Beckett Mariner Freeman was a female Human Starfleet officer who lived during the late 24th century.
Both of her parents served in positions of command in Starfleet: her mother (and later captain), Carol Freeman, attempted to keep a close eye on her activities aboard the USS Cerritos, while her father Alonzo Freeman was an admiral. Mariner gained considerable experience and formidable skills as a Starfleet officer. However, untreated survivor guilt from having to serve in the Dominion War almost right out of Starfleet Academy before she could recover from a friend being killed in action caused a serious psychological fear of the responsibilities of command that has impeded her career. As such, for all her professional accomplishments, she preferred to remain at the rank of ensign and endeavored to keep herself there by deliberately engineering demotions and reckless behaviors with the outward veneer of an arrogantly defiant and self-destructive attitude that often brought her to the risk of court martial.
However, after she was again promoted to Lieutenant junior grade in 2381, Cerritos first officer Commander Jack Ransom caught on to her behavior and refused to allow her to get herself demoted again. This, combined with her shipmates becoming concerned about an especially self-destructive streak she entered and her being separately told that her friend would not appreciate her behavior, eventually forced her to reevaluate her attitude, come to terms with her trauma, and ultimately accept the promotion. Following the departure of her mother to command a multiversal exploration mission in 2382, Mariner was jointly promoted alongside Boimler to provisional first officer of the Cerritos.
Quick Answers
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Childhood
Beckett Mariner Freeman was the daughter of Starfleet captain Carol Freeman and admiral Alonzo Freeman. (LD: "Second Contact")
For a time, Beckett lived on Starbase 25, during which she went by "Becky", a name her father would continue to use for her. (LD: "An Embarrassment Of Dooplers", "Grounded") Later in her life, Beckett would forego use of her last name in favor of her middle name, Mariner, in order to distance herself from her mother. (LD: "Dos Cerritos") According to Mariner, her mother became a "jerk" when she was eight years old. (LD: "Crisis Point")
As a child, Mariner dressed up as Toby Targ each Halloween, even after she became too old for the character. (LD: "Crisis Point")
Mariner had taken two and a half years of horseback riding lessons, though this did not help her in 2381 when she unsuccessfully attempted to ride a horse within Starfleet's Old West Planet holographic training drill. (LD: "I, Excretus")
Mariner was left handed. (LD: "I, Excretus")
Starfleet Academy
Mariner attended her first year at Starfleet Academy in 2368. (LD: "Old Friends, New Planets") Mariner excelled in the Academy, getting the best grades in her class. She was often noted as being asomething of a role model for her class, and that she always made sure her classmates kept up with her. Many, including her friend and classmate Amina Ramsey, predicted that Mariner would be the first of her class to get promoted to captain.
Together, she and Ramsey would get to a lot of mischief, such as stealing Professor Rubichik's old special car and driving it into the bay. (LD: "Much Ado About Boimler")
Cadets Mariner and Sito
Mariner was also friends with upperclassman Cadet Sito Jaxa, who encouraged Mariner to pursue a degree in xeno-history. Her first taste of the topic came during her first year, at which time she was excited to learn about the Xindi and Preservers. Nick Locarno would refer to Mariner as Sito's "fan club". (LD: "Reflections", "Old Friends, New Planets")
Even after the Kolvoord Starburst incident, Mariner idolized Sito for not letting her mistakes as a cadet define her and succeeding in spite of having to repeat a year, and was devastated to learn that Sito was presumed killed in action. (LD: "The Inner Fight")
Starfleet career
Beckett Mariner during the 2370s
Mariner prided her ability to think for herself in critical situations, as she had served aboard five different Starfleet vessels, and had "seen stuff". There was a time when she was interested in advancing in rank, though her views regarding promotion and the importance of the senior staff had become somewhat jaded by 2380. (LD: "Second Contact", "Cupid's Errant Arrow")
On one harrowing occasion, she was trapped in a sentient cave for weeks, describing it as "a dark place that knows things." She also noted that she had almost been decapitated by a singing crystal, and was once held in a Klingon prison where she had to fight a yeti for her shoes merely because the yeti wanted to be antagonistic. (LD: "Envoys")
