In the mirror universe, would evil races/peoples be good?

[TiberiusMaximus]

No, DevilEyes, I didn't contradict myself. My point was that it's not the situation that makes someone evil, it's the choice to be evil.

Now you've contradicted yourself. What about all those people who do evil things, but haven't made a decision to consistently, repeatedly, knowingly, sapiently, reasoningly do evil things?

My ENTIRE POINT was that those people aren't evil. However, an evil situation does not excuse evil actions - or rather, it doesn't make the action any less evil, but the circumstances may vary as to whether the PERSON is evil or not.

My other point is that indolover probably didn't mean 'evil races' in the way you seem to have interpreted it.

 

[DevilEyes]

^ I didn't interpret it as "evil races"... you're wrong.

I interpreted it as an idea that the MU somehow just magically turns 'good' people into 'evil' and vice versa - as if these categories are so simple, rather than that there are specific differences in circumstances that determine what this or that person will become.

Many people don't fall that easily into 'evil' and 'good' categories anyway - can you really say that Garak was a good man, for instance? Yet his MU counterpart was certainly not good by any means. And I wouldn't call O'Brien, or Sisko, or T'Pol, or Forrest in the MU 'evil'. MU Spock ended up deciding to topple the Terran Empire - by the 'everything is opposite' logic, should that mean that regular Spock should have become a bad guy and tried to destroy the Federation?

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

What does that mean, "evil"? Categorizing people and, even worse, races as "good" and "evil" seems very childish.

It seemed to me that's what you meant. Whatever, I've been wrong before. Doesn't make me evil.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

It's basically the Stargate SG-1 Rules of "dark" universes: Good guys are bad, bad guys are WORSE.

Yes, but could evil Wolverine be assimilated by the eviler Borg? That's the question about which we all want to know the answer...

I don't care about Wolverine, the only thing that matters is whether Steven Seagal is evil? Imagine him taking over the battleship in under siege, nuking half the US, then using the satellite to destroy and conquer the world. In fact, I think he was the first emperor in the Mirror Universe.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

But then he was deposed by Mirror Chuck Norris. Then Mirror Chuck bowed to the greatness of Old Spice and gave his throne to Mirror Emperor Isaiah Mustafa.

 

[Arpy]

In the "purest" of all Mirror Universes, yes, all the bad guys would be good, as well as the vice versa. Why? Because at its core what the Mirror Universe is is an excuse to play dress-up. It doesn't matter that the Halkans weren't evil too (although they may have been in their own way for all we know) but that what made the episode so much fun is all the good guys being bad in a "mirror" universe.

The reasons for their being evil too are debatable, and debated, and probably all true in one universe or another. In one universe, everybody's eeeeevil whole heartedly choosing it, in another entirely because of circumstances, and in others for reasons in between.

In one universe, it's the DS9 continuity; in another, the Diane Duane Dark Mirror one with the Terran Empire in full force in the 24th century; etc.

So, I want to see what good Borg, Dominion, Romulans, Dukat, Viddians, etc would be like as well. How would they work - creatively how would you keep them interesting after the initial thrill of novelty wears off.

 

[Anwar]

Very nice speech. I applaud you. But let's look at the specifics now, shall we?

Basically doing exactly what I said and hiding behind the "the world is all gray 100% of the time, which perfectly justifies never doing anything against obvious injustice and aggression."? Yes, you do that.

"Enslaving species"? In what capacity? "Threatening to kill millions if not billions..." Again, in what capacity?

Capacity is irrelevant.

Say, there is is this state, empire, whatever that's been threatening, killing and enslaving for centuries. Let's say all leaders are evil. How about all their soldiers?

They're a part of it. They may not be doing it for the hell of it, but they are still legitimate enemies to be killed for attacking you. That's war. And that the people allowed leaders like that to come to power makes them a part of it as well, either the society itself has just gotten that corrupt (which again, is the fault of the people) or they're under a tyranny. If it's tyranny than the soldiers are guilty for supporting the tyrant (since tyranny relies on military power). Doing nothing to stop evil, or having played a hand in it's rise no matter how small, still makes you culpable.

USA practiced slavery for a long time. Was everyone who ever owned slaves evil? Was Thomas Jefferson evil? Was every Southern gentleman and belle evil?

Depends how they treated their slaves. And like I said, the people are often responsible for how rotten a society gets in the first place. Since that society owned up to its mistakes and fixed them (and plenty of Americans paid the price in bloody war for that), it made up for it.

