Barr's The Mirror Universe Saga and Mack's The Sorrows of Empire
- Thread starter Odo
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Ah.
I don't believe the Barr series is compatible with the MU continuity as laid out in DS9 and in the succeeding books (I'm not sure how you'd feel about spoilers, so am reluctant to cite specific aspects). I haven't read the comics, so can't speak for whether Mack may have incorporated elements of it in some manner.
I don't believe the Barr series is compatible with the MU continuity as laid out in DS9 and in the succeeding books (I'm not sure how you'd feel about spoilers, so am reluctant to cite specific aspects). I haven't read the comics, so can't speak for whether Mack may have incorporated elements of it in some manner.
^ In Barr's Mirror Universe Saga, the reason that Mirror Universe was different from the Prime Universe was that Earth lost the Earth-Romulan War and was occupied for about 10 years before driving the Romulans off. The best retcon would probably be that it was another parallel universe with a Terran Empire trying to invade the Prime Universe which in the past had crossed over with yet another parallel universe quite similar to the Prime Universe at the time of "Mirror, Mirror".
The two aren't consistent. In Barr's Mirror Spock initially decides to ignore our Kirk's advice to enact change and at the time of the comics is an ally of Mirror Kirk. In Sorrows of Empire Mirror Spock rebels very quickly. The personal histories of the characters are also quite different as well. I think Barr's comics are worth reading but they don't have much to do with the Mirror Universe laid out in recent novels (which are also very good).
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it's worth reading the comic, though, just for the sight of the USS Kennedy battling the ISS Nixon!
They're completely incompatible, but who cares? They're both great stories, and it's cool to have the opportunity to explore multiple possible paths the Mirror Universe could've taken rather than being limited to just one.
There have been plenty of mutually incompatible versions of the Mirror Universe in prose and comics. The only ones that are really consistent with one another are those that have been published by Pocket over the past few years -- the three trade paperback anthologies, the expanded The Sorrows of Empire, the MU threads in the DS9 post-finale novels, and the MU installment in Seven Deadly Sins. Other mutually incompatible versions of the MU include:
DC's The Mirror Universe Saga
TNG: Dark Mirror by Diane Duane
1995 "Enemies and Allies" backup story in Wildstorm's DS9 series
1997 "Fragile Glass" one-shot by Marvel Comics
Spectre/Dark Victory/Preserver by William Shatner and Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Dark Passions by Susan Wright
Mirror Images miniseries by IDW Comics
There have been plenty of mutually incompatible versions of the Mirror Universe in prose and comics. The only ones that are really consistent with one another are those that have been published by Pocket over the past few years -- the three trade paperback anthologies, the expanded The Sorrows of Empire, the MU threads in the DS9 post-finale novels, and the MU installment in Seven Deadly Sins. Other mutually incompatible versions of the MU include:
DC's The Mirror Universe Saga
TNG: Dark Mirror by Diane Duane
1995 "Enemies and Allies" backup story in Wildstorm's DS9 series
1997 "Fragile Glass" one-shot by Marvel Comics
Spectre/Dark Victory/Preserver by William Shatner and Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Dark Passions by Susan Wright
Mirror Images miniseries by IDW Comics
^^^
And, based on what we saw in TNG's Parallels, all of those "Mirror Universe" continutities could very well exist. After all, in that episode we learned there are at least 285,000 realities out there. There might well be at least a few variations of the Mirror universe aside from the one established in TOS and followed up on in DSN.
(In fact if you feel the need to shoehorn in the various novels, comics, games, fan-film, cereal boxes and whatever that have explored Trek in various ways, that TNG episode is the perfect rationalization: they all exist! They're all valid. Problem solved.
And, based on what we saw in TNG's Parallels, all of those "Mirror Universe" continutities could very well exist. After all, in that episode we learned there are at least 285,000 realities out there. There might well be at least a few variations of the Mirror universe aside from the one established in TOS and followed up on in DSN.
(In fact if you feel the need to shoehorn in the various novels, comics, games, fan-film, cereal boxes and whatever that have explored Trek in various ways, that TNG episode is the perfect rationalization: they all exist! They're all valid. Problem solved.
^And we've even had cameo appearances by characters from different (maybe even the same?) versions of the Mirror Universe in the in continuity stuff. We saw a Terran Empire Enterprise-E as one of the alternate Enterprises in Q&A, and we also saw a Imperial Fleet Captain Benjamin Sisko, during one of Sisko's visions.
They don't have anything to do with each other (mainly because Barr's Mirror Universe story was written in 1984-85 and was thus working from a different set of parameters), but they are both good reads. I'd recommend them both.
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