The Mirror Universe

[MightyDavidson]

Accept that some things in Star Trek are silly.

And speaking for myself, I prefer it that way. Oh sure it's easy to go overboard with that sort of thing but some well executed silly fun is quite welcome so far as I'm concerned.

[McAvoy]

I think the Federation in Yesterday's Enterprise was losing because they demilitarized. In Kirk's era it seemed the Federation and Klingon Empire were on an equal footing if not weighed in favor of the Federation. Then came Praxis and the Khitomer Accords. Starfleet was not 'mothballed', her exploration and scientific endeavors continued. But the military readiness fell off. By the time of the Enterprise B they were willing to send a ship out without a crew or many components installed. By the D several ideas were dogmatically opposed. From the Prime Directive being a near holy text to 'combat being a minor province of a captain'.
The Enterprise D in the scenario was not really that different than her more civilian counterpart. They were trying to get their war legs back under them, and failing.

Now the mirror universe. This is what I consider the most inconsistent place. In TOS they were the dark mirror of the Federation and each other. Spock at one point made a chilling threat. "There are those who would avenge my death… and some of them are Vulcans." Implying that Vulcans are by no means pacifists and can be truly frightening. DS9 implied his pleas actually did bring about weakness. Enterprise showed that the early Terran Empire was going to die. They could not get their act together to hold anything. To really take control they needed a massive tech lead. The claiming of the Defiant, or they would have lost. How this ties back to Spock. Kirk gave Spock the Tantalus field device. With that Spock could sabotage and assassinate his opponents to finding a more peaceful outcome. But in so doing made the Empire too weak to stand against their opponents that were not the nice guys a mirror might suggest.

Yes. There is this general idea among many fans that in the 2340's Starfleet was not ready for war.

1.) This time period would also fall in line with the series of classes being designed and built that followed the TNG aka Galaxy class lineage. That is if you believe in the TNG TM on this. So Starfleet could have been caught in an awkward period where they are transitioning into the next generation of ships and not building existing ships.

2.) Federation space is vast and takes time to cross. It's possible that Starfleet was completely unprepared for war against the Klingons and had to fight them with a fraction of their fleet. It would take time for them push back against the Klingons. It's also possible this was when the Klingons did the most damage.

3) Very possible the Klingons were being aided covertly by the Romulans. Duras family was well in bed with them at this point. Would also answer why would the Klingons go to war with the Federation who did try to save the colonists from the Romulans. If anything the Romulans should have been attacked by the Klingons.

4) One idea is that the Federation was actually being attacked by more than just the Klingons. Cardassians flexing their muscle, maybe even raids by the Romulans etc.

Yesterday's Enterprise is an example of where if you really get nitpicky with an episode even a great one you could create a narrative that it's a bad episode. What I mean is when someone posted a review of let's say DiscoTrek episode and does a 20 point review of nitpicky things about it, well you could do the same for Yesterday's Enterprise.

[Madner Kami]

Starfleet has the massive disadvantage of having to defend a mind-blowing volume of space and not being agressive-minded. Starfleet is always in the position of having to react and can't act unless the war has already started, so they'll always start a war with a retreat and loss of territory.

[Nobody700]

I think the Federation in Yesterday's Enterprise was losing because they demilitarized. In Kirk's era it seemed the Federation and Klingon Empire were on an equal footing if not weighed in favor of the Federation. Then came Praxis and the Khitomer Accords. Starfleet was not 'mothballed', her exploration and scientific endeavors continued. But the military readiness fell off. By the time of the Enterprise B they were willing to send a ship out without a crew or many components installed. By the D several ideas were dogmatically opposed. From the Prime Directive being a near holy text to 'combat being a minor province of a captain'.
The Enterprise D in the scenario was not really that different than her more civilian counterpart. They were trying to get their war legs back under them, and failing.

Now the mirror universe. This is what I consider the most inconsistent place. In TOS they were the dark mirror of the Federation and each other. Spock at one point made a chilling threat. "There are those who would avenge my death… and some of them are Vulcans." Implying that Vulcans are by no means pacifists and can be truly frightening. DS9 implied his pleas actually did bring about weakness. Enterprise showed that the early Terran Empire was going to die. They could not get their act together to hold anything. To really take control they needed a massive tech lead. The claiming of the Defiant, or they would have lost. How this ties back to Spock. Kirk gave Spock the Tantalus field device. With that Spock could sabotage and assassinate his opponents to finding a more peaceful outcome. But in so doing made the Empire too weak to stand against their opponents that were not the nice guys a mirror might suggest.

