Recap / Star Trek: Lower Decks S4E09 "The Inner Fight"

"Why is my daughter trying to get herself killed?"

— Captain Freeman

The mysterious ship that has been vaporizing non-Federation vessels is now going after former Starfleet officers, and the Cerritos is sent to pick up Nick Locarno for his own protection. Meanwhile, Beta Shift (Minus Rutherford) are assigned to repair a remote weather satellite in orbit of Sherbal V, as Mariner has been acting self-destructive as of late and Captain Freeman wants to keep her out of danger. Of course, it's the second-to-last episode of the season, and nothing is quite as it seems...

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Tropes:

• Admiring the Abomination: The lead scientist on Persioff 9 loves the venomous tremble lizards — as long as they're on the other side of the Force-Field Door. The moment the field malfunctions, he panics.
• Ambiguous Situation: Thomas Riker is listed as still being alive, despite him last being sent off to a Cardassian Labor camp over a decade ago for stealing the Defiant and attacking the Cardassians as part of the Maquis. It's not clear if he's still in that camp, or if he'd been released following the end of the Dominion War.
• Alien Blood: Pepto-Bismol-pink Klingon blood returns, taking some of the edge off of Ma'ah's brutal (offscreen) killing of his former first officer.
• Annoying Arrows: The glass rain is treated as dangerous, but the shards that actually hit anyone are just pulled out with no issue.
• Arc Welding: Heavy amounts, some of it pure coincidence.
  • Mariner mentions the battle with the Pakleds near the end of season two in "wej Duj" and T'Lyn brings up that she was at that battle too. Not acknowledged is that Ma'ah was also at that battle in that episode, and this is the first time the three "crews" of that episode meet.
  • Mariner reveals that she was Academy classmates with Ensign Sito Jaxa from "The First Duty" and "Lower Decks" and alludes to the plots of both episodes. Sito's death hit Mariner especially hard and combined with the Dominion War explains her self-destructive behavior both in rebelling against authority and recent violent impulses since being promoted.
  • Conversely, she was also an underclassman to Nick Locarno also from "The First Duty" and Captain Freeman's plotline was trying to find him for protection, but he is the Hidden Villain of the season.
  • On a minor note, the away mission designed to distract Mariner from the Cerritos locating Nick Locarno happens to be where Nick has been dropping the crews of the missing ships. Nick implicitly sabotaged the weather station so it wouldn't reveal his presence there, which is why Tendi suggests repairing it as a seemingly mundane task that Mariner can't endanger herself doing.
• Audience Surrogate: At the first mention of Nick Locarno, Tendi asks "Who?" This allows Ransom to explain to both her and newer Trekkies who didn't watch "The First Duty".
• Bad Guy Bar: Where Freeman goes looking for information on Locarno.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • When the Cerritos is given a list of ex-Starfleet officers to check in on, one of them is Beverly Crusher. Boimler assumes they're going to check in on her, but Captain Freeman informs the disappointed Lieutenant J.G. that the Vancouver is checking in on her: the Cerritos has been given the assignment to check in on Nick Locarno.
  • At the bad guy bar, the information broker not only looks like the alien from "The Corbomite Maneuver" (which did turn out to be a puppet), but it moves like a stiff, awkward, '60s era puppet. Captain Freeman assumes the alien is a puppet, but it's quickly revealed it's an actual alien once she picks it up and starts shaking it.
• Batman Gambit: Freeman knew that all the criminals in the Bad Guy Bar would be biased against her and her away team and refuse to hand over the information they were after. So she sent Billups to the planet disguised as a bounty hunter. The criminals were so busy trying to spite her, Rutherford, and Shaxs for being in Starfleet that they handed over everything they needed to know to Billups.
• Big Damn Heroes: Tendi and the rest of the Beta Shifters arrives right on time to order the Orions to stand down when they were about to attack Mariner, who was trying to resolve the situation peacefully after finally confronting her own issues.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: While it's unlikely that the two have ever met each other, Ma'ah uses Worf's "Kingons do not [X]" line when Mariner hugs him.
• Brick Joke: Back in TNG's "Redemption," Commander Hobson objected to Data taking command of the Sutherland by saying that he felt an android wasn't suitable as a commanding officer, while offhandedly noting that a Klingon wouldn't make a good ship's counselor. Here, a Klingon manages to help Mariner sort through her fears and self-doubt, something that Starfleet counselors had been unable to do.
