be.