She kept her battle scars from a fight with a tentacled man that stabbed her with a barnacle blade in the chest, a fight on Magus III that left a scar on her right shoulder, a scar on her left bicep from Nanibia Prime, and a scar on her hip from a fight in Scottsdale. After Commander Jack Ransom stabbed her left foot with a crystal sword on Gelrak V, she intended to allow the skin to heal into a new scar as well. (LD: "Temporal Edict")
At some point, she befriended and blood bonded with General K'orin. Years later, she recalled that she and K'orin had done some "off-the-books grey ops stuff back in the day," and together had worked on Jaxxa Prime, Vulcan, and Earth. (LD: "Envoys")
At another point in time, Mariner became acquainted with her mother's mentor, William T. Riker. Riker was indebted to Mariner, and despite being responsible for "hooking" her up with all of her contraband, such as Romulan ale, she insisted that Riker saving the Cerritos from the Pakleds did not make them "even". (LD: "No Small Parts")
Mariner had once been promoted to lieutenant junior grade, but was demoted for crashing an Oberth-class starship. (LD: "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place")
Deep Space 9
Sometime between 2372 and 2375 Mariner served aboard Deep Space 9. During this time, she once broke Worf's mek'leth, and, apparently, had it mended before he noticed it was gone. (LD: "We'll Always Have Tom Paris") Mariner later described hating the station, and had, in fact, incurred a sizable tab at Quark's, which equated to "a stack of latinum." The tab was cleared years later when Mariner blackmailed Quark with a data chip copy of "that hologram with your head on Kira's body" that Kira Nerys had altered to his embarrassment, and had deleted what he thought was the only copy in 2373. (LD: "Hear All, Trust Nothing")
During this time, Mariner fought in the Dominion War. The widespread death and destruction that surrounded her exacerbated the trauma of learning of Sito's death so much that she began to associate promotion with sending people to their deaths, leading to severe survivor guilt that caused her to continually self-sabotage and get herself demoted. (LD: "The Inner Fight")
Atlantis
Mariner's Atlantis profile
Also sometime during the 2370s, Mariner served aboard the starship Atlantis, when nearly half of the ship's crew succumbed to a Kerplickian lice infestation. Since Starfleet was embarrassed by the situation, it was never logged in official records. Mariner took advantage of that fact when she started a rumor that she was a specially trained black ops spy who had killed those who had otherwise simply and officially had mysteriously disappeared.
In 2381, Honus, a Cerritos bartender, shared these rumors about what happened aboard the Atlantis with Ensigns Brad Boimler and Sam Rutherford which caused them to briefly second guess their relationship with Mariner. (LD: "Mugato, Gumato")
USS Quito
Mariner during her time aboard the Quito
While aboard the USS Quito, she participated in establishing first contact with the Galardonian High Council in 2379. Sometime during 2370s (after stardate 47025.4), she experienced the death of her good friend and crew mate, Angie, who was eaten alive by a Harvongian while their ship was docked at Deep Space 9. The experience was traumatic, causing her to be on high alert in 2380 when she thought something similar could be happening to her friend Boimler. (LD: "Cupid's Errant Arrow")
During her time aboard the Quito, she spent time in the brig on many occasions and was eventually demoted to ensign and transferred to the Cerritos by her father, under the command of her mother, Captain Carol Freeman. Carol agreed to the transfer under the condition that if their daughter didn't fit in with the crew, Alonzo would transfer her back to the Quito. (LD: "Second Contact")
USS Cerritos
Mariner aboard the Cerritos in 2380.
The Cerritos was Mariner's fifth ship posting. (LD: "We'll Always Have Tom Paris") Her fellow command division officer and eventual friend Brad Boimler noted that she hated to give the orientation liaison tour, but offered to provide a tour to Ensign D'Vana Tendi to get her to help moving shore leave contraband. By this time, she had been serving on the Cerritos for a year, and could only really be considered to be friends with engineer Sam Rutherford before Tendi's arrival.
In 2380, while supporting second contact efforts with the Galardonians, Captain Freeman asked Ensign Boimler to monitor Mariner's activities. He eventually believed he had caught her selling Federation weapons, but she had actually been providing needed farming equipment to local farmers in an effort to bypass Starfleet bureaucracy. (LD: "Second Contact")
Mariner's greatest fear was ranking up.
