Beckett Mariner can show us that glory isn't everything in life

Although Star Trek: Lower Decks got off to a rather bumpy start in its first season, it has settled out and refined itself over time to be a charming show with plenty of humor and even a good helping of pathos. The same can be said for the main character of the series: Ensign (or now Lieutenant Junior Grade) Beckett Mariner of the USS Cerritos.

When we first meet Mariner, she is…grating, to say the least. She comes across as lazy, and her vocally anti-Starfleet attitudes tend to be more annoying than insightful. On top of that, being revealed as the daughter of the Cerritos' captain and a Starfleet admiral at the end of the first episode sets a tone that she gets away with this because of who her parents are.

To be honest, Mariner's family relationships do let her get away with some of her actions. At the same time, though, we see during the series that Mariner is knowledgeable and competent, and she's mostly holding herself back with her own hang-ups and hurdles. This is explicitly spelled out over the course of Season 4, particularly in the ninth episode, "The Inner Fight."

In that episode, Mariner reveals that she was friends with Sito Jaxa, an ensign who died in the line of duty in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Lower Decks," from which the animated series derives its title and partial premise. This event, followed by experiences fighting in the Dominion War, gave Mariner a jaded view of serving in Starfleet.

Mariner's backstory revealed in this episode articulated the tension between Starfleet as a scientific organization, motivated by exploration and discovery, and Starfleet as a militaristic organization that operates with a rigid, hierarchical command structure. It also demonstrates how sometimes the glories of rank and victory come at the cost of what is important.

While Beckett Mariner's antipathy towards promotion is perhaps largely rooted in trauma, she also hits at the heart of an issue that many people face. In a society that is frequently concerned with status, how do you find fulfillment in the work that you do?

Without any status, people often find themselves unable to do work that matters to them. Conversely, the endless pursuit of status itself makes the work secondary to achieving an adequate social position. Mariner and her distress around promotion from Ensign to Lieutenant JG reflect this. She doesn't love the work of a lower decker, but she also fears the responsibility and expectations of a higher rank.

Although some of this tension within Mariner appears to be resolved by the end of Season 4, it will be interesting to see how the upcoming final season completes Mariner's story. Personally, I hope that she does not morph into another character who is just single-mindedly set on becoming a captain one day.

Despite the sometimes irritating aspects of Beckett Mariner's characterization, she is a character who has grown. She has stopped letting her disdain for status interfere with her work. Rather than rebelling against the system, she will do good work for the sake of good work, not for the sake of rank or glory. In a way, this is what the best Star Trek characters tend to do.