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

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I did find it fascinating that some people, such as Forrest, could still be honorable and self sacrificing even in the MU. Notice how both versions of Forrest die in pretty much the same way - they gave their lives to help others. (Soval, in the RU version's case; the entire NX-01 crew, in the MU)

I honestly don't know if people like Maximilian Forrest could be considered evil. He did say something about "there's nothing like a good old fashioned flogging", but that may have been just his sense of humor. True, he didn't get along with Archer, but then again, MU Archer was a piece of crap anyway. Be surprised if *anyone* got along with that guy.

But make no mistake, there were some MU crewmembers who *were* genuine, unabashed, wholly evil. Reed, Phlox, Hoshi in ENT; Kirk, Sulu and Chekov in TOS. There's no excusing them.

 

[Michael]

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

I think some people are taking this shit way too seriously.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

^No kiddin', eh?

 

[iguana_tonante]

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.

...

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.

I don't think that's what DevilEyes is saying.

 

[DevilEyes]

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?

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

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."

Or shall we sit around, contemplate our sense of morality, ignore the death and suffering resulting from his actions, and look for the "gray"?

I've never said any of these things, so it seems you're arguing with straw men again.

I did find it fascinating that some people, such as Forrest, could still be honorable and self sacrificing even in the MU. Notice how both versions of Forrest die in pretty much the same way - they gave their lives to help others. (Soval, in the RU version's case; the entire NX-01 crew, in the MU)

I honestly don't know if people like Maximilian Forrest could be considered evil. He did say something about "there's nothing like a good old fashioned flogging", but that may have been just his sense of humor. True, he didn't get along with Archer, but then again, MU Archer was a piece of crap anyway. Be surprised if *anyone* got along with that guy.

But make no mistake, there were some MU crewmembers who *were* genuine, unabashed, wholly evil. Reed, Phlox, Hoshi in ENT; Kirk, Sulu and Chekov in TOS. There's no excusing them.

That's what kept the episodes interesting, even in that world there were all sorts of people. It would be boring if everyone in the MU was evil - we wouldn't be able to sympathize with anyone and probably wouldn't care what happens to any of them. (Well, OK, in TOS and DS9 we had our heroes from the prime universe, but if they just went through the MU where everyone was evil and then came back and nothing changed, the story would be quite pointless.)

"Mirror, Mirror" presented a darker version of the people we know, and a 'what if' scenario that showed that the human race could also take a completely different and much darker path than the one we normally see in Star Trek with the Federation, but ended on the notion there were people even in that world who could change their views and try to bring the change to the society as a whole.

And yes, it was also fun to dress up and show bare midriffs, but that was not all that the episode was about. Just like many other Trek episodes were opportunities to show Kirk fighting or taking his shirt off or kissing some scantily dressed guest star, but they also had social commentary and ethical issues and more.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

No offense, Anwar and DevilEyes, but you'd accomplish more if you discussed the subject without attacking the other's viewpoint or telling them they misunderstood you. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Do either of you actually think the other one condones 'evil'? You may have a differing definition of evil but I think we can all agree that evil = bad.

The point of a Mirror Universe episode is to show how the story would change if our beloved characters were the bad guys, or at least fundamentally different. Not to brand one culture as 'evil' and another as 'good.' It's all about telling a story.

 

[DevilEyes]

No offense, Anwar and DevilEyes, but you'd accomplish more if you discussed the subject without attacking the other's viewpoint or telling them they misunderstood you. Say what you mean. Mean what you say.

No offense, but I don't quite understand how I am supposed to accomplish that, when I'm already saying what I mean and meaning what I say, and he keeps implying that I said something that I did not.

Do either of you actually think the other one condones 'evil'? You may have a differing definition of evil but I think we can all agree that evil = bad.

No, I don't think Anwar condones evil and I've never accused him of that, so I'm not sure why I'm being asked that question. The problem is his misguided notion that anyone who doesn't see the world in simple black and white, good vs evil terms, is somehow justifying evil deeds or is unable to take action to stop them.