Aboard the Cerritos, Mariner's assigned bunk was A12001 on Deck 11, in the LD sleeping quarters shared by lower deck officers on beta shift. (LD: "Envoys", "Terminal Provocations") For a brief time, she received another promotion to lieutenant, and as such, received her own quarters, before being demoted back to ensign. Her promotion was actually a scheme to get her to resign to another ship after she disrespected Captain Freeman in front of Captain Durango. (LD: "Moist Vessel")
Starbase 80 and brief resignation
When the USS Cerritos was visited by the Federation News Network reporter Victoria Nuzé, Mariner was incorrectly accused of besmirching the Cerritos and its crew by disclosing disparaging information about them to Nuzé. Although the opposite was in fact true and Beckett had been the only officer interviewed to speak highly of the crew, Mariner was, as a result, transferred by Captain Freeman to Starbase 80, widely considered the worst posting a Starfleet officer could be assigned to. Mariner's initial experience on the station was horrendous; upon boarding, she fell into an open ditch, found herself covered in Denobulan lice, and realized that a mishandled treaty with Acamar III had left half the station under the control of a Gatherer "knife gang". This negative experience, coupled with outrage over her unfair punishment, led to her resignation from Starfleet shortly after beginning her posting. (LD: "Trusted Sources", "Starbase 80?!") She then became the partner of Petra Aberdeen in the Independent Archaeologists Guild. (LD: "The Stars At Night")
However, she began to regret her resignation and began to search for any reason to leave the Guild, breaking into the Free Spirit's computer systems to search for a secret benefactor only to learn that the Guild was supported by Admiral Jean-Luc Picard. When Aberdeen caught her looking through the files, she turned on a news channel to reveal what had happened with Starfleet in the interim. In her absence, Vice Admiral Les Buenamigo had unveiled the Texas-class automated starships as a replacement for the California-class, a proposal Starfleet Command had accepted due to Freeman's poor handling of Nuzé's presence causing a PR disaster, but faulty artificial intelligence had caused the vessels to turn on and murder Buenamigo and attack Douglas Station, and the Cerritos was caught in the crossfire. Horrified, Mariner immediately decided to intervene and managed to talk Aberdeen into helping.
The two set a course for Douglas Station, but by the time the Free Spirit arrived on the scene, the Cerritos had been forced to lure the deranged vessels away to save the station and the USS Van Citters. Mariner rallied the entire California-class fleet, tracked the Cerritos and Texas-class vessels, and arrived to find a heavily damaged Cerritos, which had ejected her warp core during warp to destroy the USS Dallas and Corpus Christi, dead in the water and at the mercy of the USS Aledo and Captain Freeman having just given the order to abandon ship. As the Free Spirit arrived, shortly followed by the USS Oakland, Mariner belayed the order to abandon ship and announced that she had brought help. Freeman attempted to order the Free Spirit and Oakland to flee since neither stood any chance against the Aledo, but then the rest of the fleet arrived on the scene, resulting in the Aledo being caught in a hail of phaser fire and unable to prioritize a target due to the identical threat levels. The Aledo, in the last moments before its destruction, eventually chose to fire on the defenseless Cerritos, but the Free Spirit intercepted the attack. (LD: "The Stars At Night")
Return to the Cerritos and permanent promotion
Following her short-lived resignation from Starfleet, Mariner returned to the USS Cerritos, where she was welcomed with open arms. Furthermore, Mariner realized that she preferred being part of Starfleet with its ideals and that the time away from it had helped her to recognize that. To that end, Mariner explained to her mother that she had a new resolve to seriously advance in the ranks, and persuaded the Captain to have a most reluctant Commander Ransom assigned as her mentor. (LD: "The Stars At Night")
Shortly after her return, she was promoted to lieutenant junior grade after the Cerritos transported the USS Voyager to Earth. (LD: "Twovix") At this development, Mariner's reflexive self-destructive behavior flared up again and she began to resist this change. However, despite her reluctance and insubordinate behavior during an away mission on Narj's Miraculous Menagerarium, Ransom, realizing that she had intentionally engineered her repeated demotions, refused to allow her to self-sabotage. During the mission, two Humans accidentally displayed at the menagerie that her away team had been assigned to retrieve released a moopsy from its enclosure in order to murder proprietor Narj, forcing Narj and the away team to flee the bone-drinking creature. After taking refuge in the main control room, Ransom got her to realize and acknowledge that her behavior made no sense. After the moopsy broke in and consumed Narj, Mariner unknowingly trapped it in the control room, resulting in the moopsy causing the station's orbit to decay. Ransom stopped her from sacrificing herself to lure the moopsy out and allow him and Ensign Gary to restabilize the orbit, instead ordering her to punch his teeth out to lure it out and back to its enclosure safely. As they went to retrieve the Human exhibits, Mariner noticed that a painting of an umbrella was upside-down, leading to the away team discovering their culpability and abandoning them at the menagerie. (LD: "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee")
However, the survivor guilt that caused her erratic conduct was not addressed at this time, resulting in her self-destructive behavior continuing and her emotional state becoming increasingly unstable. This did not go unnoticed when the Cerritos was on a diplomatic mission to Ferenginar; after Mariner got into a bar fight, her friend Quimp noted that while immature rebellion was hardly out of character, it was especially noticeable this time as she had nothing to be upset about for once, something Mariner was unable to refute. Although the two parted on good terms, Quimp asked Mariner to figure out what was causing her issues before it was too late. (LD: "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place")
