The Comic Mirror Images and the Mirror Universe Timeline

[ProwlAlpha]

I just recently read this comic collection and I am now trying to figure out on how to place these stories within the main Mirror Universe storyline such as set down by stories like The Sorrows of the Empire.

The two main Kirk stories could be placed in 2264 with the first one before he gets the Tantalus Field and the second story to be placed after he gets it but before he kills Pike.

The Picard story is tough one and I really don't want to think this story is another Mirror Universe continuity. I would like to think that the ISS Starbreaker and a number of other Imperial starships were engaging in guerilla warfare in the downfall of the Terran Republic/Empire.

 

[Stevil2001]

They're clearly in a different continuity, though-- Kirk's assumption of command of the Enterprise is detailed in an entirely different fashion in "The Greater Good" in Shards and Shadows.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

That sucks

 

[Christopher]

There are multiple incompatible Mirror Universe continuities -- the one from the DC Mirror Universe Saga, the one from the novel Dark Mirror, the one from the Dark Passions duology, the one from Malibu's Mirror-Tuvok comics story, the one from IDW's Mirror Images, and the one from the current novel continuity. Maybe some of them can be reconciled with each other, but not many.

But since the Mirror Universe is already an alternate timeline, why couldn't there be alternate Mirror Universes?

 

[ProwlAlpha]

I know about the many different Mirror Universes, I was kind of hoping that this new comic could be fitted into the main one, other having six separate timelines.

 

[Christopher]

Well, if you ignored the Picard portion, maybe the TOS portion of Mirror Images could be reconciled with the novels' MU, but you'd have to disregard "The Greater Good" from Shards and Shadows, the novelverse version of the same events (how Kirk took command from Pike).

 

[F. King Daniel]

How many mirror universes are there now? Six? Seven?
What's everyone's favourite version? I'm going with the TNG Dark Mirror novel, because it's true to the original version of the MU (i.e. the same as 'ours' but evil). I always hated what DS9 did to such a cool concept.

I also liked (what I saw of) the DC comics version - the divergence point at the Romulan War (Earth defeated in the MU) always made young me think of the flashforwards in the early Terminator films, but with Romulans instead of robots.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I also liked (what I saw of) the DC comics version - the divergence point at the Romulan War (Earth defeated in the MU) always made young me think of the flashforwards in the early Terminator films, but with Romulans instead of robots.

Though it makes me wonder how MU Vulcan got out of being attascked by a vengeful MU Earth seeing as those humans would know what Romulans look like.

 

[ATimson]

But since the Mirror Universe is already an alternate timeline, why couldn't there be alternate Mirror Universes?

The Mirror Universe is a bit different from other alternate timelines because it's persistent - they keep going back to the same one (if you ignore DS9's continuity flubs regarding cloaking devices...). It's presented more like a parallel development than just another branch.

(That said, I was partial to the implication in one of the Shatnerverse books that First Contact created the Mirror Universe - that it stemmed from a more militaristic approach to exploration knowing that there are horrors like the Borg waiting out there. Of course, "Regeneration" pretty thoroughly shitcanned that idea, unless Enterprise itself was going to be in the MU, and "In a Mirror Darkly" finished the job!)

 

[DevilEyes]

How many mirror universes are there now? Six? Seven?
What's everyone's favourite version? I'm going with the TNG Dark Mirror novel, because it's true to the original version of the MU (i.e. the same as 'ours' but evil). I always hated what DS9 did to such a cool concept.

I agree. Crossover was somewhat interesting with the idea that Spock's rebellion might not have been a good thing for the Humans, but it only could have worked as a one-time thing, and it killed all that made the MU interesting. Once it became about Human heroes fighting evil Klingons and Cardassians, well... do I need to explain why that misses the very point of the MU?

I think that the alternate universe from James Swallow's Seeds of Dissent is much closer to what a DS9 Mirror Universe should look like, if it were true to the original concept of the MU: a universe where 24th century Humans are the bad guys, and Earth is the leader of a ruthless, oppressive conquering empire and a scourge of the galaxy.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Christopher you forgot the Mirror Universe from the Shaternerverse novels. As to which one is my favorite I have to agree with the poster who stated "Dark Mirror" if they had done that as an episode or a two part episode it would have probably been the most expensive Star Trek episode ever produced but I think it would've been one of the most watched too. Dark Mirror is one of my all time favorite books, I bought it as soon as I saw the cover on the book shelf.

So many diverges from the original "Mirror, Mirror" TOS episode. I don't mind that Deep Space Nine drastically altered the concept by creating the Alliance, it was the episode that finally made me a DS9 fan and then on I continued watching every week thereafter. I think the fact that they continued having crossovers "diluted" the universe IMO if that makes sense. They should have left it at just that one original episode with Bashir and O'Brien.

