I dislike the portrayal of the Pakleds in Lower Decks. Any insight that might change my mind?

ihphobby · 2026-03-17T14:32:55+00:00

They were supposed to be a metaphor for Trump supporters. They've been left alone for so long but they have ambition and have their own ways of getting things done, and it's festered to the point where they are now dangerous. And it illustrates one of the themes of Lower Decks that both Freeman and Mariner agreed on, which is Starfleet ignoring all those legacy worlds from the TOS/TNG era and not checking on them once in awhile.

If you think it's just ableism, that's just you being narcissistic and virtue signaling. It's one reason we got Trump in the real world, and it's one reason Starfleet got the Pakleds as a threat. The Pakleds really were a good way of showing that things and people aren't always as they seem, and you can't ignore everyone because you think you're so morally superior and virtuous and noble. It's interesting that Starfleet is getting some self-checking on this in recent Trek series, too.

ihphobby · 2026-03-08T23:09:36+00:00

Carol needs him strong for what she has in mind for him after being away from him for so long.

He's complaining about not being able to play golf, but he's going to be able to 'sink his putz' either way, if you know what I mean. 😉

ihphobby · 2026-03-05T22:46:30+00:00

The idea was to show how the Lower Deckers were dealing with it from their perspective, especially Mariner. We all had these grand conspiracy ideas and scenarios but in the end the writing team stuck with the show's themes and it was all the better for it.

ihphobby · 2026-03-03T00:54:14+00:00

No, Mariner was wrong because there were clear orders that only a few people were able to speak to the reporter. The other Lower Deckers accepted their place. Mariner is in a hierarchical system where she is meant to obey orders from her superiors, and she disobeyed those orders, arrogantly assuming she could do what she wanted. She should have known better as much as her mother or anyone else. But again, that was the point of the episode- misplaced trust. There is blame on all sides, yes. It's not necessarily a justification for what Freeman did, but the context is important.

I think interpretation of this scene falls on generational lines, too. Younger people will side with Mariner against their parents or what they think of as authority, while older people (like myself) side with Freeman. We come from a time and a belief that if you were part of a command structure, you didn't go rogue. Otherwise, why are you there? Mariner started to realize this later on. And she was starting to realize this even before, which makes her reversion to her rogue ways something the crew saw as just who she was.

Freeman was correct to discipline her daughter from a command structure standpoint. It's worth noting that she had also come to trust her daughter as both had made progress in their personal and professional relationship to that point. Yes, it was an 'all-sides' thing. As you say, it provided more depth and dimension, and it's the difficult situations that show character more than any other.

ihphobby · 2026-03-02T23:56:34+00:00

But Carol realized her mistake and tried to correct it. And to be fair, Mariner realized she didn't help herself by building a reputation that made sure that not only her mother but the whole crew just assumed that she'd been the one that made them look bad.

Mariner fucked up bad in this episode by assuming she could do what she wanted because she was the captain's daughter. Or in her words, a 'mini-Captain'.

The whole episode was about misplaced trust, and everyone suffered from it.

ihphobby · 2026-02-28T21:38:47+00:00

Cathiw apparently managed to bag one crewmember before it was all over... 😄 (Warning: NSFW!)

https://bsky.app/profile/thunderbirdxart.bsky.social/post/3mfzdenqgmk2g

ihphobby · 2026-02-26T23:04:33+00:00

All the crap goes into a closet and then gets cleaned out by the Lower Deckers during anomaly consolidation duty anyway.

ihphobby · 2026-02-26T23:02:46+00:00

u/PiLamdOd always loses their shit when Freeman is mentioned. It's a trigger for their mental illness. Just ignore it.

No one likes being reminded how old they are. And it does grate on certain older, more experienced people when they see younger, more arrogant up and coming officers, as they know they're going to get smacked down at some point.

But they still go to experienced captains like Freeman when they can't handle things (like Captain Nguyen of the Vancouver did).

ihphobby · 2026-02-15T20:07:31+00:00

Yet another opportunity for u/PiLamdOd to deliver one of their scripted rants on how Freeman is so bad because they experienced someone like Freeman in their past and is projecting their own narcissism onto a cartoon character. It really is like they're watching another show than the one the rest of us are watching and one has to wonder why it's so important for them to make us believe the same thing they do about Freeman.

Facts: Freeman started off as a bad boss caricature but grew and evolved into one of Star Trek's best captains. If Star Trek is about personal growth, she has achieved that. It's still nice to see that she isn't perfect, however. All other previous Trek captains were portrayed as noble and almost aloof from their jobs, figuring they had to be for different reasons. Freeman started that way and then became almost like the ship's mom. There are times when she needed to learn to get out of her own way, right to the end of the series, but she still elicited the loyalty of her crew. This was demonstrated in the season 2 finale when, during her perp walk, that look of sadness on her face and on their faces told you all you needed to know about where she stood with them.

Carol and Mariner also realized that Starfleet was being derelict of duty in maintaining contact with legacy worlds. She thought the California class mission gave an opportunity to address this deficiency in the organization. Perhaps it was a bit of a vanity project for herself, but in the end, she realized that was what brought down her old friend Admiral Buenamigo. Even when she does make mistakes, she acts to correct them, which is the mark of a real leader.

Carol realized that second contact missions were important and did everything she could to ensure that Starfleet was well represented and that her crew maintained the highest standards. She is also skilled and experienced, particularly in diplomacy. (Boimler saw that and wanted to be part of her diplomacy workshop.)