Unfortunately, after the Ferenginar mission, the issue started to escalate into suicidal behavior, resulting in several violent away missions. On one occasion, she leapt out of a shuttlecraft to fight "a pile of junk" after mistaking it for a Borg drone; on another occasion, during a visit to an outpost on Persioff IX, she responded to tremble lizards breaking through a force field fence by going outside without donning an antivenom suit to lure the extremely dangerous creatures away and repair the fence. This eventually prompted Freeman to distract her from a search for Nick Locarno, apparently targeted by a mysterious ship that was stealing non-Starfleet vessels, by sending her on an away mission to a disabled weather satellite orbiting Sherbal V. Unknown to anyone, Locarno was the pilot of the ship, Nova One, and Sherbal V was the planet mutineers he was recruiting into Nova Fleet were marooning their commanding officers on. As such, the away team was attacked by the IKS Che'Ta' and forced to beam onto the planet. Mariner got into a fight with Ma'ah, but the duel was suspended when the two were forced into a cave to shelter from a glass storm. With nothing else to do and Ma'ah noticing that she seemed troubled, Mariner ended up pouring her heart out to Ma'ah about how Sito's death and the Dominion War had left her disillusioned with Starfleet and afraid of promotion because she was terrified of ordering friends to their deaths. Ma'ah responded by telling her that she was not honoring Sito's memory and that Sito would never approve of her erratic behavior, causing Mariner to reevaluate her attitude and come to terms with Sito's death; while her stance on Starfleet's flaws was unchanged, she conceded that Sito would think she was "acting like an idiot." With newfound faith in herself, Mariner then rallied the stranded crews together, only for Locarno to abduct her and bring her to the Detrion system. On Nova One, Locarno greeted Mariner as an old friend even though they only vaguely knew each other through Sito, and, much to her horror, introduced her to Nova Fleet.
Locarno attempted to use her as an anti-Starfleet symbol, but she instead condemned Locarno and his plan on a live subspace broadcast, stole a Ferengi-made Genesis Device Locarno was using as a deterrent, and fled on the USS Passaro. Unable to leave the system due to a trynar shield, she was instead forced to evade Nova Fleet within the system. All the while, she refused to fire a single shot on her pursuers, instead attempting to reason with them. Knowing the Genesis Device needed to be kept out of Locarno's hands permanently, she attempted to reach the lifeless Detrion 9 to detonate it there, only to be forced into an ion storm. Locarno, following Mariner in, called her an apologist for Starfleet, but she retorted that she would never put people in danger the way he was and refuted his claim that Sito died for no reason. She then flung Joshua Albert's death in his face, and, when he tried to blame the Academy professors for not letting Nova Squadron practice the Kolvoord Starburst, bluntly told him that the tragedy was the result of his own narcissism. When Nova One caught up with and disabled the Passaro, Mariner activated the Genesis Device before Locarno could board, and briefly fought him before being unexpectedly beamed onto the Cerritos captain's yacht as he attempted to shoot her; during the cat and mouse between the Passaro and Nova One, the Cerritos had breached the trynar shield by flinging the Orion destroyer Retribution at it. Mariner begged for Locarno to be saved, but Locarno, unaware that the full deactivation sequence was locked behind a paywall, refused rescue by raising shields and stubbornly attempted to disarm the device, and the captain's yacht was forced to flee the imminent Genesis Wave. The detonation transformed the ion storm and all matter within into a new planet, named Locarno since Locarno's atoms were part of it. Mariner returned to the Cerritos and apologized for her recent behavior, but then received some bad news: in exchange for the Retribution, Tendi had been forced to agree to leave the Cerritos and return to her role as Mistress of the Winter Constellations. (LD: "The Inner Fight", "Old Friends, New Planets")
2382
When the Cerritos was dispatched to seal a Quantum fissure, the ship was pulled into an alternate universe where its version of the Cerritos was captained by Mariner herself, going by the name "Becky Freeman". Though initially curious about her alternate self, she learned that she was actually a cruel despot who would throw people into the brig for the slightest infraction, running the ship through fear. However, this Mariner sought to replace her counterpart and return to a life of being a maverick. The plan failed, allowing Mariner to return to her own universe while the captain was finally jailed. On Douglas Station, Mariner, seeing a group of ensigns she was to mentor, admitted being unsure if she would be a good commander but vowed not to let herself become the "screaming despot" her alternate self had devolved into. (LD: "Dos Cerritos")
After an away mission to Piskes IX, the Cerritos suffered a navigation malfunction and became stranded in range of Starbase 80, forcing the ship to dock there. Reminded of both her brief service there and the conduct that got her transferred to the station, Mariner was willing to do anything to avoid reboarding, but was forced to because she was the only crewmember with any experience there. During the visit, the Cerritos crew, including Rutherford and Tendi, began to suffer severe cognitive debilitation and begin licking the walls, which at first she misinterpreted as related to the station itself but, when she saw Boimler suffer the "curse" after using his combadge, realized must have been coming from the Cerritos. Talking with station commander Kassia Nox, she ultimately realized that Starbase 80's crew was not unlike the crew of the Cerritos – a group of misfits on a less glamorous assignment – and came up with a plan to stop the "curse".
