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Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x10 - "Despite Yourself"

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See, the problem is I don't think the Terran Empire as a concept holds up well to scrutiny. Any social system which allowed you to openly murder your way to the top would not be stable over a period of generations. An emperor would rise to the top who decided the system risked his life (and setting up his children for the good life as well) and would try and tame it into a still horrifying, but less chaotic system. Not to mention the butterfly effect. If people die on Terran Empire ships as frequently as the Mirror Universe suggests, there is no way that we should still have doppelgangers bouncing around by the 24th century.

It basically only works as a campy joke, IMHO. But I'm willing to give this arc the benefit of the doubt.

I agree but,

I wonder if an empire large enough, say in space, wouldn't get around the stability issue due to its size.

I mean you have a ship, you're captain, of your ship and you have such free reign to do so much over large territories without having to run into those who wish to depose you, and the home world is light years away. As long as you're mostly killing the bad guys, and occasionally a lesser bad guy to take his or her command, its all good right? It isn't like you'd have the emperor fighting 5 people a day to keep his seat...
 
Hopefully I will be able to watch the new episode tomorrow, my hopes are high at this point.
 
I am sitting back, enjoying the ride and rolling my eyes at the same time. To me even the the idea of a Terran empire in the Star Trek universe is a joke.
(Suspend belief NR, suspend belief)

Dear Writers - please give Stamets the line - 'A Terran Empire? 22nd century Humans overpowered the Vulcans and did not get a Vulcan hello'? This is a bad joke right?'
I think you are supposed to conclude that the differences go back much further than the Vulcan shooting party in Montana. But then, the more differences there are, the more ridiculous it is that all the same people keep being born at the same times, and ending up together on identical looking ships. Ah, Mirror Universe, how you keep testing my suspension of disbelief!
 
I agree but,

I wonder if an empire large enough, say in space, wouldn't get around the stability issue due to its size.

I mean you have a ship, you're captain, of your ship and you have such free reign to do so much over large territories without having to run into those who wish to depose you, and the home world is light years away. As long as you're mostly killing the bad guys, and occasionally a lesser bad guy to take his or her command, its all good right? It isn't like you'd have the emperor fighting 5 people a day to keep his seat...

Explain how Solkar's ship gets boarded and how the humans figure out how to fly it to Vulcan and read Vulcan in the first place? And get past Vulcan defenses with the one ship?
 
Torture.jpg

mirror_michael.jpg
 
Explain how Solkar's ship gets boarded and how the humans figure out how to fly it to Vulcan and read Vulcan in the first place? And get past Vulcan defenses with the one ship?
I once completed a game of Jenga with no blocks remaining.
 
I think you are supposed to conclude that the differences go back much further than the Vulcan shooting party in Montana. But then, the more differences there are, the more ridiculous it is that all the same people keep being born at the same times, and ending up together on identical looking ships. Ah, Mirror Universe, how you keep testing my suspension of disbelief!
Its why I never read Mirror novels. I keep laughing too much and never finish them.
 
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Yeah, I get that, but fundamentally, the Mirror Universe is supposed to be horrifying to us (or maybe campy, depending upon your pleasure). Either way, just hewing to modern social norms in this one particular area seems a bit odd. Though of course if all the hatred of "other" is poured into aliens, it makes sense that human differences are given less import.

I think that’s why the “hyper” sexuality of the MU rubs me the wrong way. Mirror Kira is coded as pan sexual. Cool. But having it be MU Kira implied that per pan sexuality is “bad”.

I think I still give it to the DS9 Mirror episodes, but DSC did an outstanding job with it last night.

The DS9 MU episodes were very much an illustration of diminishing returns. Mirror Vic anyone?
 
It is a flawed story telling mechanism, agreed. This might be part of the reason I dislike MU episodes - the other being I feel like it's gong to the well too many times.

It worked fine from the TOS perspective, because essentially everything in TOS was one-off with no continuity. Only a handful of episodes even mentioned something that happened in a previous episode. Given an infinite number of alternate universes could exist, having one where pretty much everyone who is alive in the Prime Universe exists, but is, like, evil is allowable as a storytelling device.

DS9, as much as I love that show, made a big mistake going back to the MU. I think it was mostly done so the cast could show off their acting chops by playing different sides to their established characters. But that made the concept much more tortured, because somehow Spock led an revolution which ultimately caused humans to become a slave race in a crapsack world, yet everyone still had doppelgangers. Basically, it's like imagining a world where the South won the Civil War, yet everyone who is currently alive and is an American somehow still happens to exist.

