News Section 31 is the next series, not set in "our world"

[Markonian]

Because they are not a different species. How can an alternate version of James Kirk or Jonathan Archer or Benjamin Sisko or Michael Burnham not be human? It's a contradiction in terms.

Sorry to randomly insert myself, but the IDW I.D.I.C. comic series established that one individual can exist as a member of another species in different universes, e.g. plant-Kirk and gasform Scotty. Issue 17 shows us an Andorian McCoy and Vulcan Sulu: https://www.idwpublishing.com/product/star-trek-boldly-go-17/

 

[Christopher]

Sorry to randomly insert myself, but the IDW I.D.I.C. comic series established that one individual can exist as a member of another species in different universes, e.g. plant-Kirk and gasform Scotty.

Which is utter nonsense. Mike Johnson has always had a ludicrous interpretation of how parallel realities work, and that was the most extreme example. And it has no relevance to a discussion of how the Mirror Universe canonically works, because it's just one guy's bizarre revisionist approach, not actual franchise canon.

 

[dupersuper]

Which is utter nonsense. Mike Johnson has always had a ludicrous interpretation of how parallel realities work, and that was the most extreme example. And it has no relevance to a discussion of how the Mirror Universe canonically works, because it's just one guy's bizarre revisionist approach, not actual franchise canon.

Even if you do consider it canon, it has nothing to do with how the MU works. The MU isn't just any random Parallels style timeline; it's a specific thing with a history and rules.

 

[Christopher]

The MU isn't just any random Parallels style timeline; it's a specific thing with a history and rules.

That's the thing, though -- it should be just an alternate timeline the same as any other. There's only one logical way for that sort of thing to work -- history diverges at some point in the past and the two alternate histories evolve independently from then on. Positing any further arbitrary "rules" is invoking magic, essentially.

People have this tendency to take the "Mirror" part too literally and assume it's some kind of Opposite Universe, but that's not how it's ever actually been portrayed. It's only human history that went in a darker direction; every other culture is the same (e.g. Halkans, Klingons, or Cardassians) or has had its circumstances changed as a reaction to the Empire (e.g. Vulcans are still logical but become more ruthless to survive, and Bajor was conquered by Earth and liberated by the Alliance). So in essence it's the same kind of "what if" premise as any other alternate history -- what if humanity went toward dystopia instead of utopia?

Yes, it has the contrivance of the same people being born and coming together in the same places century after century, but that's not at all unique to the MU; it's the standard way of depicting an alternate timeline in series fiction, because the whole point of the genre is to explore the familiar main characters in different forms. Look at "Yesteryear," where the timeline diverged 30 years earlier but everything is exactly the same except for Spock's absence -- which is hard to reconcile with all the times the crew only survived because of Spock's brilliance or Vulcan abilities.

 

[dupersuper]

There's only one logical way for that sort of thing to work

I think I see your problem...

 

[Christopher]

I think I see your problem...

As I said, it should logically work a certain way. The problem arises when people -- whether fans or episode/comic writers -- inject more fanciful interpretations that turn it into something more nonsensical.

Gene Roddenberry wanted Star Trek to make sense. He was the first SFTV producer to have paid research consultants on a regular basis to vet the science and credibility of the show. He didn't always listen to them, since the needs of drama came first, but at least he aspired to some degree of plausibility. That care invested in building a somewhat believable universe -- not entirely believable, of course, but grounded enough to facilitate suspension of disbelief -- was what made ST stand out from the pack of lazier, shallower, more nonsensical SFTV shows of its era. It's part of the reason we still have entire discussion boards talking about it today. Later productions have frequently fallen short of that ideal, but that doesn't mean the ideal isn't still worth striving for, or at least wishing for. We can talk about the standards of credibility that ought to be applied, rather than just blindly accepting it when they aren't.

 

[Mudd]

Which is utter nonsense.

In the real world? It's nonsense, IMO.

In the odd universe of Star Trek? It's a reasonable extrapolation from what's been shown.

Because, for no reason based in science or observation, Trek propagates the premise that human beings and other creatures as individuals exist as essential consciousnesses and personalities which may be removed or treated separately from their physical existences. You can have two people switch minds. You can store a human being in a globe for millions of years. You can transfer a human being whose body is about to die into piggy-back storage in another human's brain and later extract it and put it into a body which has no such essence of its own.*

Living creatures in Trek possess souls as the term is popularly used.