The two, alongside Doctor Harrison Horseberry and civilian food vendor Chad, fought their way to the deck to find the combadge logs, stopping Lieutenant Commander Andy Billups from mashing the self-destruct sequence in the process. Ultimately, Nox traced the possession to Cetacean Ops, where Lieutenant Matt, who had been on Piskes IX, was discovered to have been possessed by an anaphasic lifeform. Blaming herself for letting her prejudice against Starbase 80 blind her to the actual cause, Mariner fought the lifeform to get it out of Matt, but she and Nox ended up possessed, forcing Horseberry to hit Matt with a pool skimmer to make him vomit the lifeform up. When Horseberry built a stable vessel to contain the lifeform and allow it to communicate, it introduced itself as Clem and explained that it had been trying to prove itself to its superiors, but spread itself too thin and lost all sense of reason, leading to the "curse". The crew of the Cerritos stayed at the station even after the navigation problems were sorted out, to fix some of the problems Starbase 80 was experiencing. (LD: "Starbase 80?!")
When the Cerritos was hosting negotiations between the Orbs and the Cubes, Mariner learned about Ensign Olly, a Greek demigod and particularly problematic new officer who had been transferred from six different ships, most recently the USS Reseda, for recurring electrical mishaps and an attitude problem. Sensing a kinship, she offered to mentor Olly in a bid to reform her. Mariner and Olly were assigned to chaperone Quadralon, the child of Cube leader Sexagus, but when they reached its quarters, they found the room in disarray and a vidscreen missing. Olly vehemently accused the Orbs of abducting or even killing Quadralon, leading to a breakdown in negotiations and a shape war when it became clear that an Orb, Radiara, had also gone missing.
As the shape war raged, Mariner, acting on her suspicions after Olly mistakenly mentioned a "melted computer", tracked the vidscreen to Olly's locker, forcing Olly to admit that she went to Quadralon's quarters first mistakenly believing they were meeting there, discovered the mess, and hid the computer because she feared she would be blamed. Olly explained that, contrary to earlier claims, she did have powers, but her abilities were to absorb energy – explaining her recurring involvement in electrical malfunctions – and manifest rubbery lightning bolts, and that she had concealed these powers to avoid making people afraid of her. Mariner directed Olly to absorb the energy from the Orbs and Cubes to stop the shape war, but before Olly could stop the fighting, she became overloaded and uncontrollably expelled bolts, leading to the Orbs and Cubes combining into an Orbiculus and Omegacube respectively. With Mariner's plan having failed, Olly instead came up with the idea to use the tractor beam to drain the energy into the Cerritos, which caused both the Orbiculus and the Omegacube to revert to their components.
Following the battle, Quadralon and Radiara reemerged no worse for wear with a child, SquAaron, and admitted that the state of Quadralon's quarters was the result of overly vigorous sex and that they had gone to the holodeck afterwards. With the misunderstanding cleared up, the Orbs and Cubes began to work towards the Treaty of SquAaron. Olly was thrown in the brig overnight for lying and hiding evidence, but was allowed to stay on the Cerritos and reassigned to the engineering department. Mariner decided to keep an unwilling Olly company and tried to get to know her. (LD: "Of Gods and Angles")
Mariner went with T'Lyn and Tendi on a mission/girls' trip to retrieve something that was left behind by the purple USS Enterprise-D on Dilmer III. Disguised as Dilmerians, Mariner and the others were able to find shuttle debris and purple Lt. Commander Data's head. Due Rutherford and Boimler's spilling their Micheladas on the transporter console, Mariner, Tendi, and T'lyn spent ten months on Dilmer III due to the planet's Temporal differential. During those months, Mariner tried to make friends with the dilmerians but ended up in jail for assault and extinguishing a eternal flame with a grape. During her prison time, Mariner learned how to play a soap flute and made friends with several other prisoners who were murders. She tried to convince her jailers to free them before she was transported back to the Cerritos. Mariner also tried to convince Data to stay with them but he wanted to return to his friend, Geordi La Forge in his reality. In the Cerritos' mess hall, she continued to play her flute.(LD: "Fully Dilated")
Personal interests
Mariner was highly proficient at hand-to-hand combat and was a master of anbo-jyutsu. She was well-practiced at martial arts because it could be done alone, and she often lacked friends at her postings. (LD: "Mugato, Gumato")