Now let's see if you're a member of an enslaved race, you're trying to survive, you're hungry, you're scared, your family is starving, you have been abused and humiliated. You start doing things to appease your masters. You become a collaborator, you facilitate slavery and abuse - and maybe you start abusing and humiliating people yourself. You're evil, right? But are you also a victim?

You WERE a victim, now you're just as rotten as your oppressors who made it that bad for you in the first place and you are just as legitimate an enemy to your people (if not moreso) than the enslavers were. You can't keep playing the victim card in that case, and it was your own choice to end up that way.

Or maybe you're a member of an enslaved race, and you decide that you have had enough of slavery and abuse, and you start fighting for freedom. You start blowing people up, you kill a lot of soldiers, and you also kill a lot of hapless civilians. You're a terrorist and a mass murderer. You're evil?

If those civilians were there on that enslaved world, than they weren't helpless or innocent and they knew what they were getting into. They're all targets. And if the slave wins or escapes then no, they aren't evil. If they lose, they still aren't evil.

Or, how about... You're a child. A militia comes over and takes you. They teach you to kill people. You kill a lot of people, you rape, you torture them... You're evil?

Any conscripted soldier will still have control over themselves. They wills till have choice and CHOOSE to do those things. Unless they've been brainwashed, then they aren't responsible for their actions. The choice to do all that, and having control over yourself to do that, still makes you bad. And no, "It's all they know" is not acceptable either. Any soldier will have enough experiences to know beyond what they were raised with.

Or, you're a happy child of well-off parents who went to a good school, got a good job, married, had kids, had a normal life as a decent family man and neighbor. You never really gave a damn about anything except yourself and a few other people in your life. You hate immigrants, gays, people with different skin color, people of a different religion (but you don't speak about it in wrong company), and you're disgusted by all those hobos out there who dirty the streets because are too lazy to work, they should all be shot if it was up to you. But you've always been a decent citizen and never did anything wrong. You are a good person.

Choice, you can think that and keep it to yourself and it doesn't matter. Your mind is your own thing to do anything you want with. Go out and DO that stuff, or fully support those who do it and yes you're bad.

Your speech above sounds great, but kind of falls apart when applied to the real world.

Not really. And while I can appreciate gray morality when it DOES happen, it's been seriously perverted over time into an excuse by tons of people to simple sit back and do nothing about anything because people don't have strength of conviction.

 

[DevilEyes]

Very nice speech. I applaud you. But let's look at the specifics now, shall we?

Basically doing exactly what I said and hiding behind the "the world is all gray 100% of the time, which perfectly justifies never doing anything against obvious injustice and aggression."? Yes, you do that.

Oh really? It's amazing you well you know me and my life... or not. FYI I've spoken a lot more against obvious injustice and aggression than you'll probably ever come close to. I've spoken about very specific injustice and aggression and very specific crimes, to people who didn't like to here it, because they live in a country where the public doesn't want to hear it and most people want to hide their head in the sand and pretend nothing's happened. True, I'm not a public personality so it hasn't landed me in much trouble, but there are people who have been beaten up and had bombs planted at the window of their home for speaking and writing about crimes and injustice and violation of human rights. All very specific, very concrete things that have very specific terms for them, like genocide, mass murder, war crimes, rape, torture of prisoners, discrimination, violence - not metaphysical terms like "evil" and "good" that can be defined any way you like, and that make you sound like a TV evangelist.

What injustice and aggression have you spoken against? Maybe you've been incredibly courageous in real life, I don't know you so I have no idea... But here, the only thing you've been doing is safely ranting about "good" and "evil" in abstract terms. The only 'injustice' I've ever seen you battle is your perceived injustice towards VOY writers.

And no, the words is not "100% gray" (another straw man argument, nice!), but it's certainly not 100% black and white. If you think that it's impossible to punish crimes or fight injustice without your ridiculous black-and-white view of the world with everything and everyone categorized into the metaphysical categories of 'good' and 'evil', you've got some things mixed up.

So I guess people who don't think in black and white terms are the main problem of the world, according to you, eh? Funny, because most of mass murders, genocide and other large scale crimes are usually committed by people who share your view and believe that the world is 100% black and white. Their views on who/what is evil and who/what is good may vary from each other, but they're all convinced that they are good and people who disagree with them are evil, and that all they do is for the good. Take Osama Bin Laden, for instance - he sees the USA as evil, he is actually using words like 'the forces of evil' to describe it, he spoke up and he did something against it! Just the kind of person you should be praising!

