Origin of Mirror Universe?

[Nerys Myk]

The story doesn't seem to set up the Halkans as wishing to teach Kirk and Co. a lesson. They and Kirk part amicably. Kirk respects their decision not to allow the mining of dilithium. He even scores a point by mentioning the Federation won't use force to take the dilithium.

 

[Melakon]

The problem with "the Halkans did it" theory, is that we have scenes with Spock dealing with the mirror counterparts as well as Kirk dealing with being in the Mirror Universe.

I don't suggest that the MU doesn't exist, only that the Halkans are somehow responsible for the exchange of consciousness between the two universes. Nerys Myk makes a valid point though, which is the problem of Halkan motivation. There were 4 or 5 drafts of the story by different writers.

 

[E-DUB]

However unlikely this universe was, it was perhaps the only other universe where the proper conditions for the exchange existed. They went there because it was the only place they could go. The same (roughly) ship, the same transportees, etc. I have, at times, questioned if the Mirror Uni from DS9 was, in fact, the same one as seen in "Mirror, Mirror" or just another that had experienced a "crossover" in its' past.

 

[RandyS]

In an infinite multiverse, the chances are (simultaneously) infinitely good, and infinitely unlikely, that characters in the MU would be in any way similar to the ones in the RU.

As for the origin: Who's to say there is one? I think the MU always existed. There doesn't have to be a split.

Agreed. I think it always existed too.

 

[Mytran]

However unlikely this universe was, it was perhaps the only other universe where the proper conditions for the exchange existed. They went there because it was the only place they could go. The same (roughly) ship, the same transportees, etc. I have, at times, questioned if the Mirror Uni from DS9 was, in fact, the same one as seen in "Mirror, Mirror" or just another that had experienced a "crossover" in its' past.

This theory definitely has merit. After all, the first DS9 visit happened as a result of going through the wormhole (and its residents), not a simple Ion Storm accident.

 

[Old Trek Guy]

The MU always existed. Different paths were taken which led to this MU to be evil. It's far removed from the original universe.
Look at TNG episode parallels, where each parallel universe whas slightly different from another. The evil MU is an extreme version.

 

[Push The Button]

We are living in the mirror universe. Right now.

 

[Melakon]

That's the premise of "In a Mirror, Darkly".

 

[johnnybear]

Do we count the reality seen in Yesteryear as another universe? A place where the crew of The Enterprise didn't know of Spock? Or is that just a chronotic abberation caused by The Guardian?
JB

 

[Mytran]

The Guardian of Forever has shown itself to be sneaky before, in order to persuade folks to go along with its predestination paradoxes, or at least that's how I see it/

In COTEOF it isolated the landing party from the ship to convince them that imperative action was necessary to "save" history (in fact they just needed to fulfil their role in it and get Edith Keeler killed at the right time)

In YY, Spock is needed to be present at the time of his younger self's kahs-wan ceremony. To "encourage" Spock to step through the time portal, could the GOF have tapped into Kirk's and Spock's minds as a form of group hallucination?

Or, could it have created a temporary pocket universe (AKA chronotic aberration), copied almost identically from the real one? Given the amount of times that The Amazing Mister Spock saved the day, it is highly unlikely that Thelin would be able to do the same, so events would have run very differently - a copied pocket universe (a copy taken right then) would explain many of the remarkable similarities. It is notable that at the end of the episode, we only know for sure of Kirk and Spock retaining any memory of the adventure.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Actually, that's the only "real" theory that makes any sense. If the mirror universe diverged from the prime universe a long time ago, then there's no way that Kirk and Co. could have exact "evil" duplicates on an "evil" Enterprise, because things would have changed so drastically that nothing would have been the same in the two universes by that time.

No matter when the universe began, it would quickly become wildly divergent from ours. Just one death or shag would result in a totally different set of people centuries later. So the bottom line is, as soon as DS9 started playing with it, the whole thing became ludicrous

But it's a lot of fun, no?

It works a lot better if you buy into the idea that the universe wants certain things to happen in certain ways. Not a god guiding events, but Spock's "currents of time" from "City..." - thus making everything from the DS9 crew interacting in wildly different circumstances, to Seven taking Kes' place scanning a Krenim torpedo, to the Enterprise-D falling to a warp core breach in a battle with Klingon BoP's, to McCoy's acid spill, or Kirk or Spock dying in engineering while battling Khan make a kind of comic booky sense.

