Mirror universe humans - sociopaths and psychopaths

[Lyon_Wonder]

A small percentage of the human population are sociopaths and psychopaths. I’ve heard that 1 out of every 25 people is a sociopath.

The Trek mirror universe humans, which are typically referred to as Terrans, are crueler than their normal-universe counterparts. In fact it’s confirmed in ENT’s “In a Mirror Darkly” that Mirror universe humans are historically more cruel and violent. The TNG novel “Dark Mirror” gives a historical comparison between normal and mirror universe humanity too.

I’m not psychologist, but I think the condition of sociopathy and psychopathy is much more prevalent with mirror universe Terrans than it is than normal humans. If one out of 25 humans in the normal universe is a sociopath, my guess is that maybe one out of 10 Terrans in the Mirror Universe is a sociopath. Even though the behavior of mirror universe Terrans might have a lot to do to their cultural environment and societal upbringing, I suspect the minds of Mirror Universe Terrans are somewhat different and are like that of sociopaths and psychopaths and don't feel empathy like normal humans, which I guess even includes mirror universe Terrans who have human counterparts in the normal universe.

 

[F. King Daniel]

If I recall correctly, doesn't Diane Duane explain the difference in Dark Mirror as being somehow an effect of a subtle difference in the universe's make up?

But truth told I think that's a cop-out excuse. Humans are capable of incredible and shocking cruelty and be perfectly sane. Raise them with different standards of what's acceptable and what isn't and see what happens - just look at Germany, falling under the spell of Adolf Hitler and the atrocities that were committed.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I do believe the MU humans became unwilling victims of their environment that somehow propelled them into Imperial brutality that we saw in the shows.

This was most aptly explained in the old DC comics, that postulated that the Imperial Federation was born out of a catastrophic loss of the Earth/Romulan war (as opposed to the win in the normal Federation universe). Earth humans and, to some extent Vulcans, were subjugated under Romulan rule for years until an underground insurgency rose up, stole a bunch of warships and destroyed the Romulan homeworld (or something to that effect). The prevailing opinion from that point forward was "NEVER AGAIN!", adopting a military doctrine of preemptive supremacy, effectively making them as bad as the Romulans once were. The rest, as they say, is future history.

 

[Mysterion]

If I recall correctly, doesn't Diane Duane explain the difference in Dark Mirror as being somehow an effect of a subtle difference in the universe's make up?

But truth told I think that's a cop-out excuse. Humans are capable of incredible and shocking cruelty and be perfectly sane. Raise them with different standards of what's acceptable and what isn't and see what happens - just look at Germany, falling under the spell of Adolf Hitler and the atrocities that were committed.

^^^
This. The human race in the Mirror Universe has just constructed a society (the Empire) that embraces that aspect of human existence, where as the human race in the Prime Universe has constructed a society (the Federation) that emphasizes the opposite end of the spectrum of human behavior.

 

[Timo]

I'm not at all convinced that a choice made by modern human(oid)s at a historical crossroads could be the reason for the differences. Even if Earth made a choice that promoted evilness in the population (simply by social pressure, or by natural selection for crazy people and general assholes), this wouldn't explain why everybody else from Bajorans to Trills is evil and lesbian as well. Plus, no differentiating choice had apparently been made by 2063 yet, but nevertheless the Mirror Cochrane was evil already. (And no doubt lesbian, too. Somehow.)

It rather seems that the Mirror Universe is an umbrella term for alternate timelines where something went differently way back when the concept of modern humanoids was first created - four billion years ago, when Salome Jens' folks seeded the galaxy with us. In the Mirror Universes, the seeding produced ruthless lesbian bastards, and evil constructs such as the Alliance automatically followed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Melakon]

I prefer to think that the mirror universe Starfleet simply puts all its sociopaths and psychopaths on ships named Enterprise.

 

[iguana_tonante]

The human race in the Mirror Universe has just constructed a society (the Empire) that embraces that aspect of human existence, where as the human race in the Prime Universe has constructed a society (the Federation) that emphasizes the opposite end of the spectrum of human behavior.

My pet theory for the Mirror Universe is that, by design or random chance, it's the place where no good deed ever goes unpunished. Ever.

 

[USS Jack Riley]

The Mirror Universe is simply a parallel universe, but the Humans take on the worst aspects of humanity. These aspects are not unheard of. See the Nazis, Imperial Japan, Rome, etc. it is just that we are used to seeing our heroes as just that, heroes, not the animals they are when their worse aspects take center stage and are glorified rather than punished (as they are in the Prime Universe).

YMMV

 

[Nob Akimoto]

I wonder to what extent the outcome of say the Eugenics Wars or the 20th century conflicts might also have colored the Mirror Universe. I'm not sure I buy into the whole "there's something different in their nature" excuse, which does indeed sound like an excuse. Perhaps Khan was more successful in his conflict, the wars of fascism were more pronounced, or maybe it's even Edith Keeler's universe?

 

[Deckerd]

I think the Fringe approach is far more realistic, where people are just people and no better or worse than any other universe. If the human race had a different social structure then the idea of confluence would be untenable.

 

[Timo]

But the one explicit thing about the Mirror realms is that people are not people. They may look like people, but they behave like monsters or perverts, every single one of them. Well, except perhaps Smiley.

