Star Trek (DS9): Crossover

[Revolverman]

Here's the thing in my mind. Chuck said the writers mindset was that the Terrans were like that because obviously the galaxy in that Universe was so brutal so any sign of weakness would have lead to something like that.


But thats not true, this wasn't the Grimdark Universe, it was the Mirror universe. The Klingons and Cardassians shouldn't have just been themselves in the prime universe just exaggerated. They should have been Mirrors. The Klingons should have been a force of great peacekeepers intent on keeping the quadrant secured and safe, while the Cardassians should have been dedicated to freedom and liberation. The Klingon-Cardassian Alliance should have been basically just the Federation. It would have been intresting to see Spocks reforms turn the Terran Empire from a less barbarous group to a far more dangerous well organized empire that eventually forced the Klingons and Cardassians to step in and stop them.

[GandALF]

Here's the thing in my mind. Chuck said the writers mindset was that the Terrans were like that because obviously the galaxy in that Universe was so brutal so any sign of weakness would have lead to something like that.


But thats not true, this wasn't the Grimdark Universe, it was the Mirror universe. The Klingons and Cardassians shouldn't have just been themselves in the prime universe just exaggerated. They should have been Mirrors. The Klingons should have been a force of great peacekeepers intent on keeping the quadrant secured and safe, while the Cardassians should have been dedicated to freedom and liberation. The Klingon-Cardassian Alliance should have been basically just the Federation. It would have been intresting to see Spocks reforms turn the Terran Empire from a less barbarous group to a far more dangerous well organized empire that eventually forced the Klingons and Cardassians to step in and stop them.

It's just human civilization that's mirrored, the Halkans are the same in both universes in "Mirror, Mirror". The timelines seem to diverge sometime after WWIII

The same scary barbarians are present in both universes but in the prime timeline Earth defends itself by forming an alliance with the other smaller powers rather than conquering them.

[Revolverman]

Here's the thing in my mind. Chuck said the writers mindset was that the Terrans were like that because obviously the galaxy in that Universe was so brutal so any sign of weakness would have lead to something like that.


But thats not true, this wasn't the Grimdark Universe, it was the Mirror universe. The Klingons and Cardassians shouldn't have just been themselves in the prime universe just exaggerated. They should have been Mirrors. The Klingons should have been a force of great peacekeepers intent on keeping the quadrant secured and safe, while the Cardassians should have been dedicated to freedom and liberation. The Klingon-Cardassian Alliance should have been basically just the Federation. It would have been intresting to see Spocks reforms turn the Terran Empire from a less barbarous group to a far more dangerous well organized empire that eventually forced the Klingons and Cardassians to step in and stop them.

It's just human civilization that's mirrored, the Halkans are the same in both universes in "Mirror, Mirror". The timelines seem to diverge sometime after WWIII

The same scary barbarians are present in both universes but in the prime timeline Earth defends itself by forming an alliance with the other smaller powers rather than conquering them.

But the Ferengi are also mirrored, being extremely altruistic in ways completely out of character for their prime counterparts, so it is not just humans.

[Linkara]

Eeeeh we only see a handful of Ferengi in the Mirror Universe. Nog in that one was still pretty profit-driven. It's possible in the mirror universe it's just there's more of a balance or at least individual people are different while the overall society remains pretty much the same.

[J!!]

Honestly I think Kirk was still right to do what he did - it's still the right cause and there was no way for him to know there were other aggressive powers who would take advantage of it (it's not likely he had a crapton of time to study the intergalactic political situation).

no, but neither was there any reason for him to assume that there weren't other aggressive powers waiting to pounce. in fact, if going around nuking space-hippies was a matter of routine, assuming The Great, Glorious, And Eternal Terran Empire has enemies would probably be a safer bet than not. either way though, starfleet should probably create some sort of a directive about meddling in other people's politics.






#TerranEmpireDidNothingWrong

[CharlesPhipps]

I think it was a mistake to have the Terrans conquered but that was because of two points:

1. Star Trek is not realism where "to set down weapons is to invite attack" as decent people have been treated as such for many times in the past. It's idealism about how reform=good.