Yes. There is this general idea among many fans that in the 2340's Starfleet was not ready for war.

1.) This time period would also fall in line with the series of classes being designed and built that followed the TNG aka Galaxy class lineage. That is if you believe in the TNG TM on this. So Starfleet could have been caught in an awkward period where they are transitioning into the next generation of ships and not building existing ships.

2.) Federation space is vast and takes time to cross. It's possible that Starfleet was completely unprepared for war against the Klingons and had to fight them with a fraction of their fleet. It would take time for them push back against the Klingons. It's also possible this was when the Klingons did the most damage.

3) Very possible the Klingons were being aided covertly by the Romulans. Duras family was well in bed with them at this point. Would also answer why would the Klingons go to war with the Federation who did try to save the colonists from the Romulans. If anything the Romulans should have been attacked by the Klingons.

4) One idea is that the Federation was actually being attacked by more than just the Klingons. Cardassians flexing their muscle, maybe even raids by the Romulans etc.

Yesterday's Enterprise is an example of where if you really get nitpicky with an episode even a great one you could create a narrative that it's a bad episode. What I mean is when someone posted a review of let's say DiscoTrek episode and does a 20 point review of nitpicky things about it, well you could do the same for Yesterday's Enterprise.

Number 8 on why Yesterday's enterprise is WOKE GARBAGE is that the Enterprise has a FEMALE CAPTAIN! Even though the BASED episode, Turnabout Intruder, says women can't be Captains.
Number 9, Troi does not show more clevage. WOKE!

But yeah... those videos get really annoying in how nitpicky they are, and I DO dislike Disco Trek.

[McAvoy]

Number 8 on why Yesterday's enterprise is WOKE GARBAGE is that the Enterprise has a FEMALE CAPTAIN! Even though the BASED episode, Turnabout Intruder, says women can't be Captains.
Number 9, Troi does not show more clevage. WOKE!

But yeah... those videos get really annoying in how nitpicky they are, and I DO dislike Disco Trek.

Ahh yes you get it.

[McAvoy]

Starfleet has the massive disadvantage of having to defend a mind-blowing volume of space and not being agressive-minded. Starfleet is always in the position of having to react and can't act unless the war has already started, so they'll always start a war with a retreat and loss of territory.

Exactly. In war they call it mobilization.

But yeah, it does seem like that would be Starfleet's tactics and long term strategy is that they somewhat allow loss of territory and even ships while they gather their ships to form fleets in retaliation.

I have this theory that one of the reasons why in the early days of the Dominion War is that both the Klingons and Starfleet were still gathering their ships from distance reaches of their territories, reactivating and crewing ships, speeding up finishing new ships etc. That and Cardassian territory does seem to feel like it's smaller so the Dominion and Cardassian fleets can be concentrated.

I also do wonder about the 20 year figure. I wonder if it was a small scale war. Like it was half assed at first and then it just esculated over time.

[clearspira]

Starfleet has the massive disadvantage of having to defend a mind-blowing volume of space and not being agressive-minded. Starfleet is always in the position of having to react and can't act unless the war has already started, so they'll always start a war with a retreat and loss of territory.

Exactly. In war they call it mobilization.

But yeah, it does seem like that would be Starfleet's tactics and long term strategy is that they somewhat allow loss of territory and even ships while they gather their ships to form fleets in retaliation.

I have this theory that one of the reasons why in the early days of the Dominion War is that both the Klingons and Starfleet were still gathering their ships from distance reaches of their territories, reactivating and crewing ships, speeding up finishing new ships etc. That and Cardassian territory does seem to feel like it's smaller so the Dominion and Cardassian fleets can be concentrated.

I also do wonder about the 20 year figure. I wonder if it was a small scale war. Like it was half assed at first and then it just esculated over time.

We like to joke about the whole ''only ship in the sector'' thing that Trek has going on as it does get absurd when we are talking about Sector 001, but Star Trek ships are slow. Like, silly slow by sci-fi standards.

The beauty of Voyager is that we actually have a figure on it: 75 years to travel 75,000 light years means that their fastest ships can only manage 1,000 light years per year or 83.3 light years per month if I have my math correct. Meanwhile Stargate is crossing galaxies within days. Of course, it isn't even that clear cut because the Federation's energy sources are incredibly wasteful and cannot sustain maximum warp for any real length of time, so the actual figure is probably something like 500 light years per year.