Once having allowed the existence of souls as something not dependent on a specific corporeal expression, you've admitted a huge hypothetical that makes anything possible. Including shuffling essences like decks of cards and dealing them out to entirely different kinds of creatures and bodies.

TL,DR: Yeah, it's all nonsense. But this idea is no more nonsensical than canonical Star Trek metaphysics in general.

*I'm pretty sure the guy Diana highjacked to plop Steve Trevor's soul into was one of those. At least, he had no fashion sense.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Burnham herself noted how crazy the concept of a mirror universe was in Season 1, and came to the conclusion that "destiny" must've made it happen. She's half-right, in that it's all writers making it happen to their whims.

But perhaps there's more to that. That some force (Q or likewise) is shaping one or both universes, linking them and molding them, in order to have the same people in more or less the same places. Q pretty much said he would do that with Picard in Tapestry, so that his future alternate self arrived on a familiar Enterprise that existed without him at the helm. Perhaps the Guardian of Forever did something similar in Yesteryear swapping out Spock and Thelin.

Perhaps the mirror universe is some cosmic entity's plaything, looking at key figures and how they would react in a darker (literally) setting. Or perhaps the mirror universe is the true world, the control, and Primetime is the universe that the cosmics play around in and try to pressure these guys into acting more benevolent.

 

[fireproof78]

Burnham herself noted how crazy the concept of a mirror universe was in Season 1, and came to the conclusion that "destiny" must've made it happen. She's half-right, in that it's all writers making it happen to their whims.

But perhaps there's more to that. That some force (Q or likewise) is shaping one or both universes, linking them and molding them, in order to have the same people in more or less the same places. Q pretty much said he would do that with Picard in Tapestry, so that his future alternate self arrived on a familiar Enterprise that existed without him at the helm. Perhaps the Guardian of Forever did something similar in Yesteryear swapping out Spock and Thelin.

Perhaps the mirror universe is some cosmic entity's plaything, looking at key figures and how they would react in a darker (literally) setting. Or perhaps the mirror universe is the true world, the control, and Primetime is the universe that the cosmics play around in and try to pressure these guys into acting more benevolent.

That's how the comics treat it, with Trelane and Q having a bet or some nonsense.

 

[Christopher]

My pet theory for the conceit of characters in alternate timelines following convergent paths is that, since all alternate incarnations of an individual are essentially superposed quantum states of the same ensemble of particles (more or less), that could create some kind of probabilistic resonance between different states/incarnations, so that their lives follow similar paths even within divergent contexts (or as Lex Luthor put it in the Arrowverse's Crisis on Infinite Earths, "The multiverse has a way of aligning fates"). I find that much less contrived than "A wizard did it" explanations. And it works for all timelines that have improbable convergences (e.g. "Yesteryear" and the more far-out "Parallels" alternates, or the timelines in the Myriad Universes novels), so there doesn't have to be any arbitrary specialness assigned to the Mirror Universe.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I recall the Shatnerverse novels, where Mirror was the control universe and Prime was the version endlessly tampered with by the Preservers. I really liked that

Every alternate reality in Trek is intertwined. Canon evidence is the same people interact in the same places at around the same times despite massively different circumstances. For example:

Seven replaced Kes in a Jeffries tube with Tuvok scanning a Kremin torpedo in 2 timelines. The reason for scanning the lodged torpedo was different but it was identical.

The Enterprise-D was felled by a Klingon bird of prey via warp core breach in 2 timelines, 4 years apart.

Kirk or Spock sacrificed themselves fixing the warp core in an incident involving Khan in two timelines,15 years apart (and indeed, the entire Enterprise crew coming together in very different circumstances 5ish years early)

The Mirror universe characters are always in similar places and situations across 225 years of in-universe history as Prime. Only one time is it justified, when Lorca arranged the Prime people he'd need for his attempted MU coup.

There was almost an explanation in 2009 Trek, a cut line where Spock suggests the timeline is "healing" itself. But "City on the Edge of Forever" says similar:

SPOCK: There is a theory. There could be some logic to the belief that time is fluid, like a river, with currents, eddies, backwash.
KIRK: And the same currents that swept McCoy to a certain time and place might sweep us there, too.

It's magic!

 

[Mudd]

That's just as much gibberish as "souls," since while the terminology used has real word referents the contexts in which terms like "superposed quantum states" are being used treats them as no more or less than "abracadabra."

IOW, Christopher's "explanation" uses terminology that suits his tastes but has no more bearing on what's real or plausible than "a wizard did it."