Having read and enjoyed Glass Empires, Obsidian Alliances and Warpath, I just have to ask: Will the forthcoming books, Shards & Shadows and Fearful Symmetry, drop any tantalising hints about the history of the Mirror Universe, such as when and how it diverged from the primary Trekverse? I realise the authors probably won't give away too much, so as not to spoil the mystery, but will there be anything at all?
Future Mirror Universe books
- Thread starter EJA
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The Mirror Universe hasn't "diverged" from the Trekiverse, it has always been a darker version of it. I would personally like to see the culminations of Spock's efforts to Federationise the Terran Empire and see how it could stay so dark and maybe get closer to the Trekiverse.
That's just one interpretation. There's no proof of it. Scientifically speaking, a universe that has the same laws of physics, the same planets, the same species, the same languages and cities and technology, must be a divergent timeline; had it been a separate universe from the beginning, it wouldn't have an Earth or a human species any more than Vulcan would have a Lake Michigan or a Monticello. Although it does seem there's something odd about the MU that causes it to remain similar to the main universe, with the same people being born and ending up in similar positions, nearly the same technology and clothing designs being developed, etc., despite the divergence apparently happening a considerable time in the past. Although the same can be said of most fictional alternate realities.
I just can't wait to see what will be said about Kirk, Riker and Shran, since well they are on the cover of the Shards & Shadows.
^^I believe the cover that's been seen is a working version, not necessarily its final form. And there are, I think, a dozen stories in the anthology, so it won't be just about those three.
That's the cover being used in back of Sky's the Limit.
It could still be tentative. Remember the Double Helix: The First Virtue cover. The original advertised cover (at least in Star Trek: The Magazine) showed Picard and Beverly but the final cover showed Tuvok and Beverly. At least, I believe that's how it was. I can't dig out my copy of that issue.
The divergence, if there is one, would have to have happened on hundreds of worlds in the MU. It is more logical to surmise that the MU is just a darker version of our own universe where the immoral decisions are made instead.
Either that or Q created it to prove to Picard that humanity is depraved.
I really hope that they don't Federationise the MU. The whole reason it's so interesting is that it's the exact oppostite of the Fed's. It's fascinating to see all of our beloved characters doing complete 180's. Plus if Spock does succeed with his plan then that would pretty much kill the story wouldn't it? Who want's to see everything go back to real universe "normal?"
It wouldn't though, would it, because the MU is far crueller than ours. If there is an MU Federation, it is more likely to be a slightly-less-cruel empire than the Terran Empire was, because humanity now knows what being on the other end of cruel despots is like. In order for the new Empire or whatever to come to fruition, the Klingon/Cardassian Alliance would have to crumble.
Maybe the arrival of the MU Dominion would make them all fight together against a common enemy. The wormhole does exist in the MU, but where are the Prophets? Maybe the Pah Wraiths changed that universe????
With all due respect, there's nothing logical about that idea. Morality is entirely relative, an artificial construct of the sentient mind which does not exist in any physical, natural sense, and as such could not be directly affected by any hypothetical variance in one universe's constants.
My own, just-for-fun theory on the MU is that the divergeance occured billions of years in the past, during the history of the Ur-Species from "The Chase". Their society took a darker turn at some point, and when this version of the Ur-Species got around to seeding the primordial soup of worlds across the galaxy, the genetic code they laced was one that played up features like competition, aggression, ambition, and played down affective, cooperative genetic expressions, such that the median across the population is further towards selfishness than our universe (but still evincing a spectrum of behaviour).
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Actually you can. IF we are working on the idea that there are an infinite number of alternate realities. Then there must be an INFINITE number of possibilities for the outcomes in each. It just so happens that the one we have named "Mirror" is one that has that specific outcome that has the exact same people with the same names in similar roles but differing circumstances.
Being infinite means every single possible configuration of all of the matter and energy in each universe must be configured in every way possible. So there MUST be a hell of a lot of universes where all of the same people exist.
The question is however, given the infinite nature of the multiverse, does there exist other universes that are perfectly identical to each other in every way? Since any random configuration of the matter/energy of that universe could at any time be the same as another.
Oh, of course. The point is that I don't think they'll be singled out in any way. Presumably they would've been chosen for the cover due to their prominence and their absence from the previous MU covers.
No, it wouldn't. For the most part, the darkness we've seen in other cultures can be interpreted as a reaction to the imperialism of Earth. The Terrans conquered and ruled over them, and they had to become harder and crueler themselves just to survive within the system, or else to battle against imperial domination. Cause and effect. Remember, in the main universe in the time of ENT, many of the future Federation powers were pretty warlike already -- Tellarites battling Andorians, Andorians battling Vulcans, Vulcans ruled by a relatively militant regime. It was the influence of the peaceful, egalitarian humans that guided them toward alliance and a more positive future. Take those same cultures and pit them against humans who are conquerors rather than peacemakers, and the result could easily be the Mirror Universe.