I kind of think that it was a very bad idea to spell it out to us in such exact terms how fast these ships are. A) Because they are probably contradictory and B) Because they seriously limited their own story potential by restricting themselves to such a small part of the galaxy.

And after 60 years, Star Trek really could do with finally visiting another galaxy. The final frontier has been pushed beyond The Milky Way at this point. Amusing really, given how TOS established that there is life in Andromeda.

[Durandal_1707]

I was really hoping that Species 10-C was going to turn out to be the Kelvans, but alas, 'twas not to be.

[Madner Kami]

I kind of think that it was a very bad idea to spell it out to us in such exact terms how fast these ships are. A) Because they are probably contradictory and B) Because they seriously limited their own story potential by restricting themselves to such a small part of the galaxy.

Small part? It appears not just writers do not understand scale, but also readers/viewers. Let me remind you, our galaxy isn't particularly large by comparison in the first place and yet still, it contains an estimated one houndred billion stars. 100,000,000,000 stars. Let that sink in for a moment. Even just the Alpha Quadrant is already about 25,000,000,000 stars. Twentyfive billion stars. You could visit one system every single minute and you'd be busy for the next 47,564 years, 8 months, 7 days, 18 hours and 39 minutes.

And that's low-balling it. Because other estimates suggest that there could be up to 400.000.000.000 stars in just this single galaxy....

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

And after 60 years, Star Trek really could do with finally visiting another galaxy and the Enterprise casually flies about in a matter of days. The final frontier has been pushed beyond The Milky Way at this point. Amusing really, given how TOS established that there is life in Andromeda.

TOS had a very loose connection to where it actually plays. It's outright stated several times, that the setting isn't "just" the Alpha Quadrant, but the entire galaxy. That entire quadrant-concept only came up a lot later, along with quantifying warp speeds.

[McAvoy]

Starfleet has the massive disadvantage of having to defend a mind-blowing volume of space and not being agressive-minded. Starfleet is always in the position of having to react and can't act unless the war has already started, so they'll always start a war with a retreat and loss of territory.

Exactly. In war they call it mobilization.

But yeah, it does seem like that would be Starfleet's tactics and long term strategy is that they somewhat allow loss of territory and even ships while they gather their ships to form fleets in retaliation.

I have this theory that one of the reasons why in the early days of the Dominion War is that both the Klingons and Starfleet were still gathering their ships from distance reaches of their territories, reactivating and crewing ships, speeding up finishing new ships etc. That and Cardassian territory does seem to feel like it's smaller so the Dominion and Cardassian fleets can be concentrated.

I also do wonder about the 20 year figure. I wonder if it was a small scale war. Like it was half assed at first and then it just esculated over time.

We like to joke about the whole ''only ship in the sector'' thing that Trek has going on as it does get absurd when we are talking about Sector 001, but Star Trek ships are slow. Like, silly slow by sci-fi standards.

The beauty of Voyager is that we actually have a figure on it: 75 years to travel 75,000 light years means that their fastest ships can only manage 1,000 light years per year or 83.3 light years per month if I have my math correct. Meanwhile Stargate is crossing galaxies within days. Of course, it isn't even that clear cut because the Federation's energy sources are incredibly wasteful and cannot sustain maximum warp for any real length of time, so the actual figure is probably something like 500 light years per year.

I kind of think that it was a very bad idea to spell it out to us in such exact terms how fast these ships are. A) Because they are probably contradictory and B) Because they seriously limited their own story potential by restricting themselves to such a small part of the galaxy.

And after 60 years, Star Trek really could do with finally visiting another galaxy. The final frontier has been pushed beyond The Milky Way at this point. Amusing really, given how TOS established that there is life in Andromeda.

The 1000 light years per year figure I always guessed as the average speed Voyager could take. Of course we don't know if that factors stops for exploration and first contact situations and all of the other side missions Voyager does.

I can't recall the figure but Voyager can go Warp 9.975 which is far faster than 1000x speed of light. So we could assume 1k per year is Voyager's crushing speed.

As in a car going 55 MPH for maximum speed/fuel efficiency.

In the case of sending ships from the far distances of Federation territory or further that some ships wouldnt even bother coming back because they would be back way after the war ended.

There is also that fan theory that there are warp highways where you jump on these and they enhance the speed of the ship.