Star Trek (DS9): Crossover

[Mickey_Rat15]

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...

I had thought that in TOS the flow of events in both universes are somehow "locked" so that similar events can play out. Otherwise McCoy's acid stain on the medical lab table should not exist exactly the same in both universes, much less every one of our crew have a counterpart in the other universe. Spock Prime figures out how to send the Mirror landing party back at the same Mirror Spock sends the Prime crew back because it must be. DS9 either throws that idea out or perhaps Prime Kirk broke the symmetry by advising Mirror Spock to take over the Empire (which does not explain why our DS9 characters are doubled).

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

Yeah, there's a reason why the original episode is called Mirror, Mirror. It's easy to read the later approaches to alternate universes, or a multiverse, into the older episodes, but that isn't necessary exactly what they're going for. The word "alternate" is never used, the word that's used several times is "parallel."

If anything it seems more similar to the other TOS episode, The Alternative Factor (obviously Mirror, Mirror is of much higher quality) with its positive and negative universes.

[FaxModem1]

I've always viewed the Mirror Universe not as a 'bizarro universe', where everyone is their opposite. That's why the Klingons and Cardassians are just as savage, but more of a dark reflection. What if everyone was just a bit worse, a bit less principled, and a lot more quick to violence. This is why we don't have Klingons putting flowers in their hair and singing love songs. I'm sure they could have pursued that direction, but we didn't go that route.

[Robovski]

As demonstrated, there seem to be certain essential qualities to some people regardless of which universe they live in, which is used by our visiting characters (like appealing to Smiley's better nature). However, it does seem like others just end up virtual cartoons. So it's not very A=A but rather that A = an uppercase letter and may or may not have similarities beyond the physical.

[FaxModem1]

As demonstrated, there seem to be certain essential qualities to some people regardless of which universe they live in, which is used by our visiting characters (like appealing to Smiley's better nature). However, it does seem like others just end up virtual cartoons. So it's not very A=A but rather that A = an uppercase letter and may or may not have similarities beyond the physical.

As Hawthorne Abendsen said

"You learn an awful lot from these films. Some of us are just the same rotten or kind in one reality, or rotten or kind in the next, but most people are different."

[CharlesPhipps]

Mind you, it could also be that for whatever reason, this universe is just the one "next frequency over."

[Archanubis]

I do find it interesting that we never do see the Mirror version of Dukat in the series.

[CharlesPhipps]

I do find it interesting that we never do see the Mirror version of Dukat in the series.

I admit, I'd want them to make him a genuine good guy but that would be hard to justify.

[Deledrius]

I do find it interesting that we never do see the Mirror version of Dukat in the series.

I admit, I'd want them to make him a genuine good guy but that would be hard to justify.

Oh, I'm sure he'd find a way. Dukat can always justify himself.

[J!!]

It is highly improbable that the same people would be born in slightly different universes (just to be genetically identical one particular sperm has to meet one particular egg as far as I can see that requires that the sex act occur at basically the same time, if the parents just have slightly different schedules in the two universes I am not clear they would conceive the same children, much less situations where the parents might never meet etc.). There is virtually no way that you are going to get the same people born in two radically different universe. So the mirror universe already works by rearranging higher level elements (people) from universe A to arrive at universe B. The fact that it is also mixing and matching sociological elements (leader in A is a leader in B) just makes the dependence of these higher level elements more obvious, but in either case there has to be some dependence between the universes beyond basic physics (if only physics were the same between the two then they would diverge between higher level elements given different initial conditions).

Fiction with parallel universes that mirror each other so closely tends to imply a certain level of predestination. So much so it bothers me when things aren't alike. Why is there no Jake or Molly in the Mirror U? How can they mirror each other so closely, with everyone else being conceived at exactly the same time, and the same sperm meeting the same egg every time, and yet entire people just don't exist? The inconsistency bothers me.

"Amazing, isn't it? Different Universe but somehow the same people had a way to find each other. The strongest argument I've ever seen for the existence of destiny."