The thing is, aside from fanwank, there's no real reason why the alternate universe needs to be "the Mirror Universe." It would be a lot easier to be just set in another crapsack alternate universe which was similar but not identical.
 
I think you are supposed to conclude that the differences go back much further than the Vulcan shooting party in Montana. But then, the more differences there are, the more ridiculous it is that all the same people keep being born at the same times, and ending up together on identical looking ships. Ah, Mirror Universe, how you keep testing my suspension of disbelief!
Based on ENT mirror humanity was corrupt from the get go , however they would never make a Terran empire from such a position of physical and technological inferiority, especially after a World War. If they are that evil they should be no one left on the planet except Cochrane and his gang of thugs. It seems only humans are evil and Vulcans are the same but a Mirror Solkar should have come off a ship or blasted the whole planet from orbit for Vulcans to colonise.
 
This was quite possibly the best episode yet and I really enjoyed it. There had been some foreshadowing, a few things were quite predictable and it was far from perfect (as @Nyotarules writes, the premise for the Terran Empire is silly, but Enterprise is to blame for that), but as I've been quite harsh, I rate this episode a 10.
 
I think that’s why the “hyper” sexuality of the MU rubs me the wrong way. Mirror Kira is coded as pan sexual. Cool. But having it be MU Kira implied that per pan sexuality is “bad”.

I could be wrong, but I get the idea that Mirror Kira was a vamp initially because Nana Visitor wanted to play her that way to contrast her with the uptight, abrasive Prime Kira.
 
Humor is lost on you.
You're an angry elf.
I bet Nyotarules enjoys getting offended.
Going through life humorless I see?
If you're going to make shallow remarks about an actress's appearance then you should be prepared to get some pushback on it and just take it without getting indignant. The fact that you keep arguing with anyone who calls you on it makes me think that you crave the conflict and deliberately set out to provoke those reactions in the first place, which is trolling. Knock it off. Or, better yet, don't make the shallow remarks at all!

Tilly has multiple warts/moles. And she's a tad overweight. But that's the character's 'charm'. The producers are going out of their way to redefine female beauty standards and push their message.
It's now part of an agenda and redefining beauty standards (as if there's one objective standard to uphold) to show normal looking people with normal flaws or differences in appearance in Trek? Good grief.

I see the SJW influence in having the females dress the same as the males and have all the females in charge (yawn).
Thats not how Terran woman dress in Enterprise or TOS. Im sorry canon is such a drag...
They could have made these new Terran outfits look anyway they wanted on STD. To have them remove the sexy factor is telling. Boring 2018 political correctness.
You are reading my posts all wrong. I dont find Tilly or Burnham sexy at all so short outfits are pointless on them. I want them to dress as canon dictates, not dress unisex to appease snowflakes. Please dont paint me as some kind of sleaze. Thank you.
Its pointless because im not complaining about the uniforms because they arent titillating enough but because they have been made unisex to appease the worst type of moaner, the SJW
Im not here to agree with people. Im not interested in the tyranny of the majority. Im entitled to my say. Bullying those with opposing views, you would do well in the Terran Empire.
- It wasn't all women in charge. The captain of the ship that first rescued Discovery and the captain of the Shenzhou before Burnham reclaimed her position were men, so precisely the same number of ships featured in the episode were commanded by men and women (actually one more for men if you count Lorca commanding the MU Buran originally). But who's counting?
- What is wrong with being a social justice warrior? What kind of person is opposed to social justice? And what does making the captain of a ship on a fictional TV show a woman have to do with fighting for social justice in anything but the most superficial way? Seems like a stupid thing for someone to complain about.
- Please tell me which part of canon specifies that Mirror Universe uniforms have to feature bare midriffs for women in 2256? The only canon I'm aware of on the issue is that uniform styles change quite frequently.
- You clearly don't know what political correctness actually means. Please don't use words you don't know.
- I would define a snowflake as someone who moans (and we know how much you hate moaning) about the alleged declining male influence in fictional military fleets, how the uniforms aren't sexy enough and violate the precious canon even though they don't, who can't adapt to changing social developments so they irrationally lash out of them, and who falsely paint themselves the victim.

Anyway, all that being said, cut the SJW, political correctness, and snowflake crap or take it to 4Chan or Reddit or somewhere where you'll find a more receptive audience.

ETA: I missed that cultcross already commented on this before me.
 
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