So this season has been full of inconsistencies and honestly it feels like Paramount is trying to starve this series.
Because if Mike had at least enough good writers left, someone would have told him: "Ugh, Mike. You are retconning a tragic character and stepping over their tragic stories with your cartoon."
If anyone knows or seen Lower Decks is based on they would at least try to respect the characters and lore as it was in the original STNG "Lower Decks". Lower Decks cartoon on the other hand, comes in and starts drawing with crayons over the Star Trek Lore Bible.
Basically we learn that Mariner has a connection to the original Lower Decks characters. Not only was this never mentioned before in Lower Decks but the original series dismissed that Mariner even existed! Mike comes in and pulls a Sybock or Micheal Burnham on Mariner like she was behind the camera or under the table during that episode and sucks out all the drama from those episodes/tragedy.
What I found to be more sad is that this whole continuity mess with Mariner could have been easily avoided by just focusing on Mariner's own friend Ramsey instead of retconing Mariner behind the camera of the original Lower Decks.