Twenty-four years earlier Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had its own episode on Lower Decks. Technically, Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 7, Episode 15 was the first episode of "Lower Decks" that broke away from the classic cast of bridge crew and chief officers to focus on some junior officers on the USS Enterprise-D. This popular reversal inspired Star Trek: Lower decks and its cast of low-ranking officers.
Part of what it does Star Trek: Lower Decks So popular in its five seasons is the loving attention it pays to all Star Walk that came before. Star Trek: Lower Decks brings back characters whose shows ended years ago and references popular fan theories in almost every episode. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in particular, it was referenced several times in Lower decks. Years before Lieutenants Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Deep Space Nine also made an episode to give its low-ranking officers a moment in the spotlight.
“Empok Nor” is a Star Trek: DS9 Lower Decks episode
Junior officers are tested, with a twist
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 5, Episode 24, "Empok Nor" is essentially DS9version of "Lower Decks". In "Empok Nor", Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney), Nog (Aron Eisenberg), Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson) and four Deep Space Nine engineering crew go on a rescue mission to the abandoned Cardassian station, Empok Nor. . By focusing on an external mission staffed primarily by low-ranking personnel, "Empok Nor" tests a group of crew members who might otherwise have remained anonymous. This is the same classic formula that made "Lower Decks" work TNG and configure everything Star Trek: Lower decks for success.
Of course, things don't go well for Chief O'Brien's Lower Deckers in "Empok Nor." Most of the time, when Star Trek directs the spotlight to the crew members working behind the scenes, they grow and succeed throughout their episodes or seasons. In "Empok Nor", they die. Of the eight-person missions that flew away from Deep Space Nine, only Chief O'Brien, Garak, and Nog survived to return. Although junior officers die all the time in Walkthese deaths were ten times stronger in “Empok Nor” because the crew members who die are all full characters with names, goals and personalities.
"Lower Decks" and Star Trek: Lower Decks They work because they show the hidden potentials of all the crews of Federation ships...
As most of DS9's lower floors die, Nog's survival, in particular, seems even more important. The fact that the cunning Ferengi managed to best Garak in a drug-induced murder spree makes Cadet Nog's position at Starfleet Academy all the more deserved. Both "Lower Decks" and Star Trek: Lower Decks they work because they show the hidden potentials of all Federation ship crews; “Empok Nor” works because it shows the same hidden potential in a character who started out as a civilian.
Star Trek: Lower Decks has 2 big DS9 connections
Both Mariner and Shaxs know Deep Space Nine well
Even beyond the parallel structure and focus between “Empok Nor” and Mike McMahan's animated comedy, Star Trek: Lower decks and Deep Space Nine has other important connections. Already in S.journey on the tarmac: Lower decks 2nd season, Ensign Mariner reveals that she served on Deep Space Nine in the past. In Lower decks Season 3, Colonel Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) recognizes Mariner and asks if she has been exchanging war stories with Quark (Armin Shimerman). These anecdotes reveal that Mariner served on Deep Space Nine during the Dominion War, and her experiences with that conflict are an essential part of her self-sabotage in later seasons.
Beckett Mariner is not the only member of the U.S.S. Cerritos crew with Deep Space Nine connections. Lieutenant Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore) is a personal friend of Colonel Kira. Shaxs and Kira served together in the Bajoran Militia and they both saved each other's lives countless times. The interpersonal connections that bind Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Lower Decks make the universe Star Trek feel more satisfied and sell the notion that every background Federation officer is just a few degrees of separation from the most beloved characters in Star Trek.