In an episode of the “Star Trek: Lower Decks” cartoon called “Trusted Sources” that was released to Paramount Plus Thursday, a Federation News Network journalist named Victoria Nuzé (voiced by Alison Becker) visits the starship Cerritos, a visit that Captain Carol Freeman (voiced by Dawnn Lewis) doesn’t want, but her senior staff — chief medical officer Commander T’Ana, MD (voiced by Gillian Vigman); first officer Commander Jack Ransom (voiced by Jerry O’Connell); and Bajoran security chief Lieutenant Shaxs (voiced by Fred Tatasciore) — all seem to be ready to accommodate. Here is a Starfleet flag officer, Vice Admiral Les Buenamigo (voiced by Carlos Alazraqui), informing Freeman that the journalist is en route to the Cerritos.
And here is Nuzé interviewing members of the crew, and then joining Freeman, Ransom, and Ensign Jet Manhaver (Man-HAY-ver) (no lines) on a second contact mission to a planet Starfleet hadn’t visited in seventeen years, a planet Starfleet hadn’t visited since Jean-Luc Picard put an end to the planet’s addiction to a drug that a second planet was pushing.
And here is Nuzé, with a PADD and with the Cerritos en route to the second planet, questioning and confronting Freeman in her Ready Room about previous incidents involving the Cerritos. This enrages Freeman to the point where Freeman takes her anger out on her own daughter, Ensign Beckett Mariner (voiced by Tawny Newsome), even turning most of the Cerritos crew members — including Mariner’s Andorian girlfriend, Ensign Jennifer Sh’reyan (voiced by Lauren Lapkus) — against Mariner and then transfers Mariner — much to Ransom’s horror — off the Cerritos and to a Starfleet facility Ransom once called a “hellhole” known as Starbase 80. The only friends Mariner has left aboard the Cerritos are Starfleet Ensigns Bradward Boimler (voiced by Jack Quaid), D’Vana Tendi (voiced by Noël Wells), and Samanthan Rutherford (voiced by Eugene Cordero).
Here are Freeman, some of her senior staff, and Nuzé visiting the second planet and uncovering an occupation of it by the Breen in their first appearance since the DS9 finale.
Here are Mariner’s friends watching Nuzé’s exposé on a PADD and learning that it was actually Trill ops officer Ensign Barnes (voiced by Jessica McKenna), Tamarian security officer (and first Tamarian to serve in Starfleet) Lieutenant Junior Grade Kayshon (voiced by Carl Tart), and Shaxs who told Nuzé about the previous incidents involving the Cerritos, and that Mariner actually tried to defend Freeman and the Cerritos’ crew to Nuzé. Freeman contacts Starbase 80 and learns that Mariner has resigned from Starfleet. We then find Mariner working with an archeologist named Petra Aberdeen (voiced by Georgia King), an archaeologist that Boimler and Mariner met while manning a Starfleet recruitment booth at a job fair on Tulgana IV in the “Reflections” episode.
The events of “Trusted Sources” lead me to wonder if Star Trek was trying to teach a lesson in journalism and call Fox News out. It showed that even if a journalist performs due diligence (like Nuzé appears to have done here), an innocent person’s career can be torpedoed (like this journalist appears to have accidentally done to Mariner’s Starfleet career). Quite frankly, I find everyone at Fox News (especially Tucker Carlson) unworthy of visiting any Federation starship (especially a Federation starship named “Enterprise” with an NCC-1701 registry), or interviewing anyone representing the United Federation of Planets as a Starfleet officer. But then again, Star Trek is “woke” to Fox News.
It will be interesting if the exposé creates a scandal for Starfleet so bad that it not only forces Starfleet Headquarters to open a probe into the command climate aboard the Cerritos (and triggers court-martial proceedings against Freeman), but puts the Cerritos under scrutiny from other journalists across the Federation, as well. I can imagine journalists and Starfleet flag officers wanting logs from the Cerritos, wanting interviews with Cerritos crew members, and playing Nuzé’s exposé in said interviews.