Star Trek: Lower Decks―Warp Your Own Way: 01/07/25

Star Trek: Lower Decks―Warp Your Own Way is a comic based choose your own adventure similar to the ones Jason Shiga writes.

It begins with Mariner being woken up by Tendi and needing to decide which kind of caffeine would work best to jump start the day. Things quickly spiral out of hand and she ends up dead, only to restart the day if you decide to try again.

I'm going to be upfront and say I have a problem with choose your own adventures. They are mostly very samey. The "the end" or the "you lose" is often equated with you killing the protagonist you've been set up to drive, with there only being on possible successful path (if you're lucky), one that you'll only discover after trying all the more logical paths first.

With a graphic element involved there's the added temptation to make the different paths as different as possible. Here with the Star Trek universe available, it's how many different stories can the paths reference?

But there has to be a reason for these differences and these resets. At least, that's how the modern ones play out. The main character, through you the reader, becomes aware that something isn't right with the world.

Ultimately this book is an homage to "Course: Oblivion" episode of Star Trek Voyager (season 5, ep. 17). Our Mariner isn't the alpha Mariner. Our Mariner is a copy of a copy of a copy, just as the main character of Meanwhile by Jason Shiga (2011).

What's different between this book and Shiga's is a tonal one. Shiga's characters ultimately settle on using their situation to reform the world into one of their own making, even if that means dying multiple times. Mariner (like the crew of silver-blood Voyager) knows there's no out for her but her death can protect the alpha crew).

I think this story would have been better as without the choose your own adventure angle. By making it an interactive experience it forces the reader into a nihilistic spiral. The reader either gives up and presumably allows the bad guys to win (off screen) or they stick with multiple Mariner deaths to find the one true path to ultimately kill Mariner and everyone else on the ship to save the Cerritos.

Unfortunately the book brings to mind the video essay, "Time Loop Nihilism" by Jacob Geller (2021).

Four stars

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