Mariner enjoyed spreading rumors about herself because she liked "having a mystique." (LD: "Mugato, Gumato")
Mariner claimed her "secret" was never eating after seven o'clock. (LD: "No Small Parts")
Mariner was skilled in playing the electric guitar, preferring the hard rock genre and used an amplifier when performing. (LD: "Temporal Edict")
Personal relationships
Family
Carol Freeman
Mariner and her mother in 2380
Mariner's relationship with her mother was often rocky, and conflicting to the point where both of them hoped to keep their relationship as mother and daughter a secret from the rest of the crew. Mariner did not want to be seen as any different from the rest of the crew, and Freeman didn't wish for it to be known that one of the most rebellious officers of the fleet was her daughter. They managed to keep this relationship secret, until Boimler stumbled upon the secret by accident, and inadvertently revealed the relationship to the crew of the Cerritos via an open communications channel. (LD: "Crisis Point", "No Small Parts")
Freeman's patience with Mariner was very often tested, and in 2380, she sought numerous ways to get her transferred off the ship, though none of these methods was successful, and Mariner even caught on that Freeman was trying to have her transferred.(LD: "Second Contact", "Moist Vessel")
Despite this conflicting relationship, Mariner still loved her mother, and when the two cooperated together, they could accomplish impressive feats together. At one point, Freeman had Mariner briefly promoted, initially with the hopes of transferring her off the Cerritos, but with how effective the two worked together in a crisis, she wondered if Mariner would actually be a good addition to her senior staff. While Mariner ultimately got herself demoted again, the two later agreed to work together to provide a positive change in the ways Mariner was good at but Freeman was limited to do under Starfleet protocol. (LD: "Moist Vessel", "No Small Parts")
While Mariner was not above taunting Freeman often, and giving her a piece of her mind, the two learned to see past their differences and their quarrels and find a new respect and love for one another. While the two didn't always understand one another, their conflicts never hurt their love for one another, and Mariner logged that as much as Freeman could be a "pain in the ass", she would do anything for her. (LD: "Crisis Point", "I, Excretus")
In 2381, Freeman accused Mariner of besmirching her and the Cerritos to FNN reporter Victoria Nuzé when she had done no such thing and transferred her to Starbase 80 as revenge, leading to an outraged Mariner resigning. Freeman was not notified of Mariner's resignation until she contacted the station in a desperate attempt to apologize upon learning that Mariner's unauthorized interview had contained nothing but praise. Despite this, Mariner came to the aid of the Cerritos without a second thought upon learning of the Texas-class crisis, and, once the crisis was over, forgave Freeman for her actions, noting that her own poor behavior likely contributed to Freeman's rash decision making. (LD: "Trusted Sources", "The Stars At Night")
Friendships
Quimp
Mariner and Quimp
Quimp was one of Mariner's oldest continuous friends. He helped her out on occasion and genuinely cared for her well-being. (LD: "Envoys", "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place")
Bradward Boimler
Mariner and Boimler having a drink
Mariner considered Boimler her best friend, and the two often worked together on missions. She used affectionate nicknames like "Boims" for him.
Though their friendship started a bit rough, and though their personalities and approach to their missions could be drastically different, with Boimler being more by the book, while Mariner would act more on instinct, they worked well together, and developed enormous amounts of respect for one another. As a show of friendship, Mariner decided to become Boimler's mentor with the intention of getting him into a captain's chair. She also helped restore some faith in himself as a Starfleet officer by deliberately making herself look bad when he got close to quitting Starfleet. (LD: "Second Contact", "Envoys", "Strange Energies")
When Boimler accepted a promotion, and transfer to the USS Titan, Mariner was very angry and hurt that he didn't say goodbye and held a grudge against him for a brief period of time. While she missed him, she did eventually understand his decision, and was happy for him. Even three months after the transfer, Mariner, Tendi, and Rutherford kept up the habit of leaving an open booth for Boimler when using the sonic showers due to his discomfort with public nudity.
