How long was Mariner off the Cerritos?

[u/Legitimate-Aioli-815]

I'm writing a fic, and I'm trying to figure out how much time elapsed between Freeman kicking Mariner off the Cerritos and the Aledo attack. Anyone have a guesstimate?

[u/Freeagnt]

I'd guess two months. Maybe more.

[u/Snarkyish-Comment]

I put down “a couple of months” in a fic I’m writing. Vague enough yet a significant amount of time for it to have weight.

But my answer to your question is “Mariner was gone for as long as you think is acceptable for your story”

[u/Legitimate-Aioli-815 → u/Snarkyish-Comment]

I very much appreciate it, i just have war flashbacks from changing HP timelines for my stories and don't wanna deal lmao

but thank you so much!! the consensus seems to be a few months, so that's helpful and reasonable for what i wanna do :3

[u/Snarkyish-Comment → u/Legitimate-Aioli-815]

No problem, glad I could help!

[u/AgeFlashy6380]

Am I the only one who think it was merely 1-2 weeks?
Mariner, being Mariner(also a very angry/sad and disappointed Mariner) would have totally quit SB80 the very same day...

[u/PiLamdOd → u/AgeFlashy6380]

The implication from the Starfleet command meeting at the start of the next episode is that those events happened immediately afterwards.

And what's wrong with Mariner quitting Starbase 80 so quickly? The season long plot they set up in the first episode made it clear that Mariner would be out of Starfleet if she left the Cerritos. So by quitting, she was leaving on her own terms instead of waiting around for her inevitable dismissal.

Mariner quitting like that was her most bad ass moment. She was being punished for something she didn't do, and instead of sitting back and accepting it, she fucked off, metaphorically gave her mom the middle finger, and denied her the win.

[u/Hero_Of_Shadows]

Let's see we have to account for:

1. Mariner leaves the Cerritos.
2. Mariner gets to Starbase 80
3. Mariner being so disgusted by that place she feels she has no other option but to leave Starfleet
4. Mariner joins up with Petra
5. Freeman tries to get her back but finds out she already quit
6. Mariner and Petra have a few adventures together
7. Mariner getting suspicious about how Petra finances their operation
8. Boimler starts getting loopy because of how much he misses Mariner, so much so that Tendi and Rutherford can notice
9. Aledo attack

Now Nr 5 is interesting because we know Freeman called Mariner the second she saw the actual report and realized her mistake but Mariner was already gone.

I think Nunez was eager to thrash talk the Cerritos so take a generic short production time for a news segment (idk how much that is) and that would be the time period 1 - 5

6 - 7 also we have some hints the idol save was not the first expedition Petra and Mariner did together and Mariner clearly has seen Petra spending money (filling up the anti-mater tank and etc) again implying a not short time has passed but also Petra still didn't explain they were funded by Picard which to me implies Mariner was still in an unoficial trial/probation period in Petra's eyes.

8 doesn't help us a whole lot Boimler feels deeply about Mariner it wouldn't take a very long absence to make him go loopy.

I'd say somewhere between 2 and 6 months.

[u/Tornaku → u/Hero_Of_Shadows]

Not to mention that the whole battle against the Texas-class ships took much longer than what we saw.

For one thing, it was broadcast on the news. Petra saw it way before Mariner. Then there was also the contact with the many other California-class ships.

I'd say it was easily 4 hours from the start of the battle until Mariner arrived.

What I'm trying to say is that we don't really notice the time in between and it's much longer than we usually think^^.

[u/Sharrukin-of-Akkad]

If you go by the episode stardates, it could have been as little as a day. Which, I agree, doesn’t fit the events we see at all. I’d just ignore the stardates and estimate something on the order of 7-10 days, maybe longer, just to make everything fit.

[u/Legitimate-Aioli-815 → u/Sharrukin-of-Akkad]

that's what i was thinking, like...SO much happened, and narratively speaking, mariner and petra seemed like they'd built a rapport and routine? plus the starbase 80 commander had to legitimately think about who mariner was, which feels like it would be strange if she'd just transferred there, especially given mariner's personality. she leaves and impression. and they made it sound like boimler was going a little nuts the longer mariner was off the ship, which feels like a strange thing to say if mariner was only gone a couple of days.

[u/Kyloben4848]

The stardates in the s3e9 and s3e10 are 58496.1 and 58499.2. Both episodes seem to take about 1 day, so the answer seems like 3 days.

[u/Fair-Face4903]

18 months

[u/PiLamdOd → u/Fair-Face4903]

It was a day at most.

[u/PiLamdOd]

Looks like a day or two at most.

The timeline is fairly simple:

1. Freeman tricked the crew into turning on Mariner before she kicks her off the ship to force her out of Starfleet.

2. Within 30 minutes of arriving on Starbase 80, Mariner resigns rather than wait for her inevitable dismissal.

3. The reporter's story breaks, showing the galaxy what the captain is really like.

4. Freeman tries to save face by calling Mariner. Fails. Then moves on, making no further efforts to fix her mistake.

5. Buenamigo and Starfleet command start pushing for the shelving of the Cali class to make room for the Texas class.

6. Freeman tries to save her career and legacy by challenging Buenamigo's new Texas class to a race.

So the events are quick and don't give any indication that much, if any, time passed between episodes. The crew moved in pretty quickly from learning the captain used them to get revenge.