• Brutal Honesty:
  • Beta Shift tries to be diplomatic about Mariner's issues, but after getting stranded on Sherbal V, T'Lyn decides to rip the band-aid off and call her out on her self-destructive behavior.
  • Ma'ah does not mince words when it comes to calling out Mariner on her self-destructive behavior, though he does it in a You Are Better Than You Think You Are manner and tells her the best way to honor her friend's sacrifice is to follow her example.
• The Bus Came Back: Ma'ah, having seemingly met an ill end during the season premiere, turns out to be alive and well.
• Call-Back:
  • Nick Locarno, a.k.a. Beta Tom Paris, from "The First Duty" returns, now a civilian pilot for hire.
  • Mariner is noted to have become particularly self-destructive after the mission to Ferenginar in "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place", where Quimp first noted said behavior.
  • Mariner's issues stem from the death of Ensign Sito, which occurred in the appropriately-titled TNG episode "Lower Decks".
  • Freeman meets a Knowledge Broker who looks the same as Balok's disguise in "The Corbomite Maneuver". She voices suspicions that he's a puppet from his stilted mannerisms and throttles him, learning he's actually a real person who just so happens to have a puppet-like appearance.
  • Like on Deep Space Nine, some Deliberate Values Dissonance kicks in as Mariner saw the Dominion War as a case of War Is Hell, while Ma'ah finds it to have been one of the most glorious wars in which the Klingons ever fought, much like how Sisko and Admiral Ross found it just as distasteful and horrific as General Martok found it a worthy challenge.
  • This isn't the first time we've seen a junior Starfleet officer lament their role as soldiers or peacekeepers rather than the peaceful explorers they joined Starfleet to be. Boimler has had speeches on the topic more than once (well, one was a motivating speech, the other an angry tirade at a group of hecklers), and in the Discovery episode "Battle at the Binary Stars," an injured Ensign Connor gives a similar lament just before his death.
• Canon Immigrant: A weird variant due to the knowledge broker. In the Star Trek novel "The Face of the Unknown" establishes Balok species are called the Linnik, and the puppet's species is the Dassik.
• Call-Forward: Ma'ah protests being hugged without his consent, just as Worf will in season 3 of Picard.
• Cerebus Call-Back: Back in "Reflections", Boimler ranted that Starfleet would rather be exploring and studying the universe, not being the first line of defense in interstellar wars. Here, Mariner shares with Ma'ah that studying the universe was her greatest dream for joining Starfleet, but her friend got recruited to be a spy on a mission where she died, and then Mariner herself became embroiled in the Dominion War. This fostered her self-destructive habit of rebelling against any promotion with insubordination, never wanting to be put in a position of authority where she'd have to decide on sending Starfleet members to their deaths.
• Cliffhanger: Mariner is transported to the mysterious ship, where she is met by Nick Locarno, who intends to cause some trouble with her. Meanwhile, Ma'ah and the others from the planet have taken control of the Bird-of-Prey.
• Connected All Along: It seems Mariner knew the late Ensign Sito and Nick Locarno, and were classmates in their Academy Days.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The episode references Seven of Nine, Beverly Crusher, Thomas Riker, and Nick Locarno as former Starfleet officers. Star Trek: Picard established that Seven, after being denied entrance into Starfleet (though she would be admitted later) went on to found the Fenris Rangers, while Beverly left Starfleet to protect her son. Thomas Riker was last seen as a prisoner of the Cardassians on Deep Space Nine, after joining the Maquis.
  • The symbol on Locarno's jacket is a Kolvoord Starburst, the maneuver that led to him getting expelled from Starfleet Academy.
  • Mudd's is presumably named after, and probably founded by, Harry Fenton Mudd. They serve jippers, the cocktail Mudd expressed a fondness for in "The Escape Artist".
• Contrived Coincidence: The far-away planet where Mariner is sent to keep her safe happens to be where the abductees have been gathered.
• Cross-Referenced Titles: The title is a reference to TNG's "The Inner Light".
• Dare to Be Badass: After helping Mariner admit the root of her issues, Ma'ah encourages her to be the Starfleet officer she should be — in a Klingon way, of course.
  Ma'ah: Honor your friend. Slay your enemies... and study your... what was it, plants?
  Mariner: Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's plants.
• Disappointing Promotion: Mariner confesses to Ma'ah that the reason why she never wanted to be a lieutenant JG was the unresolved trauma of losing her friend Sito Jaxa on a spy mission right after she was posted to the Enterprise, followed by her own commission right at the beginning of the Dominion War. In essence, she felt that she didn't deserve to surpass Sito, and although she initially had aspirations to be a captain, she couldn't reconcile that vision with the militarization of Starfleet, especially the thought of ordering people to their deaths.
