Which is exactly how it should be. While modern viewers, well aware of the injustice and bureaucratic blocks that exist in our current system, understand Mariner’s motivations, we also have to remember that Star Trek takes place in a utopian future. Things have gotten much better by the 24th century, and institutions like Starfleet and the Federation are beacons of civilization, not oppressive forces that require resistance. For that reason, the most heroic thing that a captain can do is to just do her job.
Which is exactly what Carol Freeman does. Throughout the five seasons of Lower Decks, she receives her orders and completes them admirably. She doesn’t always like the job handed to her, nor does she always do them with great magnanimity. Take the mission she’s given to negotiate peace with the Pakleds earlier in season 2. Freeman gets the job because she dealt with the aliens in season 1, but she takes it mostly because she hopes that pulling off the assignment will get her a promotion to a better ship. She doesn’t go about it by following her instincts, like Kirk, or by giving some grand speech, like Picard. She goes about it like a regular human, completing the task given to her.
Freeman exhibited a similar mindset in the season 5 episode “Upper Decks,” when she and the Cerritos‘ senior crew encountered the insectoid species called the Clickets. Freeman accidentally allows a Clicket disguised as a scientist to board her ship and bring him closer to the peaceful Bughoon to steal their cloaking abilities. Moreover, she initially forgets about the culture of the Clickets, despite having encountered them before. However, she does eventually remember that Clickets hate compliments, and she arms her crew with that knowledge, allowing them to fight back.
One might point to Freeman’s career-building approach to negotiating peace with the Pakleds or her getting duped by the Clicket as signs of weakness. Surely, Kirk would never allow himself to be tricked in such a way, nor would Picard treat the job so callously. But that’s because Kirk, Picard, and most of the other captains put their own ambitions and feelings and aspirations over the job itself. They were too busy valorizing the duties of Starfleet Officers or holding grudges against Klingons or talking to wormhole gods or doing whatever the heck Janeway wanted to do to think about the job itself.
But not Carol Freeman. Captain Freeman does the job, because she believes in the job. And that’s the entire point of Star Trek. Star Trek takes place in a world where humanity has matured and created institutions that better their conditions. As much as other captains say they believe those institutions, too many of their stories are about them defying those institutions and their rules (what’s the Prime Directive again?). The way those guys talk, no one should be surprised when admirals advocate for space genocide on a regular basis.
By doing her job well, but not spectacularly, by following orders, even if that means getting it wrong from time to time, Captain Freeman reveals faith in Starfleet and, by extension, faith in the future. More than any other captain, she shows that humanity can actually improve and that we can move out of our infancy, no longer acting like egoistic little adolescents who steal ships and fly them into black holes, but like people who have a job to do and do it for the good of everyone.