 

[indolover]

What does that mean, "evil"? Categorizing people and, even worse, races as "good" and "evil" seems very childish.

People in the so-called "Mirror Universe" were never the "opposite" of their regular counterparts. What does that even mean? To be the opposite, would they have to be different in every possible way? But then they wouldn't even seem like different versions of the same people, would they? The fact that the first MU episode was called "Mirror, Mirror" does not mean that the universe they visited in that episode was literally an inverted world where things were the opposite (which is a completely absurd idea in itself). It never worked that way in any of the episodes we've seen, or else Spock, for instance, wouldn't be so frank or have his own idea of honor (however different from the regular Spock). Many of the counterparts to the regular 'good' characters weren't particularly 'evil', even if they did less savory things than their prime universe counterparts (Forrest, T'Pol, Trip, Soval, Spock, O'Brien, Jennifer, even Sisko.) Quark wasn't 'evil' in either universe. Mirror Garak was definitely not a nice guy, but, frankly, the regular Garak wasn't exactly the most morally upstanding person, either - he was just more complex and interesting. The only time when they took a really unlikable character and made them good in the "Mirror" universe was Brunt - and that was at the point when DS9 Mirror universe was becoming a complete travesty that nobody, least of all the writers, took seriously in any way.

The so-called "Mirror" universe is just a parallel universe (one of the many, according to "Parallels") where things went differently, which created different conditions for many of the characters: the Terran Empire, a more militaristic Bajor, etc. I can't see how or why would the Founders or the Borg be in any way different in the MU. As for people like Dukat, it depends on the circumstances.

In the mirror universe, the good characters were often portrayed as in some way the opposite compared to the real universe. The real Kira wouldn't condemn people to death, yet the mirror Kira did. It's not an absolute, but in most cases there was a marked difference.

As for races being evil, well we never knew how Changeling/Founder society worked fully. But from what we saw, Odo was unique amongst the Founders since he didn't value dominating solids, even if the Founders justified it in self-defence against oppression. We never saw much other examples of good Founders/Changelings. I think the Borg doesn't require explanation, does it?

 

[indolover]

Or maybe those people today were less likely to practice it in the first place, for, well, objective reasons, such as living in a very different society - so it doesn't really speak to their character and individual morality that much?

Society is irrelevant. Like I said, just because everyone was doing a thing, does not make that thing any less evil.

Those who commit evil acts are evil persons.

If a murderer goes to jail, comes out and reforms his life, is he perpetually bad?

 

[YARN]

It's basically the Stargate SG-1 Rules of "dark" universes: Good guys are bad, bad guys are WORSE.

Yes, but could evil Wolverine be assimilated by the eviler Borg? That's the question about which we all want to know the answer...

I don't care about Wolverine, the only thing that matters is whether Steven Seagal is evil? Imagine him taking over the battleship in under siege, nuking half the US, then using the satellite to destroy and conquer the world. In fact, I think he was the first emperor in the Mirror Universe.

More terrifying... ...if he was any more horrifying in terms of acting skill, his level of suckage could collapse our universe into a singularity. The only thing that would be left would be the ponytail.

 

[indolover]

Ah, the old 'I was just taking orders when I butchered those people' routine. That doesn't fly, and it never has. To be fair, that's not exactly what you're saying, DevilEyes, but it could very well be misconstrued.

Hopefully not, since I think my point was (IMO) very clear, and I listed many different examples, from terrorists/freedom fighters to child soldiers, so I don't know why people would get stuck on the mention of chain of command. (But incidentally, the international tribunal does seem to rank some war criminals as 'eviler' than others, for the same crimes: they seem to be especially after the people high up in the ranks, those who give orders. So maybe you should take the complaint to them...)

With respect, DevilEyes, I think you may have missed indolover's point. You are correct, the individuals in a race or country are not 'evil' because of the dominant government system. Not all Terrans in the Terran Empire are 'evil', Borg drones do evil things against their will, some Klingons are more honorable than others, and so on.

However, I don't think indolover was trying to quantify 'evil' and probably meant it in the context of antagonism. In TOS, the Klingons were 'the bad guys' and therefore 'evil.' In Voyager, 8472 were 'the bad guys' and therefore identified as 'evil.' So I don't think that's childish at all. Is it childish to call the Klingons the antagonists? Or to say the Borg are the bad guys? Are you saying you'd never describe the Dominion as 'the bad guys'?