• Distinction Without a Difference: After all the other aliens agree to work together after Mariner's speech, the Romulan captain insists he's not joining anything but agrees to cease aggression for now.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Since both Tom Paris and Nick Locarno were played by Robert Duncan McNeill in live-action with his natural appearance, Tom Paris was previously portrayed on Lower Decks as he looked throughout Voyager, while Locarno has some added grey hairs, a scar over his eyebrow and a moderate beard to distinguish him. However, Locarno in his old personnel file is drawn just like Paris.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: It turns out that the mastermind that has been behind the mysterious ship attacking ships all season is none other than the disgraced former cadet Nick Locarno. He was actually on a list of former Starfleet officers, now civilians, that Starfleet thought needed protection from the mysterious ship.
• Drama Bomb Finale: The A-plot starts the Drama Bomb one episode early, with four of the Beta Shifters ending up tangled up with the overarching plot, and Mariner revealing and coming to terms with her Sito and Dominion War-related PTSD before being abducted by the mastermind, Nick Locarno. The mostly comedic B-plot ends up intersecting right at the end, when Rutherford discovers blueprints for the mysterious ship in Locarno's hangar.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Freeman sets the away mission up to keep Mariner, who's frequently been going Leeroy Jenkins recently, out of danger. What she can't know is that she's sending the away team to the planet where Locarno's having his mutineers dump their commanding officers, and that the Che'Ta' is on the lookout for intruders, meaning she's actually sending Mariner into the lion's den.
  • In addition, Starfleet thinks that Locarno needs to be protected from the mystery ship. They have no idea that he's controlling it.
• Enemy Mine: Klingons, Romulans, Orions, Ferengi, and Cardassians don't get along at the best of times, but they do form factions while trying to survive on the planet. Mariner manages to convince them to all work together to escape.
• Escaped Animal Rampage: When one of the tremble lizards disables the energy barrier, a bunch of them heads towards the research outpost station to kill everyone. But after Mariner recklessly gets all the tremble lizards back behind the fence, she fails to notice that she has a tremble lizard on her back before she enters the station and it pounces on one of the outpost scientists.
• Eye Scream: The tremble lizards have a neurotoxin that, when brought into skin contact, causes the victim's eyes to shoot out. The poor outpost scientist who tells the Beta Shifters this suffers this.
• Fire-Forged Friendship: Mariner and Ma'ah start off as enemies when they first encounter each other, engaging in a fight to the death. But they are interrupted by a glass rainstorm, forcing them to take cover together and Ma'ah calling off the fight until the storm passes. During that time, the two talk with each other and Ma'ah ends up playing Warrior Therapist to Mariner, talking her through her recent troubles and convincing her to honor her deceased friend Sito. Upon the storm passing, Mariner declares Ma'ah her friend and that they should work together. This is Played for Laughs with Ma'ah at first, since he angrily tries to deny being her friend and insists they must finish their fight to the death, but by their next scene together they are working together perfectly, with Ma'ah ordering the other aliens to listen to Mariner as she speaks and declaring she is honorable.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Mariner is finally able to convince everyone to work together to get off the planet, Mariner is suddenly transported off the planet. Later when it cuts to space, we see the mysterious ship that was attacking other ships next to the Bird-of-Prey before it flies off. When everyone is able to take over the Bird-of-Prey, Boimler reveals Mariner isn't even on the ship. That's because Mariner is on the mysterious ship that's being piloted by Locarno, who personally transported her away from them.
  • The emblem on the Bird of Prey resembles the intended result of a Kolvoord Starburst, foreshadowing Locarno's involvement in the recent attacks, as he was expelled from Starfleet Academy for manipulating his squad into trying to perform one (and getting one of them killed as a result).
  • The fact that Mariner was friends with Sito at the Academy hints that she would also have known Locarno, as Sito was part of Nova Squadron under Locarno. Sure enough, when she runs into him at the end, she calls him by his first name, while he appears to consider her a friend and apparently expects her to join in whatever he's up to.
• Friendship Denial: Ma'ah angrily declares that he and Mariner are not allies after she refuses to continue their fight. She cheerfully ignores him.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Freeman and the others enter Locarno's hideout, a training shuttle similar to the one flown by Nova Squadron in "The First Duty" can be seen under a tarp.