That isn't logical at all, because it offers no explanation for how such a thing would occur. "Just" a darker version? That "just" glosses over a vast number of physical, ontological, and philosophical problems that arise from that assertion.
^ Points taken folks.
I really don't think that there's a single point of divergence, or several occurring over billions of years to skew the MU further from our own. The Ur/"Chase" makes as much sense as anything else, though Christopher's point about the warlike behaviour exhibited by certain species in the 22nd century is also well taken.
I think DS9 overdid the MU a little bit and should have had just two episodes. I also think that TNG and VOY should have had MU episodes just so we get a bigger picture of the MU from the late 24th century. But the books are doing that now, so all's gravy.
Still, I wonder what the MU Dominion would be like.
I really don't think that there's a single point of divergence, or several occurring over billions of years to skew the MU further from our own. The Ur/"Chase" makes as much sense as anything else, though Christopher's point about the warlike behaviour exhibited by certain species in the 22nd century is also well taken.
I think DS9 overdid the MU a little bit and should have had just two episodes. I also think that TNG and VOY should have had MU episodes just so we get a bigger picture of the MU from the late 24th century. But the books are doing that now, so all's gravy.
Still, I wonder what the MU Dominion would be like.
I thought that
Mirror Universe Shran was executed by Empress Sato after he tried to overthrow her
As for a MU Dominion: Maybe it is like the Federation in the RU - a democratic, peaceful alliance of worlds. And the "Borg Cooperative" would graciously hand out advanced technology to anyone who wanted it.
I would definitely like to see Spock's grand plan come to fruition. I can't believe the writers would just abandon it. There must be plans to use it in future MU works - it's too big of a plot thread to just leave hanging.
Babaganoosh[/b]'s confusion]If there's a story about Shran, then it's probably before his execution or even possibly before Sato's rise to power.
That's a common fallacy. In fact, just because X number of possibilities are available, that doesn't mean that every single one of them must occur. What you'd get would be a probability distribution, with the vast majority of alternatives tending toward the center and the more improbable outcomes being increasingly, even vanishingly, unlikely.
Also, there wouldn't be an infinite number of possibilities. Even if every single collapse of a quantum particle state in the history of the universe had resulted in the creation of a divergent timeline, the universe has only existed for a finite amount of time, meaning there must be a finite number of divergences. Keep in mind, also, that human beings have only existed for less than 0.0003 percent of the history of the universe, so the number of timelines that would include humanity at all would be vastly smaller. And the timelines that include civilization and an Industrial Revolution would be fewer still, and so on. Sure, there might be eleventy gajillion timelines out there, but most of them would have no Sol, no Earth, no mammals, let alone human beings or warp drive or people named Kirk.
An infinite number of possibilities does not equal a certainty that every imaginable permutation will happen, because that's just not how probability works. Things only happen as a result of past causes. Only the timelines that have those causes will have a chance of producing a given outcome; all the rest will simply not be relevant to the calculation because they have zero chance of producing the result. And eleventy gajillion times zero is still zero.
In fact, this is fairly close to what would most likely result. Again, the majority of timelines would cluster around the center of the bell curve, with the most probable events happening in the largest number. There would be many that were largely indistinguishable except for minimal variations, like in TNG's "Parallels."
The problem with the idea of the Mirror Universe is that it posits a timeline that's exactly like ours in the majority of respects -- same general cultural history, same language and technology, same individuals serving in the same posts on ships of the same design and wearing almost the same clothes -- and yet radically opposite in many other respects. Those just don't go together. If the timelines were far enough removed for one to have a peaceful, inclusive Federation and the other to have a brutal, sadistic Empire, then a hell of a lot more would've gone differently as well. Just say, for instance, that Skon of Vulcan becomes ambassador to Earth in one timeline and a prisoner of the Terrans in the other. Even if he ends up with the same wife -- likely given that Vulcans are bonded at age seven -- the exact circumstances under which he conceived a child with her would no doubt be different. If it occurred at a different time, the sperm and egg cells that combined to produce their child would be different, and the child would have different genes as a result. It wouldn't be Solkar, and thus Sarek would never be born, and thus Spock would never be born.
Now multiply that by everyone who's affected even slightly by the altered history. Even just being late for an elevator could mean that someone never meets the person they marry in the other timeline -- what are the odds of it consistently happening when people are being murdered, enslaved, and conscripted en masse? Even if the divergence had just begun at first contact, by 200 years later the population of Earth should be made up of completely different people. That's the fundamental absurdity -- being so close and so different at once.