 

[Christopher]

The Mirror Universe is a bit different from other alternate timelines because it's persistent - they keep going back to the same one (if you ignore DS9's continuity flubs regarding cloaking devices...). It's presented more like a parallel development than just another branch.

There's no contradiction there whatsoever. That's how alternate timelines are supposed to work -- they coexist alongside each other. That's why they're also called parallel timelines. Just because other alternate timelines we've seen in Trek have generally been portrayed differently in terms of their story function, that doesn't mean there's any fundamental incompatibility in the basic physics.

And of course the Mirror Universe is a branch. It has the same planets, the same species, the same laws of physics as the main Trek universe. That makes it a branch off the same origin. That's the only thing it can be. A literally separate universe with no common origin would be entirely different in every way, most likely even to the laws of physics. A separate universe is something like fluidic space or the realm of the solanogen-based creatures from "Schisms." A continuum with an Earth and a human species and a James T. Kirk of any kind is a parallel timeline, period. Not all parallel timelines are created by time travel. Indeed, as "Parallels" established, and as Myriad Universes reinforces, there are countless coexisting timelines that just spontaneously arise due to the operation of quantum physics. And yet no matter how long ago they diverged, they tend to have certain convergences in terms of which people are born, where they end up, and so forth. The Mirror Universe is hardly unique in that regard, not anymore.

 

[PaulSimpson]

KRAD did a great job creating a MU(s) Timeline for the magazine a few months back. If someone wants to put that up somewhere, I've got no problems with it now the issue is well off sale....

 

[JD]

Damn, of course you say that now that I can't find my copy. I've wanting to look back over it for a few weeks now, but I apparently got rid of it, because I cannot find it anywhere.

 

[DimesDan]

KRAD did a great job creating a MU(s) Timeline for the magazine a few months back. If someone wants to put that up somewhere, I've got no problems with it now the issue is well off sale....

Damn, of course you say that now that I can't find my copy. I've wanting to look back over it for a few weeks now, but I apparently got rid of it, because I cannot find it anywhere.

I have this issue, let me just finish up what I'm doing and I'll upload it.

 

[DimesDan]

Just been informed that only the data in the magazine and not the magazine itself can be uploaded on here, so I've had to take them down, sorry about that everyone.

 

[PaulSimpson]

Just been informed that only the data in the magazine and not the magazine itself can be uploaded on here, so I've had to take them down, sorry about that everyone.

Thanks for reacting so quickly - appreciate it!

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I was always a fan of DC Comics' Mirror Universe Saga, although I suppose Dark Mirror is due for a rereading. I remember it being pretty good.

And I've always seen the Mirror Universe as much more of a twisted reflection of the Prime Universe than as any sort of alternate timeline - one that has always had evil versions of the events of Trek rather than any specific branching off point (although if you HAD to pin me down on a speciifc point of divergence, I'd go with Edith Keeler not dying in that car accident). Sort of like Earth-3 with the Crime Syndicate in the DC Universe.

I even worked up a rough timeline a while back with my takes on how some of TOS's episodes would've played out in the Mirror Universe. I'd be willing to post it here, if it didn't violate the rules about posting story ideas.

 

[Christopher]

^My first Strange New Worlds submission was a Mirror Universe version of "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" I went through all the episodes trying to find ones that would have interesting MU equivalents, but there aren't many. For instance, any episode that begins with them on a humanitarian mission or answering a distress call would never happen, nor would most episodes starting with pure research missions; any episode about them resolving a diplomatic crisis would be over in minutes because they'd just blow everything up, so there wouldn't be much of a story; and episodes about battling cosmic threats or things that attack the ship would turn out largely the same, so there wouldn't be much point in telling it. "Truth No Beauty" was one of the only ones I could think of that I could do an interesting parallel with, though of course I won't go into specifics.

 

[DevilEyes]

I was always a fan of DC Comics' Mirror Universe Saga, although I suppose Dark Mirror is due for a rereading. I remember it being pretty good.

And I've always seen the Mirror Universe as much more of a twisted reflection of the Prime Universe than as any sort of alternate timeline - one that has always had evil versions of the events of Trek rather than any specific branching off point (although if you HAD to pin me down on a speciifc point of divergence, I'd go with Edith Keeler not dying in that car accident).

That doesn't really work, since many of the characters were not actually evil in the Mirror Universe, or at least were less evil than others (Forrest, Spock, most of the humans in DS9 MU) and some "bad"/"evil" people were "good" in the MU (Brunt).

Not to mention cases where the writer didn't think of anything better to do with an already evil character but make them the same as the PU one, only one-dimensional and less interesting (Dukat in Saturn's Children - and don't get me started on MU Dukat having the same kind of relationship and background with Intendant Kira that Dukat and Kira had in the PU, even though it makes no sense whatsoever since one of them has a very different personality, and the entire Bajor/Cardassia context that formed their relationship is completely different)... in which case you're just left to wonder why they even bothered...