• Gone Horribly Right: Ma'ah helps Mariner get past her issues, only to then be disappointed that Mariner is now unwilling to continue their duel to the death. On the plus side, this does eventually lead to him getting his ship back.
• Gory Discretion Shot:
  • We don't get to see what the tremble lizard does to the lead outpost scientist, but Mariner suggests that it's exactly as the scientist warned.
  • We're not shown exactly what Ma'ah did to his mutinous first officer, but given all the blood around his mouth, odds are he tore the man's throat out with his teeth.
• Gray Rain of Depression: Mariner opening up to Ma'ah about her trauma from Sito's death and serving in the Dominion War is accompanied by a harsh rainstorm that only clears up when she actually makes an emotional breakthrough. For extra symbolism points, the rain is made of shards of glass, reflecting how all of her attempts to process her grief prior to this point had only been hurting her further.
• Homage: Captain Freeman and her party's whole adventure is a loving homage to Star Trek's arch-rival franchise Star Wars with a desert planet with a bad guy bar, scoundrels aplenty, and bounty hunters with very distinct helmets. The uniforms worn by the orbital traffic control also resemble those worn by the Imperial Navy.
• Hostile Weather: The planet Sherbal V has rainstorms of shards of glass.
• I'm Standing Right Here: The Orion captain says she refuses to "bend the knee" to Starfleet, saying they're worse than the Romulans. The Romulan captain standing a few feet away gives an offended "Hey!" in response.
• Innocently Insensitive: When Mariner reveals to Ma'ah that she fought in the Dominion War, he expresses how he wishes he could have been part of it himself, seeing battle and dying a glorious death as a great honor. Mariner however says there was no honor, it was just a massacre, Ma'ah states she was still victorious in the end in an almost confused tone, leading to Mariner snapping that Starfleet is supposed to be about exploration and discovery, not fighting wars.
• Insignia Rip-Off Ritual: Mariner angrily pulls off and throws away her Lieutenant Junior Grade rank pip during her rant to Ma'ah about wanting to stay an ensign. Ma'ah hands it back to her while telling her to honor her friend Sito.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Upon reaching the Pickpocket District, Rutherford laughs and declares they don't have pockets... only to find out to his horror that his uniform does have pockets.
• Internal Deconstruction: Trek has shown that one of the most difficult things about being The Captain is that sometimes, you have to order some of your crew to their deaths if it means saving the ship— in fact, "Thine Own Self" makes a point that any high-ranking officer must be able to make this choice if they're to be trusted with leadership. Even T'Lyn, earlier in the season, made the point to Boimler that he couldn't protect a group of Ensigns from dangerous situations. And, as gets mentioned, there's the recent Dominion War, where admirals like Bill Ross ordered entire starship crews to die for the Federation. However, Mariner is one Starfleet officer who won't do that, having been traumatized by losing her friend Ensign Sito and witnessing the horrors of the Dominion War unfold where other Captains were forced to make similar hard calls. As much as Mariner has shown she's capable of being a Captain, she can't stomach The Chains of Commanding, which has led her down a self-destructive path to prevent herself from being put in that situation.
• Internal Reveal: Mariner and T'Lyn both learn that their respective ships were involved in the battle with the Pakleds.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: While attempting to kill Ma'ah, the Romulan Vrek refers to him as both an "it" and a "thing".
• Just Between You and Me: This is Mariner's original reason for explaining things to Ma'ah. When their fight to the death is interrupted and they take shelter together until the storm passes, Mariner decides since one of them will be dead soon it doesn't matter what she says to him and explains her trauma from Sito's death and the Dominion War and why she wants to stay an ensign.
• Klingon Promotion: After being tossed off his ship by his traitorous crew, Ma'ah reclaims his ship and captaincy by ripping out the traitorous captain's throat with his teeth.
• Kneel Before Frodo: The Orions are about to kill Mariner when Tendi jumps in and stops them, and they immediately genuflect before the Mistress of the Winter Constellations.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Three of the four main quartet (plus T'Lyn) have no idea who Nick Lorcano is, as he's a particularly obscure character by the standards of Trek, not helped by the fact that his actor went on to play a Suspiciously Similar Substitute on Voyager with a near-identical but more sympathetic backstory (with said character guest-starring in Season 2 of this show).
  • The Homage on the desert planet feels very much like Star Wars, so one has to wonder if the local's scathing criticisms of Starfleet in sarcastically dismissing them as "perfect" are really coming from their mouths, or if they've been plucked from anti-Trek Star Wars fans.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Freeman keeps Rutherford and Shaxs unaware of her Batman Gambit to obtain the information on Locarno, to help sell it to the criminals. So when Freeman says their mission was a success, the two give each other confused looks, with Shaxs even shrugging at Rutherford, before everything is revealed.