It's not doing evil things that makes someone evil. It's the decision to consistently, repeatedly, knowingly, sapiently, reasoningly do evil things that makes someone evil.

Now you've contradicted yourself. What about all those people who do evil things, but haven't made a decision to consistently, repeatedly, knowingly, sapiently, reasoningly do evil things?

Thing is, most people don't just make a decision to do evil things. Evil Overlords in fiction might, but most people in real life don't just say "now I am going to be evil". The OP makes the Mirror Universe seem like a place where people are just being EVIL for evil's sake. It doesn't work that way. If a character whose counterpart is good in the prime universe is evil in the MU, it's because of a specific set of circumstances that drove them to become more ruthless, more violent, more selfish, etc. Or because of the society/culture that fostered and encouraged ruthlessness and violence. In those terms, we may also say that Terran Empire, or the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance, are evil - not that every individual is evil, but that they are a corrupted, violent, evil society/culture, and therefore likely to shape many more individuals in such a way.

I don't think we could just use that to encompass the entire universe. What about all those worlds enslaved by the Terran Empire, or the Alliance? What about all the worlds we didn't even get to see?It's a big galaxy... If Humans or Bajorans are a lot more ruthless and murderous, it doesn't mean that the entire universe is like that.

I disagree. Moral character is part of somebody's personality. Much of human behaviour is innate, as well as learnt.

Not everybody in Nazi Germany by nature was evil. How could they be? People are different.

 

[Anwar]

All very specific, very concrete things that have very specific terms for them, like genocide, mass murder, war crimes, rape, torture of prisoners, discrimination, violence - not metaphysical terms like "evil" and "good"

You're just arguing semantics, those things all easily fall into the "evil" spectrum or subfolders within the "evil" folder. Whether or not you want to ascribe a term to place all those under so things don't start getting bureaucratic about classifying bad things is irrelevant.

But here, the only thing you've been doing is safely ranting about "good" and "evil" in abstract terms.

In other words, I'm just not bothering to get into minor details and just go for the general big idea itself.

And no, the words is not "100% gray" (another straw man argument, nice!), but it's certainly not 100% black and white. If you think that it's impossible to punish crimes or fight injustice without your ridiculous black-and-white view of the world with everything and everyone categorized into the metaphysical categories of 'good' and 'evil', you've got some things mixed up.

Would you rather I just get bogged down by constantly thinking "every last action ever taken is gray so I must waste time doing nothing but analyzing ever last minor detail of a person's actions instead of focusing on the end major result"? Because that where "The world is gray" thinking leads to: inaction, or worse, apathy.

So I guess people who don't think in black and white terms are the main problem of the world, according to you, eh?

They sure aren't helping by doing nothing, that's for sure.

Take Osama Bin Laden, for instance - he sees the USA as evil, he is actually using words like 'the forces of evil' to describe it, he spoke up and he did something against it!

Yes, he proved he was the true evil from his actions and not from what he was saying. I suppose you want to argue every last detail of his plans to find the "gray" in them?

 

[DevilEyes]

You're just arguing semantics, those things all easily fall into the "evil" spectrum or subfolders within the "evil" folder. Whether or not you want to ascribe a term to place all those under so things don't start getting bureaucratic about classifying bad things is irrelevant.

Yeah, I'm making the same mistake as those damn legal systems, which classify those things in specific terms, instead of simply prosecuting people for 'doing evil', as should be. "People vs XY on the charges of being evil."

Would you rather I just get bogged down by constantly thinking "every last action ever taken is gray so I must waste time doing nothing but analyzing ever last minor detail of a person's actions instead of focusing on the end major result"? Because that where "The world is gray" thinking leads to: inaction, or worse, apathy.

No, it doesn't. It leads to a better understanding of the world, and therefore a better ability to deal with the crimes, injustice, violence etc. You have to understand evil and where it comes from if you are going to fight it.

I suppose you believe that criminal profiling is horribly detrimental to catching serial killers? I mean, actually trying to understand the killer's motives! That can only lead to getting lost in every minor detail and wasting time! The best way to catch a serial killer is to go out in the street shouting that he's evil and that's all you need to know about him.

If, say, a country has a problem with an alarming rise in popularity of extremist far-right/neo-Nazi groups and in violence directed at minorities, it is far more useful to analyze the causes - such as economic and social crisis, deep rooted and barely hidden prejudices permeating the society as a whole, etc. - than it would be to cry out that they're evil and completely different from us good regular folks. And it doesn't stop anyone from arresting them.

