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In a Mirror, Darkly for Deep Space Nine.

Photon

Commodore
Commodore
It would have been intriguing to have a storyline and two-parter along these lines of Sisko and the boys being really evil. Don't know how it could part integrated into the arc, but I'd still like to Moore write something like IMD.

IMD was the best Trek shows since DS9 went off.
 
As much as I love DS9, I think one of the things they got criminally wrong was the aspect of the Mirror Universe. It wasn't just a reality gone wrong, it was that everyone who was heroic was pretty much evil. Not just darker and pluckier, but out and out evil. I was looking forward to seeing sadistic versions of O'Brien (Everyone Else Will Suffer!) and Bashir and maybe even evil Prophets. Perhaps characters like Weyoun would be heroic. As such, the Mirror Universe could've been a great way to frame certain aspects of the Trekverse, DS9-style; in a great twist, Dukat is largely the same (due to his massive grey area in our universe).

However, a nice strength of Enterprise was that they tried to reconcile the proper Mirror Universe (the one in TOS and ENT) with the DS9 future. Enterprise foretold the collapse of the Terran Empire seen in DS9. I respect that little nod, even if DS9's version didn't really fit.
 
After seeing In A Mirror Darkly I think DS9 got almost the entire premise wrong. All that needed to be addressed is what a universe would be like with Terrans as militaristic conquerers. The aspects and ideologies behind the other races should have remained in tact.
 
As much as I love DS9, I think one of the things they got criminally wrong was the aspect of the Mirror Universe. It wasn't just a reality gone wrong, it was that everyone who was heroic was pretty much evil. Not just darker and pluckier, but out and out evil.
That wasn't even really true in Mirror, Mirror. Our universe's crew managed to reach out to Spock. He seemed to be capable of good in both universes. DS9's Mirror Universe was an extrapolation of the end of that episode. I could see them exploiting the complete mirror view of our universe if the original TOS episode were like In a Mirror, Darkly in which the TOS crew never met the Mirror Universe crew, but the point of the DS9 Mirror Universe was much the same as DS9 itself, at least in the earlier Mirror episodes, that there were consequences to what happened in the previous Mirror episode. Eventually it became an excuse to relieve the tension in the rest of the season with a bit of swashbuckling camp, but even then it still followed the rules of DS9 that each time we'd see some kind of change to the Mirror Universe.
 
As much as I love DS9, I think one of the things they got criminally wrong was the aspect of the Mirror Universe. It wasn't just a reality gone wrong, it was that everyone who was heroic was pretty much evil. Not just darker and pluckier, but out and out evil.
That wasn't even really true in Mirror, Mirror. Our universe's crew managed to reach out to Spock. He seemed to be capable of good in both universes. DS9's Mirror Universe was an extrapolation of the end of that episode. I could see them exploiting the complete mirror view of our universe if the original TOS episode were like In a Mirror, Darkly in which the TOS crew never met the Mirror Universe crew, but the point of the DS9 Mirror Universe was much the same as DS9 itself, at least in the earlier Mirror episodes, that there were consequences to what happened in the previous Mirror episode. Eventually it became an excuse to relieve the tension in the rest of the season with a bit of swashbuckling camp, but even then it still followed the rules of DS9 that each time we'd see some kind of change to the Mirror Universe.

Sure, but you have to get the fundamentals down if you want to instigate change (or else what are you changing?). I admit, I had one aspect wrong, which Anthony Sabre was correct about: in the Mirror Universe, humans would be the bad guys, no matter what, it's that everyone else stayed the same (the Vulcans, the Denobulans, etc). The theme then becomes if the Humans are such a good and driving force in the regular universe, how devastating can they be if they were evil?

DS9 did show consequence, which is a great take on the Mirror Universe. The only thing is, DS9 resorted to showing the humans as good guys once more, which completely goes against Mirror, Mirror. If the Terran Empire did go down in flames thanks to Spock, and if most of the DS9 crew is evil, then we need to see a story where the humans are cornered (due to their defeat) but more dangerous than ever, as if they were a trapped animal, or at least the other powers go along unchecked (which we sort of saw with the Klingon/Cardassian union in DS9).
 
I think the reason that the humans became the good guys really was because of how humbled they'd been after a generation or two under the Alliance's control. They KNEW what horrible things they'd done to these species.

And, if we're getting really picky, it's really just O'Brien who we can qualify as a 'good' human. O'Brien and Bashir are the only one of our main characters who we see in significant roles. The other characters might be willing to shoot first and then shoot anyone who asks questions, but we don't actually see them in major roles.

And, really, we only see snippets of these characters anyway, always against the aggressor Alliance forces. We don't know what they do when they aren't fighting the Alliance. Are they strip-mining Bajor? Mass producing other ship designs they stole from DS9's database to utterly wipe out the Klingon/Cardassian species? Torturing prisoners? (...Okay, so we KNOW Bashir is, but we've already seen he's PSYCHO anyway...)
 
I think the reason that the humans became the good guys really was because of how humbled they'd been after a generation or two under the Alliance's control. They KNEW what horrible things they'd done to these species.

And, if we're getting really picky, it's really just O'Brien who we can qualify as a 'good' human. O'Brien and Bashir are the only one of our main characters who we see in significant roles. The other characters might be willing to shoot first and then shoot anyone who asks questions, but we don't actually see them in major roles.

And, really, we only see snippets of these characters anyway, always against the aggressor Alliance forces. We don't know what they do when they aren't fighting the Alliance. Are they strip-mining Bajor? Mass producing other ship designs they stole from DS9's database to utterly wipe out the Klingon/Cardassian species? Torturing prisoners? (...Okay, so we KNOW Bashir is, but we've already seen he's PSYCHO anyway...)

It still goes against the overall tone of Mirror Mirror and In A Mirror Darkly, though. Humans were never sympathetic in TOS or ENT versions, only the non-humans were. Even more damningly, "our heroes" ended up being complete jerks, and rightfully so for the sake of story. There was nothing redeeming at all about Mirror Archer, Hoshi, Trip, or Chekov and Sulu, which is what made them shine as separate characters. The closest thing we see to heroism is Forrest's sacrifice, and even then it seemed highly suspect.

If humans, a driving force in the real universe, are fundamentally and unchangeably good, then what's the point of doing a Mirror Episode to begin with, as opposed to any other parallel universe episode that we've seen? With that in the mind, you know humans will win for the good of morality. What the DS9 episodes do, then, is take a twist and straighten it back all over again. The concept was only twisted back into form 10 years later, as ENT showed humanity winning, and therefore dooming the rest of the galaxy for decades.
 
I have thought about this as well because I love alternate universe type of stories. While I liked all the mirror unvierse stories except for the last one in season 7, I do think it would have been fun to see a more traditional ,I guess you could call it, followup to the mirror universe. I even had more own idea on how to do it. I would have basically did a two-parter that tells the story of the pilot ep over again only how it played out slighly different in the mirror universe.

Sisko is captain of a ship that gets destroyed in the battle with the Borg at Wolf 359. As punishment for loosing his ship in battle he is demoted. 3 years later he is part of the invading army that drives the carddisians away from bajor and the Empire maintains the Ocupation. Bashir is the captain in all his genetic engineering glory. Sisko is his first officer, Kira is a terrorist who has been captured by Odo and is being held in his brig. Quark still runs the bar and Jadzia is Bashirs "captain's women", were as O'Brien is a more angry and bitter version of the real O'Brien. Sisko discovers the wormhole and finds out he is the Emissary. He uses this as leverage to get the Bajorans,especially Kira to help him take command of the station.

Jason
 
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