Ever puzzled what occurred to Bradward Boimler’s transporter duplicate? We already knew his demise was faked by Half 31 and now everyone knows the reason why: he’s leaping between multiverses as if he’s Doctor Uncommon, attempting to stop regardless of — or whoever — is tearing rifts between dimensions.
And who else to accompany him on this mission nevertheless a crack group of operatives plucked from earlier “Star Trek”s, varied universe duplicates who ship their very personal distinctive set of experience to the job in hand. “Fissure Quest” is the latest super-smart occasion of how “Trek” is coping with its shared universe larger than “Star Wars”, Marvel or simply about anyone else. It moreover has a strong assortment of Harry Kims.
So if, like Boimler 2.0, you might be getting “sick of the ****ing multiverse”, this may be the journey to change your ideas. Right here is why…
Spoiler warning! Warning is usually recommended must you’re however to take a look at this week’s episode.
Why are there two Boimlers?
The duplicate Boimler was created by a transporter incident in season 2 episode “Kayshon, His Eyes Open”. On the time, Bradward Boimler was a lieutenant on the USS Titan, serving beneath Captain William T Riker of Enterprise-D fame.
The other Boimler is an precise clone of the distinctive (or vice versa), sharing all of the an identical recollections and life experiences as a lot as the aim that they had been reduce up in two. Starfleet believed that having two equal officers on one ship might flip into problematic, so it was decided that one must return to the Cerritos and be demoted once more to ensign. The Boimler who remained on the Titan chosen to go by the determine William.
Coincidentally, Riker might relate to the doppelgangers beneath his command, seeing as he’d moreover been cloned by a transporter malfunction (considerably, why does anyone risk using these points?). All through “The Subsequent Period” episode “Second Possibilities” he realized {{that a}} duplicate Riker had been dwelling alone on Nervala IV for eight years. “Thomas” Riker in the end joined the Maquis resistance movement, ending up in jail after making an attempt to steal the newly commissioned Defiant by masquerading as Will in “Deep Home 9” season 3 episode “Defiant”.
How did William Boimler end up commanding a ship hopping between dimensions?
All people throughout the prime timeline believes that William Boimler is ineffective, killed by a neurocine gasoline leak in his quarters on the Titan. Nonetheless, on the end of “Lower Decks” season 3 episode “Catastrophe Degree 2: Paradoxus” we realized that his demise had been faked. He was actually recruited by Half 31, the shadowy Federation spy outfit who’ve appeared in fairly a number of iterations of “Star Trek” – along with the upcoming “Half 31” TV movie starring Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou.
After we meet William in “Fissure Quest” he’s captaining the Anaximander, with orders to hint down and apprehend whoever’s attempting to destroy the multiverse by opening interdimensional fissures. Although he’s “not authorised to name the group that faked my demise and despatched me diving into rifts”, the black, not-incognito-at-all Starfleet insignia on his uniform makes it clear that Half 31 are nonetheless his employers. In several phrases, this generally is a plotline the writers have been sitting on since season 3.
Why do the rest of the Anaximander crew look so acquainted?
The Boimler twins are a unusual occasion of doppelgangers who hail from a single universe, nevertheless William’s crew of “interdimensional castaways” have been recruited from fairly a number of realities — and various “Star Trek” reveals. In consequence, “Fissure Quest” is the “Lower Decks” episode with all the customer stars, and it performs out like “Trek”‘s riff on the Illuminati team-up in “Doctor Uncommon throughout the Multiverse of Madness“.
William’s first officer is T’Pol (voiced by Jolene), Captain Archer’s Vulcan major in “Star Trek: Enterprise”. She now understands human habits – even sarcasm – after spending 60-plus years married to engineer Journey Tucker.
The ship’s all-action tactical officer, within the meantime, is the Trill Curzon Dax, who — in his private timeline — is however to maneuver the Dax symbiont onto “Deep Home 9″‘s Jadzia. The “distinctive” Curzon was a pal and mentor to Benjamin Sisko sooner than the latter took command of DS9.