 

[DonIago]

Especially after watching "Lost" (and maybe "Futurama" to a lesser extent), I do like the notion that the universe will try to "course correct" even if there's no real scientific basis for that.

Anyway, as to whether the TOS crew switched bodies or just consciousnesses...DS9 is irrelevant to the question as they accessed the MU (or at least -an- MU) via a different means. It's no different from the theory that some forms of time travel may yield divergent timelines while others may not.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Do we count the reality seen in Yesteryear as another universe? A place where the crew of The Enterprise didn't know of Spock? Or is that just a chronotic abberation caused by The Guardian?
JB

The reality Spock returns to is a different one. The past as he knew it was altered.

 

[johnnybear]

But is it an alternate universe?
JB

 

[Nerys Myk]

But is it an alternate universe?
JB

As in different? Yes.

 

[Dukhat]

The story doesn't seem to set up the Halkans as wishing to teach Kirk and Co. a lesson.

The closest we got to that was when the Halkan leader states, "We accept that your Federation is benevolent at present, but the future is always in question." Almost as if he's setting up what's to come, especially since the storm seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

As for the crew of the Enterprise receiving the Mirror crew in exchange, for all we know the Halkans created them too. They could be on par with the Talosians as far as illusions go.

While I think that DS9's mirror universe verged on being incredibly silly, I wish they would have just made it it's own alternate universe not tied to the one from TOS, since it bears almost no resemblance to it at all.

 

[Melakon]

The story doesn't seem to set up the Halkans as wishing to teach Kirk and Co. a lesson.

The closest we got to that was when the Halkan leader states, "We accept that your Federation is benevolent at present, but the future is always in question." Almost as if he's setting up what's to come, especially since the storm seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

Another good point about the Halkans. They are the constant in both universes, still peaceniks willing to die for their beliefs. The Halkan leader knows he is addressing original Kirk, though he looks like Mirror Kirk has slapped him around. I still tend to think they're more technologically advanced than they seem though, rather than making them another race capable of telepathic illusion. The ability to control ion storms for their own purposes appeals to me, because if they can do that, they could easily destroy the ship but refuse to.

 

[EnsignHarper]

There is really only ONE real (in Trek terms) solution to this, and interestingly, the solution was postualted in TNG.

The TNG episode, "Parallels" provides the solution - the 'Mirror Universe' is simply nothing more that a fairly deep quantum reality. And whether the TNG people consciously did it or not, it provides the answers to several of the nagging problems with Mirror, Mirror.

1. Whenever Worf passed from QR to QR, he gets dizzy/almost passes out. I believe in MM, they mention being slightly dizzy as well.

2. With each transition, Worf is in a reality that is increasingly divergent from his core reality:

A birthday party that doesn't exist

Yellow/chocolate cake

The different paintings, etc

Eventually the changes are MAJOR, as Worf goes further down the split realities:

The different console, being married to Troi, Geordi dying, and DR Ogawa.

And the last transition is the biggest of all - A ship that looks quite a bit different; Riker as Captain, Wesley as Weapons Officer, A Cardassian navigator, and Worf is wearing a different uniform!

That makes Kirk and the landing party materializing in the MU uniforms totally logical now. They didn't beam into a different Universe, they 'simply' beamed into a different quantum reality of the Universe, with their uniforms conforming to that QR. If Spock had been in the party, he just might have found himself with a beard, or Sulu with a scar!

Too bad in Parallels they fell back on the Borg cliche, when after the fissure was busted wide open, and endless Enterprises were entering that Quantum reality, instead of the Borg devastated ship trying to stop Worf returning, an ISS Enterprise tried to do it, and then about a hundred other ships firing on THEM to stop them from doing so.

 

[DonIago]

It might have been a "cliche", but to the best of my knowledge many viewers consider the E from the "Worst of Borth Worlds" quantum reality to be one of the highlights in what's already a great episode.

 

[Mytran]

EnsignHarper - nice reasoning!

How does it apply to the instances of crossover in DS9?