Boimler's time on the Titan was limited, however, and when he returned to the Cerritos, Mariner was very excited to see him return, and welcomed him back instantly (though she wasn't above giving him a little flack for leaving). While she welcomed him back, she did hold a small bit of anger at him, which was revealed during a visit with Boimler to Starbase 25. While Mariner was angry with him for never apologizing, Boimler was angry that she was being selfish, and that he earned his promotion to the Titan. The two eventually reconciled, with Boimler giving her the apology she had been waiting for. (LD: "No Small Parts", "Strange Energies", "Kayshon, His Eyes Open", "An Embarrassment Of Dooplers")
Boimler was very distraught when Mariner was transferred to Starbase 80 by Captain Freeman, following her unauthorized interview with FNN, and when it was revealed that Mariner's interview was not slanderous as had initially been thought, he regretted not standing up more in her defense. While he apologized upon her return, he was self-conscious to the point of when Jack Ransom hinted at an upcoming promotion for him, he was hesitant to accept it, remembering how his promotion to the Titan had harmed their friendship, and how he thought his judgement was bad, based on how he reacted upon Mariner's transfer. It wasn't until Mariner told him that she had recommended the promotion to Ransom that Boimler was finally able to put this behind him. (LD: "Trusted Sources", "The Stars At Night", "Twovix")
Despite the arguments Mariner and Boimler could often find themselves in, the two were practically inseparable to the point where Tendi did not dismiss the assumption that they're dating, and they were often mistaken for a couple. They affectionately teased one another, and Mariner considered Boimler her "number one." (LD: "We'll Always Have Tom Paris", "An Embarrassment Of Dooplers")
D'Vana Tendi
Mariner and Tendi were friends, but did not have a very close relationship for a while. Since Tendi was closer with Rutherford more often than not, for the first year that Tendi served aboard the Cerritos, Mariner was completely unaware that Tendi even had a first name. Tendi was also unaware of a lot of Mariner's service history with Starfleet. Mariner also had a habit of associating Tendi with common stereotypes associated with Orions, much to the discomfort and frustration of Tendi, who was trying to distance herself from such stigmas. (LD: "Crisis Point", "We'll Always Have Tom Paris")
Despite this, the two did grow closer as friends as time went on to the point where in a single mission, Tendi disclosed more information about herself than even Rutherford knew. Mariner saw Tendi as a very kind and good person and was willing to take the blame for her when she'd get into trouble.
William T. Riker
Mariner was friends with Riker and his former mentee. He often provided her with contraband, such as Romulan ale. (LD: "No Small Parts")
Dating
Mariner was pansexual and had dated "bad boys, bad girls, bad gender nonbinary babes, ruthless alien masterminds, [and] bad Bynars." (LD: "We'll Always Have Tom Paris")
Mariner once dated an Anabaj to make her mother angry. (LD: "Envoys")
Aboard the Cerritos, Mariner went on one date with Lieutenant Steve Levy in 2379, but ended it because he believed conspiracy theories, such as that "Wolf 359 was an inside job." (LD: "No Small Parts")
Jennifer Sh'reyan
Sh'reyan and Mariner kiss.
Mariner's relationship with the Andorian, Jennifer Sh'reyan, started incredibly rocky. She claimed to hate her at first, and was particularly annoyed by Andy Billups calling her by Jen's name. (LD: "No Small Parts", "Strange Energies") This tension between the two continued through 2381, until the Cerritos had to engage in a rescue of the USS Archimedes. Mariner and Sh'reyan worked together to help Ransom manually navigate through a debris field by sight. When the Cerritos collided with a piece of debris, Sh'reyan saved Mariner when she became dislodged, and nearly drifted out into space. Mariner later thanked her for saving her, and they both apologized to one another for how they'd been treating each other. (LD: "First First Contact")
The two started dating shortly afterward, though Mariner was a bit shy about it. It was implied that Mariner was afraid of long-term commitment. Her friends teased her about it, though they were ultimately supportive of their relationship. Mariner at one point was very shy about meeting Sh'reyan's friends. When she was invited to Castro's salon, she went out of her way to be overly polite, as she was worried that Sh'reyan would break up with her if her friends didn't like her. Sh'reyan saw through the act and assured her that she liked Mariner for her short tolerance of people, and has been looking forward to seeing Mariner go hard on her friends. Reassured, Mariner proceeded to stun them all when they were panicking in a blackout, much to Sh'reyan's amusement. Sh'reyan later told Mariner that it was her unpredictability that she loved the most about her. (LD: "Mining The Mind's Mines", "Hear All, Trust Nothing")
After Mariner was mistakenly blamed for leaking disparaging information about the Cerritos crew to the Federation News Network, Sh'reyan was one of the people she approached in an attempt for support. Sh'reyan, however, offered no sympathy, telling Mariner that her actions hurt the entire crew when they all had been trying to make a good impression. Mariner assured Sh'reyan that she did nothing wrong, and urged that she needed Sh'reyan to believe her. Instead, Sh'reyan told her that she could not trust her, and that she obviously never truly knew who Mariner was. (LD: "Trusted Sources")
After Mariner returned from Starbase 80 the two did not speak for a year. On a mission to the Cosmic Duchess in 2382 Sh'reyan acted as if they were still a couple. The two finally talked and were able to express the betrayal they both felt after the events the previous year. They officially break up and part as friends. (LD: "The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel")
Alternate realities and timelines
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Becky Freeman as captain of the Cerritos.