So I guess people who don't think in black and white terms are the main problem of the world, according to you, eh?

They sure aren't helping by doing nothing, that's for sure.

What is sure? Which people are you talking about? Where do you get the idea that people who don't see the world in black and white terms are doing 'nothing'? Can you think of one single argument to corroborate that?

Yes, he proved he was the true evil from his actions and not from what he was saying.

He thinks that he is good and that he is fighting evil and he's just as convinced he's right as you are. That's the problem with terms like 'good' and 'evil', people define them in any way they want to justify their goals.

 

[Anwar]

Yeah, I'm making the same mistake as those damn legal systems, which classify those things in specific terms, instead of simply prosecuting people for 'doing evil', as should be. "People vs XY on the charges of being evil."

I'd think that people would be smart enough to know a bad thing when they see it or read it. But it doesn't change that specifying crimes doesn't make them any less bad. Prosecuting someone for murder and rape somehow makes those crimes not bad things? Specifying certain evil acts into separate names under the same "umbrella" of morality (bad ones, if you need me to specify ) makes them not evil?

No, it doesn't. It leads to a better understanding of the world, and therefore a better ability to deal with the crimes, injustice, violence etc. You have to understand evil and where it comes from if you are going to fight it.

Studying evil doesn't make the evil less evil. You've misunderstood me.

If, say, a country has a problem with an alarming rise in popularity of extremist far-right/neo-Nazi groups and in violence directed at minorities, it is far more useful to analyze the causes - such as economic and social crisis, deep rooted and barely hidden prejudices permeating the society as a whole, etc. - than it would be to cry out that they're evil and completely different from us good regular folks. And it doesn't stop anyone from arresting them.

And it doesn't make the people less responsible for letting things get so bad in their society that it led to the uprising of blatantly bad groups like Neo-Nazis. It doesn't make those groups any less bad. Or should we invite them in for tea and kindly ask them to stop going around killing minorities and them let them off with a smile and think "Well, there's no real good or bad in the world so these guys should just be let go since they aren't any different from us despite trapping a family in their home and burning them alive."

He thinks that he is good and that he is fighting evil and he's just as convinced he's right as you are.

Which doesn't change his actions ultimately being evil for all involved including his own followers. When your actions do nothing to benefit others except maybe yourself and cause mostly harm, then you're bad. Or shall we sit around, contemplate our sense of morality, ignore the death and suffering resulting from his actions, and look for the "gray"?

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

Doing evil things because you believe they are good don't make the actions any less evil. Being convinced your right doesn't mean you are.

Now, that doesn't mean 'once evil, always evil'...people change. But there are some things and people that simply are evil. There's no way around it.

Not everyone who is different is evil, however. Nobody's perfect, so a wise person works on making themselves a better person and doesn't spend all their time calling other people 'evil.' True, people twist 'good' and 'evil' to mean whatever they want, but that doesn't make 'good' or 'evil' any less absolute. Some things are wrong, no matter what someone doing them says or believes.

 

[Smellincoffee]

ENT's Mirror Universe intro theme song/video seemed to indicate that Earth's history went differently not because people were fundamentally darker on some psychological level (the approach taken by Diane Duane in Dark Mirror), but because imperialism won out. I believe it is more likely that the mirror universe is an alternate timeline of sorts, where Hitler or Khan or other likeminded people prevailed and created an Earth hell-bent on conquest and empire. Their actions forced differing actions on the parts of the Klingons, Romulans, Bajorans, and others.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

^I agree. It's the circumstances, not the people that are mirrored.

 

[Nardpuncher]

I made a thread only a few days ago about this.

I was going on only what I knew from the TOS episode and thought that it was a universe where basically the crew was evil, the way Arpy put it.

 

[indolover]

Doing evil things because you believe they are good don't make the actions any less evil. Being convinced your right doesn't mean you are.

Now, that doesn't mean 'once evil, always evil'...people change. But there are some things and people that simply are evil. There's no way around it.

Not everyone who is different is evil, however. Nobody's perfect, so a wise person works on making themselves a better person and doesn't spend all their time calling other people 'evil.' True, people twist 'good' and 'evil' to mean whatever they want, but that doesn't make 'good' or 'evil' any less absolute. Some things are wrong, no matter what someone doing them says or believes.

All morals are relative. Moral character in human beings is only a spectrum. Mother Teresa is at one end, and Stalin is at the other. Most humans in history are in the middle, and it's kind of like a bell curve.