 

[TiberiusMaximus]

You're also implying he said something that he didn't. He never said 'seeing things in shades of grey ALWAYS means you're justifying evil actions, PERIOD.' He said, truthfully, that seeing shades of grey can BECOME a way of justifying evil. There are some things that are downright evil, and not everything can be explained away or justified with 'shades of grey.'

And you never said that everything can be justified, you said that the circumstances must be taken into account before simply branding someone as 'evil.'

Those points are not mutually exclusive. They coexist quite well, actually.

 

[sevenstars]

Yes.

If you are good, you're evil.

If you're evil, you're good.

If you are boring and sappy, you remain boring and sappy: no change.

 

[Arpy]

Could we for a moment define evil? Just to make this discussion even more difficult.

I see evil as cruelty, negligence, lack of compassion. Doing harm to yourself and/or others knowingly or irresponsibly.

Nature may give you cancer, an opposing soldier may kill your soldier wife, your lawyer may get you 1 year in prison by being stupid, but it's the man who spat on you for being of another race that's evil. It's the woman who got you beat up so she could make up with her boyfriend. It's the teacher drinking during recess rather than stopping a playground fight. Evil is the politician who knows that voting for a program will help inner-city school children, but won't act because his base will see him as acting contrary to party-prescribed methods for dealing with issues. Evil is that asshole soldier under Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan who killed a surrendering German soldier and made fun of him for it.

"Evil" is a loaded word. It's too arch. Generally, I reserve it for super-villains...and individuals too far gone to be salvaged through therapy - Hitler. But even with him I pity the tragedy of the man.

Were I in a room with him, I wouldn't hesitate...too long, to put a bullet in his head, but I'd still pity him and us all the world we live in.

And I'd be all the more vehement that what we need is cooperation and compassion or we'll never get off this rock before the asteroid hits.

P.S. Apologies if that's loopy. I'm on pain meds. Will reread tomorrow.

 

[Nardpuncher]

This came up before in the thread a few months ago called something like "Was Picard Wrong in I, Borg? and am wondering what people would think about the Borg in relation to evil in that they were written as one mind, connected. So if you kill one that's coming at you...what's wrong with killing them all?

 

[YARN]

I think it is odd that no one is really considering the metaphysics of all this speculation.

Assuming that the universe is a multiverse, do you really think that nature would discriminate or select between different universes on the basis of "evil"?

The most plausible explanation is not that the Mirror Universe is ontologically evil (like an "anti-matter" universe), but rather that it had a different set of historical events in a different time line.

If, for example, Hitler had abided by his non-aggression pact with Russia, he could have easily held Europe and very well may have had the time to complete Germany's own atomic bomb project. Now supposing that Germany had won WWII, would we magically be living in an "evil world" or a world where evil had momentarily/historically prevailed? The answer, of course, would be the latter.

Consequently, all this talk about what evil races would be doing or "like" in relation to some imagined metaphysical "polarity switch" is rather silly.

The most plausible answer is that they would contingently/accidentally be "who they are" as a result of the historical contingencies of their own universe. They wouldn't be "born" good or evil. They would not be good or evil by necessity. They would be who they as a consequence of the intersection of their biological make-up with the historical environment/moment into which they were born.

We might find the Klingons to be more or less aggressive in another universe, but only contingently, not as a matter of the universe conferring upon them the property like "badness".

In short, other races would not, by necessity have to be any more or less evil than they are in the universe in which we met them.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

This came up before in the thread a few months ago called something like "Was Picard Wrong in I, Borg? and am wondering what people would think about the Borg in relation to evil in that they were written as one mind, connected. So if you kill one that's coming at you...what's wrong with killing them all?

Because of course Hugh was no longer a Borg - he wasn't connected to the collective. He was an individual with a mind, and rights, of his own.

If Hugh had been a fully integrated drone that showed up and started assimilating, just like those drones in "Q Who", then of course it would be entirely logical and right to do whatever is necessary to kill it *and* the entire collective. That would not be evil, it would be self-defense.

 

[DevilEyes]

^ The ex-Borg are an interesting example. When Hugh or Seven or Icheb were a part of the collective, were they evil? And when they got separated from the collective, did they stop being evil immediately? The Borg drones were all once something else before they got assimilated. Are they victims? Are they evil while they are drones? Are they both? Was Picard evil while he was Locutus?