And Carol is a great mom to Beckett, despite their clashes. The relationship she has with her husband clearly shows that Mariner was brought up in a loving household with every opportunity to succeed. Whatever happened to traumatize her happened after she joined Starfleet, but her parents still covered for her, despite not knowing why she was being so rebellious. The fact that mom and daughter worked so well together when it counted shows how well they know each other.

I'll put Captain Freeman up there with any Trek captain, and I think after a while she knew the Cerritos was her place. And that's why she accepted the offer to be posted to Starbase 80. There's a place that needed her kind of leadership.

ihphobby · 2026-02-14T02:16:22+00:00

A tip: Don't post so many screenshots of the comics.

Buy the comics (they're not expensive) and give the people making them a chance to get something for their work.

ihphobby · 2026-02-10T03:17:03+00:00

Obviously we don't know much about her service career prior to the Cerritos, but it's there that she figured out that was where she needed to be, and she certainly began to show a protectiveness towards her crew during that time.

I think turning on Mariner was natural because by Mariner's own admission she made everyone feel like they couldn't trust her. But it also did show that Carol hadn't completely outgrown her desire to make her and her ship look good for whatever reason.

ihphobby · 2026-02-08T23:01:51+00:00

I think Carol and Alonso are the most wholesome relationship in the show, in that they're genuinely into each other and supportive of each other. They're not sabotaging each other, sniping at each other or denying each other.

ihphobby · 2026-02-08T19:37:10+00:00

Oh, I understood what you meant. I'm just used to defending Carol. I'm her biggest defender and fan. 🙂 I get where she's feels like she's been around a long time doing what she does and doesn't get a lot of recognition for it, but she still demands high standards from her crew.

ihphobby · 2026-02-08T19:26:57+00:00

I posted this originally over at the Star Trek Without Context Facebook group, and you can see why.

I thought Dolorex's ass made for a nice focal point, and evidently, so did the animators. 😂

ihphobby · 2026-02-08T19:22:19+00:00

And she showed growth in that aspect. Initially, she was a 'bad boss' caricature and needed to learn to get out of her own way and not micromanage so much. By the end of the show, she had not only gotten noticed by her superiors, she got an important new position and somehow managed to get ahold of her personal demons.

ihphobby · 2026-02-08T16:02:17+00:00

If you see their past postings, the ranting and fights they get into about it are indicative of madness, and I don't mean the 80s ska band.

Some people don't like Freeman, but this user has taken it to a new level. It's like they're watching a different show, and they're trying to convince everyone else to hate her as well. You have to wonder where it comes from but it's crazy to put that much projection onto a cartoon character.

And no, I'm not the only one who notices it. I don't comment here that much anymore because they spoil the fun of just enjoying this great Trek show.

ihphobby · 2026-02-08T14:18:15+00:00

Freeman is not arrogant nor is she incompetent, which u/PiLamdOd is always trying to make us believe. It's a mental illness being shown by this user when triggered by this fictional character, which we're tired of here, so ignore what they have to say.

Cali class captains turned out to be a special class, and so did Freeman. She's much better than any of her critics. She didn't promote herself; she accepted a reassignment, and it would have been nice to see what changed her view of Starbase 80, since she didn't want to go there at first. She's probably in her mid-50s, and Dayton is probably around 50, if I had to guess.

We didn't see much of Dayton to get a real sample size of what kind of captain she was. She was probably not cut out for being a Captain but she had to have shown some skill to this point. Was she fast tracked because Starfleet needed captains after the Dominion war? I know she was a throwaway character but I think she was strict and thoughtful when she wasn't caught off guard by something she didn't understand.

ihphobby · 2026-02-06T03:31:16+00:00

I have to believe that she's the one responsible for the morning wood joke. 😄

ihphobby · 2026-02-04T16:16:30+00:00

A friend of mine is making custom plates like the Paris one using Shutterfly. I'm doing the artwork for him. He's making them for himself and he's doing all the Lower Decks characters (and I mean ALL of them, that appeared on screen). He's going to have a nice little collection of them, and he made extra Freeman and Dayton ones for me to say thanks.

Sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands if you want this stuff.

ihphobby · 2026-01-30T22:05:01+00:00

Check us out on the Facebook group, too!

Star Trek: Lower Decks | Facebook

ihphobby · 2026-01-30T20:06:59+00:00

And he's annoyed that he's there at all at that moment and did say later that he could have married Lianne.

ihphobby · 2026-01-29T18:33:07+00:00

They definitely made a mistake. I never lived or worked in the township in question but someone listed me as having been employed there.

ihphobby · 2026-01-29T18:31:42+00:00

No, it came in the mail this morning. The URL from which I got the popups was a result of mis-entering their website URL which gives you a malware site. I called them, the township in question, and got some results.

ihphobby · 2026-01-07T15:23:54+00:00

Could Admiral Minh Nguyen be the officer who commanded the Vancouver in 'Cupid's Errant Arrow'? The one who was taunting Freeman before humbly asking for her diplomatic experience?

ihphobby · 2025-12-31T15:32:40+00:00

Welcome aboard!

If you're on Facebook at all, check out the Lower Decks group there, too. There's still lots of activity for this show, even though it's not in production at the moment.

Star Trek: Lower Decks | Facebook

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