Picard! Janeway! T'pol! Scotty! Jadzia! Honestly liked this issue more than the first. Before you say I ruined the big reveal... it's uh, right there on the cover.

Lower Decks ends on the same day that Superman teaser drops.

I will be both sad and happy at the same time.

To put it simply, is a micky take out of the ending of enterprise.

Trip had faked his own death to start section 31.

I hope the crew still stick together in some way.

I literally just finished S5E9 after bingeing this series over the past week and holy shit it’s so good. It’s such a beautiful love letter to past trek series, and so funny too. My favorite characters are probably Boimler, Mariner and Shaxs (eject the warp core!), but everyone is great, especially in the later seasons when the upper deckers get more development. Sad that the series finale is so soon, but it will be fun to watch it with y’all

Rutherford = Iron Man or Vision

Tedi = Black Widow, Hulk (yes I know She Hulk is an option but she's a lawyer and Banner is a Scientist)

Mariner = Back Widow, Scarlet Witch, Cap (She is the leader

Boimler = Cap or Spidy (he's cheesy enough to pull of the personality)

TLyn= Hawkeye (idk her with a bow makes sense?)

https://preview.redd.it/9xb85ow3xg7e1.png?width=1919&format=png&auto=webp&s=44a7cd16c384191ace428d978e9a344204b0cbe2

Based on what we know about the future of this reality (Daniels from Enterprise & Discovery, USS Relativity from Voyager, Department of Temporal Investigations from DS9 and Strange New Worlds), everything will be alright. Since nobody from the future came back in time to try and stop the Beagle from crossing realities through space and time, or from blowing up and thereby causing this reality-destroying catastrophe, it seems that all these events have to happen for the timeline to remain intact, as opposed to them leading to the destruction of this reality. So clearly William made the right call.

Unless, in fact, someone will be coming back from the future in the finale to clean up the mess William caused with that call. Daniels? Braxton? Or maybe this will be a Doctor Who crossover after all...

How are they going to solve the rift issue ?
Will we see William and his crew again ?
Are we going to see another legacy character ?

In episode 509 it is almost completely forgettable that William Boimler is actually in Section 31. It never specifically comes up, and is only hinted at through the self censoring of information in the log entry. This is the best way to handle Section 31, because drawing attention to itself is counter to how it operates in DS9. Even making a crew from a bunch of random characters, without making them members, and possibly not letting on to who they are working for, is in character for the best of Section 31.

The problem for Section 31 is, nothing Boimler is doing is worth keeping secret, and it is counter productive to have a single ship pursuing the rift problem.

That's normal for Section 31 too: unilaterally going off to handle things, while assuming only they know what is best and have the guts to reach goals. While that thinking drives a correct, though paranoid, pursuit of the source of the problem, that thinking also bites William Boimler in the butt, because he doesn't have the resources to handle the big problem. There is no support with him, and no fleet waiting to back him up. His only backup are his personal connections and the trust he has in his friends. Reaching out, rather than hiding.

Possibly worse, Section 31 thinking seeped into his mind, making him assume a villain had to be behind the rifts, rather than leaving his mind open to other possibilities. A real Picard low moment.

Outside of that, it's easy to imagine a normal ship pursuing the mystery. Imagine a science or engineering ship tracking the rifts instead of a warship, or just a far larger warship with more diverse crew and technical resources. Such a crew might have figured out a solution months before alt-Mariner's arrival.

Section 31 trying to take care of the problem themself, or Starfleet Command telling Section 31 to take care of it for them, was ultimately self sabotaging. And thanks to all those problems, I believe this is the greatest example of Section 31 since Deep Space 9.

Starting watching a few weeks ago because of a clip I saw on Reddit. Thank you so much Reddit. My second favourite Trek of all time.

Anyway, we don’t think about the sitcom side of it too much. It’s very funny. Lower Decks’ seven main characters map on to the Community Seven pretty well.

Mariner: Britta. Hard on herself. Contrary. Very good at heart. Takes a stand. Often wrong.