2. The Mirror Universe is inherently silly and should be treated as such.

Mind you, wondering about the science of "how could X characters exist because of the odds being astronomical that Y and Z have a counterpart" is equally silly because in an infinity of worlds there will be that ONE world and again its an inherently infinite concept.

In my RPG, I stated that the Mirror Universe was "quantum entangled" with the Physical Universe (i.e. bs-ium) so that it WAS the physical universe and everyone was just a different side of them. It made as much sense as some Star Trek science.

[Fixer]

Narratively the mirror universe is a way to show the moral opposites of the characters that we're following but with circumstances and locations that are almost identical. There was an acid burn on the table in one universe that was still present in the other.

There's no logical way that this could all come out through some of scientific explanation, so my headcannon is that a Q with OCD decided to measure the moral balance in the universe and finding it askew, made an alternate universe to make everything perfectly level. Then made the antimatter universe to balance out all those pesky ions. After which he started chasing the terminating point of Pi to make it exactly 3

[AllanO]

Mind you, wondering about the science of "how could X characters exist because of the odds being astronomical that Y and Z have a counterpart" is equally silly because in an infinity of worlds there will be that ONE world and again its an inherently infinite concept.

This is one response but it raises another problem because then if they are wandering through parallel worlds, what is making it so that two different groups of travelers would ever end up in the same or even vaguely similar universes, how does a transporter malfunction, the wormhole doing something crazy and the Tholian web (? I never saw the whole Enterprise Mirror episode so I forget which ship from TOS via which spatial anomaly was featured) transport the travelers to the same universe if it is a drop in the sea. Why did Kira and Bashir end up in the same universe that Kirk and co. ended up in. The problem iterates in that you also have to explain why the coordination continues (if the coordination of Kirk's visit is just a coincidence then is i just another coincidence that the coordination continues for Kira etc.), you can explain why the coordination continues by saying that the universe Kirk ended up in itself is the starting point for an infinity of parallel worlds some almost infinitesimal fraction of which must have the parallel DS9 cast but why would Kira end up in one of those successors rather than any other (it is still a coincidence just a different kind perhaps)? So each trip to the universe requires either that there is something weird about this universe that is both easy to get to and it maintains the coordination or that all those various transportation processes have something weird about them that allows them to pick out just the right universe out of an infinity of wrong universes. So you can explain the mirror universe by positing a multiverse, but I think that has its own set of equally perplexing problems...

Mind you it is silly to try and work out the logic of a plot device, just not because there is some nice clean explanation. Being silly can be fun though.

[Fianna]

In the original "Mirror, Mirror", at least, the coincidence can be explained by the fact that Kirk and company actually switched places with their Mirror Universe counterparts. If there hadn't been versions of them in the Mirror Universe, and if their Mirrored versions hadn't been going through a malfunctioning transporter at the exact same moment they were, presumably the switch couldn't have occurred.

[AllanO]

In the original "Mirror, Mirror", at least, the coincidence can be explained by the fact that Kirk and company actually switched places with their Mirror Universe counterparts. If there hadn't been versions of them in the Mirror Universe, and if their Mirrored versions hadn't been going through a malfunctioning transporter at the exact same moment they were, presumably the switch couldn't have occurred.

True. This raises the question of why Kira was trying to find a transporter since she could not have used that mechanism to get back since she could not switch places with her alternate. Of course from the description she got she may not have realized it was a switch places transport rather than the magic door transport she and Bashir went through. This also raises a problem with the original Mirror, Mirror how did they transport back (it seems like it was a switch back) if it requires them to be transporting at the same time with sufficiently similar substitutes and the effects of the ion storm scrambling things to switch them? Or was clean shaven Spock transporting Mirror universe Kirk and co back and forth until the conditions were right for the switch (until goatee Spock let them transport) or does the time not matter or does only one half of the switch have to be in transport so on...

Really the entire premise is a very delicate structure that does not stand much scrutiny but the original at least was pretty fun...