 

[Anwar]

They're all victims once they are assimilated.

 

[DevilEyes]

They're all victims once they are assimilated.

But when they are assimilated, they become a part of the Borg, and participate in the assimilation or destruction of others.

Is the Borg evil? And if it is, is only the collective evil? But the collective consists of drones. Is there such thing as individual guilt of the Borg drones, and if there is, and if the Borg is evil, are the individual drones evil?

 

[Anwar]

The Collective is the result of whatever original species united together into the Borg Collective mind in the first place. Either they decided in a unified mind to assimilate all other life forms they encountered, which makes them evil, or somehow the technology/programming used to unify them together mentally also overwhelmed them and forced the continued assimilation of others onto the newborn Collective.

So all others assimilated by the original Collective are nothing more than victims since they aren't so much being blended together into one mind that draws on the elements of all those assimilated so much as their bodies are taken over by an external mind forcing actions on them.

The name "Collective" really is a misnomer here, since the Borg aren't so much a Collective as they are folks who are at the mercy of some kind of super-virus that exists technologically and mentally. Not a Hive Mind where every "mind" adds to the whole but a horde of slaves infected and driven by some formless master virus that was created intentionally or unintentionally by the original Borg species.

So no, the drones aren't evil.

 

[Anwar]

The Collective is the result of whatever original species united together into the Borg Collective mind in the first place. Either they decided in a unified mind to assimilate all other life forms they encountered, which makes them evil, or somehow the technology/programming used to unify them together mentally also overwhelmed them and forced the continued assimilation of others onto the newborn Collective.

So all others assimilated by the original Collective are nothing more than victims since they aren't so much being blended together into one mind that draws on the elements of all those assimilated so much as their bodies are taken over by an external mind forcing actions on them.

The name "Collective" really is a misnomer here, since the Borg aren't so much a Collective as they are folks who are at the mercy of some kind of super-virus that exists technologically and mentally. Not a Hive Mind where every "mind" adds to the whole but a horde of slaves infected and driven by some formless master virus that was created intentionally or unintentionally by the original Borg species.

So no, the drones aren't evil.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Could we for a moment define evil? Just to make this discussion even more difficult.

I'm not going to get that grandiose, but it seems that "evil" in the context of the MU has been established: it's the idea of "there but for the grace of God walk I."

Sisko in our universe was a successful Starfleet officer. Sisko in the MU is a rogue space pirate. He has the same admirable qualities - determination, courage, self-confidence, leadership ability, overacting - but those qualities are expressed differently due to the different environment.

The nature of all the characters should be the same. In the MU, the nuture is the difference. That's a lot more interesting than just saying that the characters look the same as the characters we know, but they're actually entirely different people, inherently evil. I don't care about some guy who looks like Sisko but is an entirely different (and one-dimensionally evil) character. I care about a guy who is Sisko, but thrown into a different context, where his familiar qualities will interact with the environment to create evil behavior.

The most plausible explanation is not that the Mirror Universe is ontologically evil (like an "anti-matter" universe), but rather that it had a different set of historical events in a different time line.

Exactly! You could have a situation where all the Earthlings have been warped by the Terran Empire's rise and fall, while Cardassians are wonderful, advanced, peace-loving people through some kind of alterations in their history. Vulcans are the crazy bad Vulcanoids and the Romulans are the good logical ones.

In that case, flipping all the cultures from good to evil and vice versa may be an implausible coincidence, but it's a coincidence that holds sway in this particular universe, for artistic rather than logical reasons. It exists to carry out the theme, because the writers want it that way, not because the cosmos demands it.

As for the Borg, no they're not evil. And what they might be like in the MU is an interesting question. Are they a bunch of nice, kindly robots doing good in the cosmos? I don't think the Borg should exist in the MU at all, since they don't add anything to the theme of "there but for the grace of God walk I," which is meaningless in the absence of individual choice.

...although I just realized that the MU theme argues that individual choice is an illusion and we're all at the total mercy of our environment. We're all the Borg.

 

[Anwar]

"In this world, is the destiny of mankind controlled by some transcendental entity or law? Is it like the hand of God hovering above? At least it is true that man has no control; even over his own will."