Tendi: Annie. Clever, fastidious. A good friend. Much darker past than we assume. Tough when she needs to be.

Boimler: Abed. Wants to live in a Star Trek episode. OCD. Has a meta perspective. Asexual.

Rutherford: Troy. As geeky as Boimler when with him. Willing to play games of Boimler’s devising.

Freeman: Shirley. Over righteous at times. Morally decent. Steely determination.

Jeff: Ransom. With those abs. Looks after himself. Vain. Not stupid. Will absolutely do the right thing eventually.

Pierce: Shaxs. Eccentric older geezer. Shouts much. Apt to turn up in a weird costume.

Age-wise they pretty good matches. Any other shows spring to mind when you watch Lower Decks?

William Boimler's even stubble, versus main Boimler's patchy stubble and beard, implies something happened to main Boimler's face between the time of the transporter cloning and crossing the rift to meet Red Pad Boimler, who also has a full, non-patchy, beard.

What happened to main Boimler's face?

On greatest Trek a few weeks ago Tawny Newsome mentioned Paramount was pushing for a half hour Trek show for quite some time when Kurtzman approached her to pitch a show.

And yes that should make you furious given they had not one but two half hour shows and cancelled both(Prodigy may get a third season but I'm not holding my breath) The management at Paramount is very dumb!

Shatner? Stewart?? Goldberg??? Jessie Earl?

It’s a big sad week. Have loved Lower Decks. But Fissure Quest was too much. Please don’t let it be over! What thank-you videos do you wish you could make to pay our respects? I am thinking about the Bashir and Garak story from all of DS9 and trying to piece it together. What about you?

It struck me yesterday that despite taking its time throughout the first season to find the full coherence of its narrative, Lower Decks has been telling the same story pretty much since day one. Never hammering it home, but it was William's arc in 'Fissure Quest' and his conversation with Lily that brought to mind a number of moments over the years where LDS has pivoted its plot around friendship, teamwork, and found family.

I forget where exactly I heard it or read it, but someone (maybe it was David Gerold, maybe it was Gene, maybe it was a commentator about the show itself) but they said: 'star trek is at its best when it is about humanity coming together to be better than the sum of its parts' or words to that effect. Multiple villains over the course of the series have attempted to attack the Federation on exactly that. The Romulans in 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow' the holoship plotline in Enterprise, the energy being in 'Day of the Dove' and so on. So many times over the past five seasons we've seen the Cerritos crew court disaster and come unravelled when they forget about their shared connections. Mariner pretty much all the time up to the end of season 4. Rutherford prior to his accident. Tendi getting starfleet to help her family after they were kicked out of the syndicate, and on and on. It played a role in William's arc in 'Fissure Quest' and it's been playing a role in Bradward's this season, too.

So we ended on a cliffhanger with Boims freaking out that a soliton wave is coming to devour our prime universe, and it's going to have to be Bradward who figures things out at the pivotal moment. But he's got his head so deep in Redward's PADD, trying to be him that he's lost himself. I think the coming to a head part is going to be Bradward sacrificing himself, but then he's going to have to climb the black mountain, just like Shaxs did. Partly because we haven't seen the mountain yet, and partly because it will be a riff on Season 2 of Picard when Boims has to fight his father (but obviously done better this time). I would not even be surprised if there's a Kung-Fu Panda moment where Boimler's friends have to help him come back.

Im bummed lower decks is ending. I think what we need for a good send off is a mystery science theater style episode (or a few) where the lower deckers go into a theater style holodeck program and react to funny and weird clips from all the star trek series.

Something was definitely wrong with his implant last episode, and I feel like it's relevant.

He was having trouble connecting to the ships systems, and he couldn't figure out what was wrong. Then it suddenly shoots plasma, something it isn't supposed to do...

Was it glitching because of the rifts ? Was someone / something trying to hack it ?

you are loved and Star Trek and all of popculture is awesome and no one can tell me otherwise 🖖✌️🥳