The DS9 connection continues in Sickbay, which is run by former Cardassian spy Elim Garak (now a doctor barely than a tailor) and his husband, an Emergency Medical Hologram based on Dr Julian Bashir. In response to Curzon, “they wish to brag about how statistically unlikely their marriage is”. Andrew Robinson and Alexander Siddig reprise their “Deep Home 9” roles.
What’s with all the Harry Kims?
There’s an air of disappointment when the Anaximander picks up an escape pod and its occupant appears to be neither “Neelix with a crew cut back” nor a “really enormous Spock”. In its place, it’s an incarnation of long-serving USS Voyager ops officer Harry Kim, which may be super if the ship wasn’t already home to a sizeable inhabitants of Harry Kims.
This new Kim (voiced by “Voyager”‘s Garrrett Wang) did make it home from the Delta Quadrant — he might even be the one from the TV current — nevertheless there’s one issue that models him aside from his duplicates. In distinction to every totally different Ensign Kim on board, he’s lastly been granted the promotion to lieutenant he was infamously denied in “Voyager”.
Why does Beckett Mariner current up in gold uniform?
The Mariner that the Anaximander rescues from an out-of-control shuttlecraft is not the Mariner everyone knows from the Cerritos. In its place, she’s a duplicate from one different quantum actuality who focuses on engineering (subsequently the gold uniform) barely than embracing hazard and breaking the rules.
“That’s all the multiverse is,” elements out an embittered William Boimler. “Merely lazy, spinoff remixes.” Though he may also look on the extreme side and rejoice the reality that his friendship with Mariner is powerful enough to “transcend realities”.
Who or what’s creating all the rifts?
They’re the work of 1 different acquainted “Star Trek” face — though this explicit individual has no intention of destroying the fabric of space and time.
In “Star Trek: First Contact”, Lily Sloane (Alfre Woodard) helped Zefram Cochrane assemble the human race’s first-ever warp drive. This Lily comes from a actuality the place technological evolution took a barely utterly totally different path, and Sloane and Cochrane constructed a “quantum actuality drive” as a substitute.
Considerably than exploring uncommon new worlds like their Starfleet counterparts, Sloane and her crew on the Beagle are on a mission to find parallel realities — like Ace Rimmer in “Crimson Dwarf” or the lead quartet in “Sliders”. Sloane decided to not open hailing frequencies with the Anaximander because of her universe’s equal of the Prime Directive forbids them from talking with species who haven’t realized learn the way to cross realities for themselves.
Sadly, no matter Sloane’s notion that her crew always shut rifts behind them, physics says in some other case. The principle of the conservation of energy implies that every fissure they create inadvertently opens one different rift elsewhere throughout the universe — which is unhealthy data for everyone.
Why is the entire multiverse in danger?
You presumably can ask enormous questions on radial tachyons, doppelgangers, and the ethics of multidimensional journey, nevertheless in the long run the survival of the universe boils all the way down to a minimum of one issue: Harry Kim’s ego.
The two-pip outlier is so decided to remain in a universe the place Harry Kims can dream of attaining a rank better than ensign that he steals the Beagle, dragging all the alternative Harry Kims alongside for the journey.
Sadly, the explosion Lieutenant Kim initiates when the Beagle enters the rift generates soliton waves that may unfold all through every quantum universe, destroying the fabric of actuality. The one possibility to save lots of existence is to utilize the Anaximander’s deflector to drive the soliton waves proper right into a single actuality, sacrificing one universe to save lots of numerous all the others.
William Boimler nominates his private actuality for potential destruction, reasoning that his “back-up” self, Mariner, Tendi, and Rutherford will decide a solution as soon as they get hold of the warning.
“He’ll know what to do,” says William, “…as long as he doesn’t freak out.”
Sadly, his Cerritos counterpart’s screams of, “We’re all gonna die!” suggest that actuality just isn’t out of the woods merely however…
The ultimate ever episode of “Star Trek: Lower Decks” debuts on Paramount Plus on Thursday, December 19.
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