Star Trek: Discovery - Die Standing by John Jackson Miller

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by JJMiller, Feb 1, 2020.

  1. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Not exactly. The term "Terran" was not used in "Mirror, Mirror." It was used in DS9 by nonhuman characters to refer to humans, in the same way that it's long been used in science fiction as a futuristic or alien way to refer to Earth people, or as a less hokey-sounding alternative to "Earthling" (and indeed Star Trek has frequently used it that way in non-Mirror episodes). So the DS9 usage was meant to be aliens' term for humans, not humans' term for themselves. The first use of the term "Terran Empire" was in the Shatner/Reeves-Stevens Mirror Universe novel trilogy, and it was first used onscreen in ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly."

    ENT and DSC are the first series to use "Terran" exclusively for Mirror humans, and that's the problem. It's not about whether the Mirror humans refer to themselves that way; it's about the mistaken assumption that Prime humans do not refer to themselves that way. Since all of the first five TV series (counting TAS) had instances of characters using "Terran" to refer to people from Prime Earth, the Federation's Earth, it therefore doesn't make sense to have Prime-universe characters saying "Terran" as if it referred uniquely to Mirror humans.
     
  2. David cgc

    David cgc Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Apr 3, 2002
    Location:
    Florida
    IIRC, the first on-screen usage of the term "mirror" to refer to that universe was in DSC season one, where Burnham called their ship's displaced counterpart "the mirror Discovery." Which, honestly, feels like a weirder way to introduce the nomenclature than by referring to the universe as a whole.
     
  3. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Yes. It's inappropriately injecting out-of-universe terminology into the universe. The Doctor is not named Doctor Who. The seven stranded castaways never referred to the uncharted desert isle as Gilligan's Island. The Team in Young Justice is not named Young Justice. And nobody ever called Picard and Riker the Next Generation of anything.
     
    David cgc likes this.
  4. WebLurker

    WebLurker Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2016
    Remember those books. Had to believe it was the same people who wrote Prime Directive and Federation (Okay, overload of Easter eggs are the same, but still.)

    Seems like quite the nothingburger in terms of things that "deserve" fan outrage. Heck, the Discover-prise creates more problems then the use or non-use of "Terran" does.
     
  5. thribs

    thribs Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2017
    Yeah. When they call Bashir a Terran, he’s completely thrown off by the term which tells me it’s a word that is barely used in their universe.
     
  6. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    "Outrage?" Where do you get that? Criticism is not automatically outrage, and it's very insulting to assume that it is.
     
  7. thribs

    thribs Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2017
    Most people on this site see criticism as outrage. I don’t understand why.
     
    Therin of Andor likes this.
  8. WebLurker

    WebLurker Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2016
    Consider "outrage" in quotes, then.
     
  9. Enterprise1701

    Enterprise1701 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2014
    Location:
    Sol III, Sector 001, 2063 C.E.
    Am I to understand that you are too wise to spend time in Facebook groups or too naïve to know what goes on in such "conversations"?
     
  10. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Just because some people act that way doesn't mean that everyone who has a criticism of a show is as bad as they are. That's what people like that want us to do -- to embrace their extreme, all-or-nothing, us-vs.-them mentality and destroy any hope of intelligent discourse. The rest of us should not let them define the narrative. We should be able to discuss the virtues and flaws of a work intelligently and calmly like adults and not hurl ad hominem imprecations like accusing someone of being "outraged" just because they point out a small continuity error. The fact that it's hard to read emotional cues online is why we should give other people the benefit of the doubt, rather than immediately jumping to the most extreme and negative possible interpretation of their state of mind.
     
    trampledamage likes this.
  11. Stevil2001

    Stevil2001 Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 7, 2001
    For what it's worth, the first time "mirror universe" was (I think) used in narrative was actually David R. George's Plagues of Night; Sisko thinks about Vaughn's counterpart from the "so-called mirror universe."
     
    ATimson likes this.
  12. WebLurker

    WebLurker Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2016
    Got to read the book now. Pretty good.
     
  13. Ronald Held

    Ronald Held Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2005
    Location:
    On the USS Sovereign
    Have to wait until Tuesday...
     
  14. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 12, 2004
    Location:
    Lancaster, PA
    Spotted the book at our local B&N the other day.
     
    Ronald Held, Leto_II and Corran Horn like this.
  15. WebLurker

    WebLurker Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2016
    Yeah, found it by chance at one myself. Haven't seen a lot of internet chatter about it, though, oddly enough.