• Mathematician's Answer: Vulcans famously don't lie, but when Mariner, who is on a thrill-kicks phase, asks the threat level, T'Lyn says, "It will be 2.7 times more perilous if you remain uninformed of the details." Yeah, 2.7 times nil is still practically nil.
• Mundane Solution: It appeared that the mystery ship had somehow been hacking the systems of its targets and remotely disabling their defenses right before it attacked. It turns out Locarno had actually bribed those ships' lower deckers into betraying their captains and deactivating systems so he could beam away their commanding officers.
• Mythology Gag: While this episode is a Stealth Sequel to TNG's "The First Duty", its title harkens back to the same series' well-regarded "The Inner Light", which took place six episodes later in the same (fifth) season. Further, the episode establishes that Mariner was friends with Sito Jaxa, one of the central characters of "Lower Decks", which this show takes its name and premise from.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • After Mariner recklessly gets all the tremble lizards back behind the fence, Mariner fails to notice that she has a tremble lizard on her back and she accidentally brings it inside the station, where it ends up pouncing on one of the outpost scientist.
  • Retroactively, Mariner's entire behavior cycle all series had proven itself to be a serious issue and she was working towards overcoming it. However, by the time she actually started taking it seriously, the only therapist she had access to, and thus the therapist assigned to her, was Dr. Migleemo, whose incompetence in the field made her unwilling to push past her initial trauma due to her lacking trust in his capabilities. This resulted in repeated false starts that ended in her falling back into that cycle because the root cause of the issue was never addressed.
• Not What I Signed on For: Ma'ah helps Mariner get to the root of her issues — she joined Starfleet to be a scientist and an explorer, but because she graduated during the Dominion cold war, she instead became a soldier in a war where she watched her friends die.
  Mariner: Starfleet is supposed to be about puzzling together the mysteries of life, not fighting wars! I don't wanna be a general! I don't — I don't wanna send my friends off to die! I just wanna be an ensign. If it was good enough for Sito, then it's good enough for me.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Captain Freeman knew that walking into a Bad Guy Bar in full uniform would not endear them to local information brokers, so she played along as a frustrated, stuck-up Starfleet officer while Billups wandered in as a Bounty Hunter more likely to get the information they were searching for.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The lead scientist freaks out when the tremble lizards cut the Force-Field Door.
    Scientist: The fence! Oh, no! Those monsters are going to [BLEEP]ing kill us all!
    Mariner: What? I thought you loved them.
    Scientist: Only when the fence is up!
  • Freeman says a subdued "Oh... my... God..." upon seeing the blueprints of the mysterious ship in Locarno's hideout.
• The Reveal:
  • Mariner's aversion to being promoted comes from having known Ensign Sito at the Academy. Sito graduated ahead of her and was posted to the Enterprise, only to be killed during a spy mission to Cardassia. Such a seemingly pointless death made Mariner wary of being placed in a position where she might have to command others to their deaths. And then the Dominion War happened, which only compounded her trauma.
  • The mysterious ship was built by Nick Locarno, who has been bribing various alien lower deck crews to disable their ships, then transporting off the commanders. The Klingon ship guards the planet where he dumps the commanders to fend for themselves. It's not clear what he's done with the rest, or why he's doing this in the first place.
• Rousing Speech: Mariner manages to inspire everyone to join forces to escape the planet.
  Mariner: Look, we don't have to like each other. But until we're off this [BLEEP] planet, we need to work together. How else are you gonna get revenge on whoever did this? Each and every one of you comes from a species that chose to travel into space, and all the danger that comes with it. We've survived worse. If we can work together, nothing can stop us.
• Series Continuity Error: Mariner says that she was friends with Sito Jaxa in the academy. In TNG's "Lower Decks", Sito said that after the events of "The First Duty" she had no friends, and that she was such a pariah she had to take her final piloting test with the instructor because no one was willing to partner with her. This might be explained by Mariner distancing herself from Sito at some point following the Nova Squadron incident, but that doesn't square with Mariner's expressed admiration of Sito. It's also possible that the test had to be taken with another final-year cadet, and Mariner was a year behind and unable to participate.
• Sheathe Your Sword: When all the aliens are gathered together and ready to kill each other, rather than join in on the fighting, Mariner reveals herself and calls for a time out from everyone so they can talk things out. Ma'ah and Tendi help her by stating that anyone who doesn't want to listen to her will deal with them instead.