The point of "Parallels" was that everything that can happen, happens. "Confluence" in the Mirror episodes is just a single point, something one can easily achieve with an infinite selection of parallel universes; go back or forth a few decades, and the Mirror universe bears no resemblance to the "main" one again... (But a slightly different Mirror universe will provide another intersection point for another episode.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anduril]

I'm not at all convinced that a choice made by modern human(oid)s at a historical crossroads could be the reason for the differences. Even if Earth made a choice that promoted evilness in the population (simply by social pressure, or by natural selection for crazy people and general assholes), this wouldn't explain why everybody else from Bajorans to Trills is evil and lesbian as well. Plus, no differentiating choice had apparently been made by 2063 yet, but nevertheless the Mirror Cochrane was evil already. (And no doubt lesbian, too. Somehow.)

It rather seems that the Mirror Universe is an umbrella term for alternate timelines where something went differently way back when the concept of modern humanoids was first created - four billion years ago, when Salome Jens' folks seeded the galaxy with us. In the Mirror Universes, the seeding produced ruthless lesbian bastards, and evil constructs such as the Alliance automatically followed.

Timo Saloniemi

Now I'm thinking about lesbians.

 

[Timo]

What a coinci... I mean, confluence.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deckerd]

But the one explicit thing about the Mirror realms is that people are not people. They may look like people, but they behave like monsters or perverts, every single one of them. Well, except perhaps Smiley.

The point of "Parallels" was that everything that can happen, happens. "Confluence" in the Mirror episodes is just a single point, something one can easily achieve with an infinite selection of parallel universes; go back or forth a few decades, and the Mirror universe bears no resemblance to the "main" one again... (But a slightly different Mirror universe will provide another intersection point for another episode.)

I don't think there is a point other than the writers getting bored and saying 'hey let's make everyone play a different character'. If you follow your idea that there are an infinite number of universes with only one or two points of confluence, then how convenient it is that out of the infinity the writers pick one where that rare moment is occurring!

 

[The Librarian]

Oh, please. They're not sociopaths at all, because by the standards of their society this is perfectly normal behavior and not "anti-social." Saying that they're just animals that look human takes it to even more absurd extremes. There's very little that we see them do that would shock a Roman, medieval European, or really pretty much anyone else in human history up to the early 1800s. Empress Hoshi gaining massive military superiority and declaring herself to be in charge would fit right in with a huge number of historical leaders.

 

[Timo]

But the only reason their history differs from ours, in matters large or small, is because they follow a different moral compass. The practical aspect of Mirror existence is that you have to expect the worst of each individual. By our standards, and by those of our "regular" heroes, they're spoiled goods all.

how convenient it is that out of the infinity the writers pick one where that rare moment is occurring!

Convenient, yes. Unlikely - not really. Because it's the very intersection point that makes the contact happen. There would be no contact between a universe that is lacking a Benjamin Sisko and wants to kidnap one, and a universe that has no Benjamin Sisko to offer; the intersections necessarily only happen when they can.

Apparently, the very concept of Mirror interaction hinges on it being dramatic (not surprisingly!), and for some reason no humdrum interaction can ever happen. But this can easily be phrased in typically vague Trek/scifi terms of specific people from different universes attracting each other. Or holes left by people doing the attracting, much as in semiconductor physics.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deckerd]

Yeah I know it's just a convention they set up to tell a different story and I know it can explained away in the same way everything unscientific can be explained away in the ST universe. But it burns us. It burns.

 

[E-DUB]

It is unlikely in the extreme that the MU Enterprise would contain mostly the same crew and all the command crew of its prime universe counterpart. Having said that, however, it was the only universe with which the initial crossover could have occurred. Or I'm just plain wrong and many cross-overs took place and the events of "Mirror, Mirror" took place across a multitude of alternate timelines. I have heard, but am unable to substantiate, that the original plan was to imply that Kirk and company had not returned to their original universe at the end but that idea was dropped in favor of the Marlena ending. (As an aside, I'd love to see a follow-up involving prime universe Marlena and Kirk's "observation" that they could become "friends", knowing what Kirk's definition of such a friendship would doubtless entail.)

The idea that there is a multitude of MU-type alternates is sort of already out there, what with the comic stories, Dark Mirror, and the other various lit efforts.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It is unlikely in the extreme that the MU Enterprise would contain mostly the same crew and all the command crew of its prime universe counterpart.

I think it's fair to say there's a string of fate throughout the Trek multiverse - Seven of Nine taking Kes' place in the Jefferies tube during a Krenim attack (Before and After/Year of Hell), the Enterprise-D being destroyed by a Klingon Bird of Prey damaging it's warp core coolant and ejection systems (Yesterday's Enterprise/Generations), Kirk or Spock sacrificing themselves to save the ship when fighting Khan (Wrath of Khan/Into Darkness) etc etc - all sorts of similar things had to have happened in the Mirror Universe too to ensure all the key characters were around and parallel to their prime counterparts in ENT, TOS and DS9, despite radically different circumstances.

 

[austen_pierce]

Have to go here... If the MU mirrors heroes into villains, does it turn villains into heroes? Does Khan become a benevolent statesman, courageously progressing culture and technology while the rest of the human race tries to tear itself and by extension him apart?