STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS
SEASON 3, EPISODE 10
SEASON 3, EPISODE 10
The Stars At Night
Series: Star Trek: Lower Decks - (2020 - 2024)Season: 3
Episode #: 10
Original Airdate: October 27th, 2022
Writer(s): Mike McMahan
Director(s): Jason Zurek
Guest Stars
Carlos Alazraqui as Vice Admiral Les Buenamigo
Carlos Alazraqui as the Voice of the Aledo Computer
Georgia King as Petra Aberdeen
Phil LaMarr
Jessica McKenna as Ensign Barnes
Toks Olagundoye as Captain Amina Ramsey
Sam Richardson as Vendome
Al Rodrigo as Captain Durango
Gabrielle Ruiz as T'Lyn
Paul Scheer as Lieutenant Commander Andarithio "Andy" Billups
Carl Tart as Ltjg. Kayshon
Paul F. Tompkins as Doctor Migleemo
Baron Vaughn as Captain Maier
Michelle Wong as a Starfleet Admiral Wong
Stardate: 58499.2
Synopsis
As the Cerritos is being repaired, Captain Freeman must face the music for her perceived failure. Admiral Buenamigo, who’d authorized the Project Swing-by second contact mission and also spearheaded the Texas class project, proposes that the Texas class should take over support missions entirely. Meaning the entire California class of ships to which the Cerritos belongs would be decommissioned, all those crew members replaced by a few machines. To Freeman’s dismay, the council agrees.
Word spreads to the remaining lower deck Ensigns, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford. The first two are understandably upset and freak out about their futures in Starfleet. Rutherford, however, nerds out to the Texas-class ship Aledo‘s code.
Meanwhile, Mariner is living out an adventure of stealing artifacts from black-market traders and returning them to the museums of the cultures those artifacts belong to, with fellow Starfleet dropout Petra Aberdeen. But when Mariner asks who’s funding their missions, Aberdeen gets cagey.
Starfleet has decided that the Cerritos and all ships like it are so unimportant, they can be replaced by a big shiny drone. Of course, Freeman isn’t about to let her ship and her peers go down without a fight. So she challenges the Texas-class ship, the Aledo, to a mission-race. The council agrees to let the Cerritos race the Aledo to complete three support missions before chucking the whole California class into the dustbin. The whole crew goes into Hustle Mode to get it done.
First mission: Galardon for some equipment repairs and updates. The crew goes into overdrive to get it done, but the Aledo is able to drop a whole new structure onto the planet.
Second mission: LT-358, an uninhabited planet, to build an outpost. Once again, the crew springs into action. But then Tendi’s scan indicates the possibility of microscopic life forms, and all work is halted so the crew can evaluate to see whether they’re sentient, and therefore whether building the outpost would be an ethical violation. The Aledo has no such qualms. It drops its outpost and warps out. Dr. T’Ana confirms that the life-form reading was false, and the crew scrambles to complete the mission.
Third mission: Ockmenic 9, a planet that only appears for a few hours once every few years, to drop off supplies. The Aledo pops in and transports the supplies. By the time the Cerritos arrives, the planet has already disappeared again.
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The Aledo won the challenge, although its ruthless efficiency missed a crucial ethical step – the part where the Cerritos had to double check that they weren’t stomping on a sentient microscopic life form’s way of life. Freeman points this out to Buenamigo and argues that it proves the Texas-class ships aren’t fit for duty. At the same time, Rutherford realizes why he’s so obsessed with the code: It’s his! He’d written it before he got his implant! Rutherford saw a shadowy figure ordering his memories erased, and the person who gave that order was Admiral Buenamigo! The Admiral wanted to leave a lasting impact on Starfleet with his automated ships, whatever the cost! Including setting up the Cerritos to fail. When challenged by Freeman over the Prime Directive, he loses his cool and orders the Aledo to go fully independent and attack the Cerritos.
Rutherford confesses that his code had issues. It’s similar to what he’d used to create Badgey, a holodeck tutor that turned evil and murder-y. The Aledo similarly turns evil the instant it gains independence from Buenamigo and ends up killing the Admiral as it attacks the space station. It then activates two more Texas-class ships and starts laying waste to the space station while the Cerritos desperately tries to stop it.
Meanwhile, Mariner and Aberdeen arrive to drop off the artifact on its home planet. The moment Aberdeen leaves, Mariner, certain something nefarious is going on with their funding, starts digging into her private files. Aberdeen catches her and reveals that their mysterious benefactor is… Jean-Luc Picard. Who’s also passionate about archaeology. Mariner is obviously disappointed by how… normal… her new life is. She misses feeling like she’s making a difference in the galaxy. Aberdeen pulls up a newsfeed to show how much worse off Mariner would be with Starfleet, and the footage shows the attack the Cerritos is engaged in. Shocked, Mariner insists that she and Aberdeen, in their little archaeology ship, must go help. Aberdeen objects but Mariner eventually wins her over.
Freeman, hoping to save civilian lives, uses the Cerritos to draw the three Texas-class ships away from the space station by dangling Rutherford in front of them. The Texas-class ships take the bait, and warp after the Cerritos. The bridge is filled with chaos. Everyone starts talking at once. Shaxs tries to make a suggestion but isn’t heard. It’s Boimler who tells everyone – including the captain – to “shut up and listen to Shaxs”. Shaxs proposes ejecting the warp core. It isn’t the first time he’s (over-eagerly) made this suggestion, but it makes sense this time. Dumping the warp core would drop the Cerritos out of warp while the giant hunk of machinery crashes into their pursuers, acting as a bomb to get rid of them once and for all. So, Freeman orders him to make it so.
With stars in his eyes, Shaxs rushes through the Cerritos to the crew’s encouraging cheers and meets Billups in engineering. Together, they turn their keys, and eject the core, where it explodes on impact with the Texas-class ships. Two of the ships are destroyed, but the Aledo, survives. The Cerritos, already heavily damaged, can’t even run away without a warp core. Suddenly, Mariner shows up to lend assistance. The Aledo is too much for a California-class ship to handle, so she called all of them. Surrounded by dozens of California-class ships, the Aledo is finally destroyed.
As the Cerritos undergoes repairs, everyone hangs out at the cafeteria. Mariner returns, where her friends greet her warmly while Boimler apologizes profusely for not defending her more when she got kicked off. In a show of character growth, Mariner confesses that her own behavior gave them reason to doubt her. Tendi’s officer training is going so well that Starfleet sent someone to train with her: the Vulcan T'Lyn. Tendi is, characteristically, thrilled. Boimler finally gets a bridge buddy in Shaxs, and Rutherford makes peace with his implant, which he finds too cool to resent even though it was used to exploit him.
Freeman apologizes to Mariner and has her reinstated, and Mariner seems ready to really commit to Starfleet this time, even choosing Ransom as a mentor, much to his dismay.
Elsewhere in the Kalla System, an unknown ship beams aboard some nearby wreckage. Suddenly, within the wreckage, the image of Badgey appears with a sinister grin on its face…
Trailer
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