"Because I keep them on edge. A captain has to maintain discipline above all else."
In a parallel universe, Mariner was promoted to Captain, and made commanding officer of the Cerritos after Carol Freeman was transferred to Starbase 80. Additionally, this version of Mariner went primarily by the name Becky Freeman.
Becky's attempts to run the ship ultimately led her to use fear to control her subordinates; she would hit them with a riding crop and send them to the brig if they did something she did not like. Secretly, however, she hated being captain, and wanted to return to a life of being a maverick. When the Cerritos of the prime universe crossed over into her universe via a quantum fissure, Becky saw an opportunity, stunning and binding the prime Mariner in order to switch places with her. However, Becky's ruse was quickly discovered when she called the prime Freeman "mother" instead of "mom", at which point she was beamed back to her Cerritos, and put in its brig for her actions. (LD: "Dos Cerritos")
While trying to find anything useful on Beard Boimler's PADD after Malor disappeared, Boimler discovered that Becky hid Klingons who sought political asylum. (LD: "The New Next Generation")
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Ensign Mariner as an engineer aboard the Anaximander.
In another alternate reality, Mariner still had the same friends, but instead she served as an engineer on the Cerritos, hated adventures, and is far more compliant as implied by her never having been in a cell. While investigating the quantum rifts, Mariner's shuttle inadvertently crossed through one where she was rescued by the Anaximander commanded by Captain William Boimler from the prime universe. This Mariner went on to play a vital role in the mission to stop the quantum rifts, using her engineering knowledge to draw the USS Beagle to the Anaximander and later helping the Anaximander to catch up to the other ship. (LD: "Fissure Quest")
Appendices
Appearances
- LD:
- "Second Contact"
- "Envoys"
- "Temporal Edict"
- "Moist Vessel"
- "Cupid's Errant Arrow"
- "Terminal Provocations"
- "Much Ado About Boimler"
- "Veritas"
- "Crisis Point"
- "No Small Parts"
- "Strange Energies"
- "Kayshon, His Eyes Open"
- "We'll Always Have Tom Paris"
- "Mugato, Gumato"
- "An Embarrassment Of Dooplers"
- "The Spy Humongous"
- "Where Pleasant Fountains Lie"
- "I, Excretus"
- "wej Duj"
- "First First Contact"
- "Grounded"
- "The Least Dangerous Game"
- "Mining The Mind's Mines"
- "Room for Growth"
- "Reflections"
- "Hear All, Trust Nothing"
- "A Mathematically Perfect Redemption"
- "Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus"
- "Trusted Sources"
- "The Stars At Night"
- "Twovix"
- "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee"
- "In the Cradle of Vexilon"
- "Something Borrowed, Something Green"
- "Empathological Fallacies"
- "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place"
- "A Few Badgeys More"
- "Caves"
- "The Inner Fight"
- "Old Friends, New Planets"
- "Dos Cerritos"
- "Shades of Green"
- "The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel"
- "A Farewell To Farms"
- "Starbase 80?!"
- "Of Gods and Angles"
- "Fully Dilated"
- "Upper Decks"
- "Fissure Quest"
- "The New Next Generation"
- SNW: "Those Old Scientists"
- VST:
- "Holograms All the Way Down" (background hologram)
- "Walk, Don't Run" (background only; archive footage)
Background information
Mariner's signature
Mariner was voiced by Tawny Newsome.
In developing the characters for Lower Decks, Mike McMahan described all four leads in an 10 August 2020 TrekMovie.com interview as a combination of other Star Trek characters, parts of himself, and people in his life. Mariner had elements of Captain James T. Kirk, Kathryn Janeway, and Jean-Luc Picard, "she knows the rules, but also sometimes feels like she should bend them because she knows better."
Beckett Mariner in a Paramount+ commercial
He further compares her to "Maverick in Top Gun... he's great at flying a jet, but he also buzzes the tower." [2]
McMahan named Mariner after his sister, Beckett Mariner McMahan, and based her relationship with Captain Freeman on his sister's relationship with their mother "when my sister was younger and would throw down with my mom occasionally." [3] [4]
Beckett Mariner appears as a duty officer in Star Trek Online.
Apocrypha
An alternate timeline version of Mariner appears in the comic miniseries Star Trek: Sons of Star Trek where she is a commander and the first officer aboard the USS Avery.
External links
- Beckett Mariner at StarTrek.com
- Beckett Mariner at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works