• Stealth Sequel: To TNG's "The First Duty." It's not only revealed that Mariner was friends with Ensign Sito, but that Nick Locarno is the mastermind of the abductions all season.
• Talking in Your Sleep: Boimler, who seems to have some sort of Celebrity Crush on Beverly Crusher, asks her to teach him how to tap-dance in his sleep.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Tendi suggests taking Mariner on a mission to repair a damaged weather station, reasoning that it's a boring job she can't possibly hurt herself doing. Instead, they wind up stumbling into the main plot of the season.
  • The Orion captain says that she refuses to "bend the knee" to Starfleet when Mariner tries to convince everyone marooned on the planet to work together. Cue Tendi showing up, at which point she immediately kneels.
• There Are No Therapists: Played with. Boimler quite sensibly suggests sending Mariner to Dr. Migleemo, but Freeman rejects that because their mission to pick up Locarno is happening right now, and they don't have time to have Mariner work out her issues before they wind up in another situation where Mariner will endanger herself. Tendi offers the weather station mission as a distraction. Even then, Mariner likely wouldn't have taken the help considering Dr. Migleemo hasn't done much to help her traumas in the past, meaning that, as established in his debut episode, she doesn't trust him as a therapist.
• Too Dumb to Live: The Orion Captain, Cosmia is eager to attack Mariner. This even after Captain Ma'ah has revealed himself and has loudly proclaimed his allegiance to the lieutenant.
• Unrobotic Reveal: When Freeman and her group encounter the knowledge broker, Freeman assumes he's puppet because of his stiff, awkward movements. But after she starts violently shaking him, Rutherford uses his implants to see he's actually organic with internal organs.
• War Is Hell: Ma'ah thinks of the Dominion War as glorious and wishes he could have been part of it, but Mariner insists it was a slaughter.
• Warrior Therapist: Ma'ah goes from fighting Mariner to accurately diagnosing her issues and calling her out for disrespecting the memory of her friend.
• We Will Not Have Pockets in the Future: Subverted, Rutherford comments on this, but is amazed to learn his uniform does have pockets, and presumably always has.
• Wham Line: Mariner wakes up aboard the mystery ship, and a door opens to reveal Nicholas Locarno. Mariner greets him by name, revealing that they know each other personally.
  Mariner: ...Nick?
• Wham Shot: Freeman and her team locate Locarno's hideout— and find schematics of the mystery ship that's been behind the attacks. Immediately afterwards, Mariner wakes up on the ship— and comes face-to-face with Locarno himself.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Mariner is hit with this throughout the episode, but she brushes it off easily. Ultimately, Ma'ah snaps at Mariner for her desire to stay as an ensign, then, in a You Are Better Than You Think You Are moment, convinces her that Sito would never let her act that way.
  Ma'ah: In the past, Klingons believed humans to be weak and easily defeated. But your species has proved its toDuj. Sito was a warrior. You do not honor her.[...] Sito made her choice. You want to solve puzzles and mysteries? Your friend gave her life to protect that. (scoffs) She would not approve of your actions.
• Whole-Plot Reference: This is the LDS recreation of the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Extreme Risk". In both episodes, a Hot-Blooded Action Girl engages in violent, self-destructive behavior until her friends confront her about it, and she admits that it stems from the trauma of her friends being killed.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit:
  • The Ferengi and Romulan captains do this in order to trap and kill Ma'ah, with Vrek cornering Gem and drawing in Ma'ah to fall into their animal trap.
    Gem: Ha ha! I told you it would work!
    Vrek: Yes, yes, you're so smart. Now shut up and help me kill this thing before it gets free.
  • In order to retake the Bird-of-Prey, Ma'ah has a plan where they repurpose the monitoring station on the planet into a distress beacon in order to get help. When the Klingons on the Bird-of-Prey detect the signal, they go down to the planet to destroy it. Due to the beacon being shielded by the rock formations, the ship has to move in closer to destroy it, which was Ma'ah's plan as he and the others jump on the ship from the tall rock formations when it's low enough for them to get on. Once they breach inside, they easily retake the ship.
• Wretched Hive: Subverted, in that Freeman describes the planet to her crew as one of these and is surprised when it turns out to be more civilized than she expects. That said, they're still very anti-Starfleet and won't play along with trying to help them.

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Mariner: Nick? What the hell are you doing here?!
Locarno: We're gonna cause some trouble together.
TO BE CONTINUED...

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