Question About The Typhon Pact Books

[Cybersnark]

Personally, I like to think that the Mirror Universe has no set divergence point: it happens "today," with the choices we make in the present.

Really, it strikes me as something Roddenberry would suggest; that we get to (or have to) choose which future we want. The utopian future isn't going to just happen.

 

[MNM]

Personally, I like to think that the Mirror Universe has no set divergence point: it happens "today," with the choices we make in the present.

While not a big fan of the Mirror Universe, I like to think it's divergence point/creation was when Kirk and co crossed over. Ie, it doesnt actually have a point in time where it diverged from the normal universe, it simple sprang into existence at that moment creating a universe that was a "mirror image" of the universe Kirk inhabited at the time, and simply didnt exist before that.

 

[JD]

^Except it was pretty clear in the episode that the characters already had a history in that universe. And then there is also the Enterprise episodes too now.

 

[Sci]

Well duh, who do you think founded the Terran Empire?

Honestly, I'd always assumed it was an outgrowth of the pre-Weimar German Reich.

That's an interesting thought. I've thought of it maybe occurring in one of the late World War II conferences between Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, that the idea for global empire to prevent such things as Hitler and Hirohito from happening again. Or maybe a more aggressive United States set out from it's beginnings to start overtaking it's part of the world and expansions and alliances and wars set forth from there.

That's just as valid as my hypothesis. Mine was inspired by the ENT "In A Mirror, Darkly" credits, with this image of what looked like a World War I-era army with the Terran Empire emblem super-imposed over them. This inspired me to think of the Empire as having been an outgrowth of the German Empire -- the Central Powers winning World War I, the German Empire never turning into the Weimar Republic or Third Reich but instead growing to encompass all of Europe, then eventually the rest of the planet (perhaps being transformed into a less specifically German empire even as it retains its autocratic nature).

Though, now that I think of it, I believe Age of the Empress refers Woodrow Wilson as having been an early Emperor, so it may well be that the Terran Empire grew out of America rather than Germany as far as the novels are concerned.

I'm reminded of William Butler Yeats, myself.

Mirror Universe Rudyard Kipling?

Good God, I don't even want to imagine how much more propagandistic a Mirror Universe Rudyard Kipling would have been. Let alone how much more murderous and oppressive a Mirror Universe British Empire would have been.

It's the Mirror Universe. Who says there ever was a British Empire instead of the Welsh Supremacy?

Maybe the Emperor's seat of power before Hoshi overthrew him was in Cardiff!

 

[MNM]

^Except it was pretty clear in the episode that the characters already had a history in that universe.

That's alright, as just like the characters in the main universe have a history, the ones in the Mirror universe have a history too, just that their history, like everything, is a mirror version of Kirk's universe that all comes into existence at the point in time in which Kirk crosses over and inadvertently creates that universe to begin with.

And then there is also the Enterprise episodes too now.

Well using the Mirror Universe more than once (onscreen or in books) was a mistake in my opinion anyway. It works as a one off, not a recurring idea.

 

[Csalem]

I've been under the impression for a while now that the Terran Empire was a Roman Empire that never fell. They definitely seemed to have quite a few Roman influences in Mirror, Mirror and In A Mirror, Darkly, and there's even a cut scene of Archer referring to the gods.

Indeed, that is the impression I got too. It does seem to be an evolution of the Roman Empire. The machinations of people rising to power is very like 'I, Claudius'!

 

[Sci]

I've been under the impression for a while now that the Terran Empire was a Roman Empire that never fell. They definitely seemed to have quite a few Roman influences in Mirror, Mirror and In A Mirror, Darkly, and there's even a cut scene of Archer referring to the gods.

Indeed, that is the impression I got too. It does seem to be an evolution of the Roman Empire. The machinations of people rising to power is very like 'I, Claudius'!

I don't agree. I don't see anything specifically Roman about that; coups d'etat against the reigning monarch have been a staple of history across many different cultures. And there's no canonical indication of anything particularly Roman about the Terran Empire -- no concern with law or philosophy, no indication of a republican heritage, no indication of Roman polytheism or Christianity.

 

[Christopher]

And "Bread and Circuses" notwithstanding, there's no plausible way the Roman Empire could've survived that long anyway, at least not without undergoing some major changes. Empires are impermanent things by their very nature. The Western Roman Empire fell because it had overextended itself, grown too large -- basically the same reason the Terran Empire was doomed to fail. The Eastern Roman Empire, aka the Byzantine Empire, survived for another thousand years, but only technically; it was in decline for centuries before the Muslims finally conquered what was left of it. Then we had the so-called Holy Roman Empire, which, as has been famously said, was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire. If the Terran Empire claimed any descent from the Roman Empire, it would've likely been like the HRE, a mere pretense, an appeal to history to give itself an air of legitimacy.

 

[Thestral]

Good God, I don't even want to imagine how much more propagandistic a Mirror Universe Rudyard Kipling would have been. Let alone how much more murderous and oppressive a Mirror Universe British Empire would have been.

It's the Mirror Universe. Who says there ever was a British Empire instead of the Welsh Supremacy?

Maybe the Emperor's seat of power before Hoshi overthrew him was in Cardiff!

Don't you mean Caerdydd?

 

[Sci]

It's the Mirror Universe. Who says there ever was a British Empire instead of the Welsh Supremacy?

Maybe the Emperor's seat of power before Hoshi overthrew him was in Cardiff!

Don't you mean Caerdydd?

I can't even begin to pronounce that one...

 

[kkozoriz1]

"Have you ever been to Wales, Baldrick?"
"No, but I've often thought I'd like to."
"Well don't, it's a ghastly place. Huge gangs of tough sinewy men roam the valleys terrifying people with their close harmony singing. You need half a pint of phlegm in your throat just to pronounce the placenames. Never ask for directions in Wales Baldrick, you'll be washing spit out of your hair for a fortnight."

 

[Christopher]

Don't you mean Caerdydd?

I can't even begin to pronounce that one...

It's more or less "Car-deethe" (rhymes with "seethe"), with a rolled R.

http://www.forvo.com/word/caerdydd/

 

[Daddy Todd]

Maybe the Emperor's seat of power before Hoshi overthrew him was in Cardiff!

Don't you mean Caerdydd?

I can't even begin to pronounce that one...

I don't speak Welsh, but I believe it's pronounced very much like "Cardiff."

Hah! I picked up something from the background scenery in Torchwood...

ETA: Christopher beat me to the response, and since I don't dare contradict him, I withdraw my statement. I did pick it up in the background of Torchwood. I assumed it was just the Welsh spelling, and that the pronunciation would be much the same.

After all, why would all those Welsh-speakers in the show pronounce the name of their city like a foreigner? ;-)

 

[Christopher]

After all, why would all those Welsh-speakers in the show pronounce the name of their city like a foreigner? ;-)

Because they were speaking English at the time.

 

[kkozoriz1]

They were speaking Welsh but the Universal Translator converted it to English. (dragging the topic back to Trek )

 

[Csalem]

One could argue the Roman Empire still exists today in some form - the Catholic Church. It did adopt many trappings of the Empire when it started to become dominant in the third and fourth centuries. Out of the ashes, and all that.

 

[Christopher]

It's more that the Catholic Church overlapped with the Western Roman Empire, intermixed with it to an extent, outlived it, and took its place as the socially and politically dominant force in Western Europe.

Also, is the Catholic Church today really the same institution it was 2000 years ago? Oftentimes, something that claims to have the same continuous identity over millennia is really various distinct groups that take over from one another and claim their predecessors' identity to give themselves an air of legitimacy. I don't know enough about church history to know for sure if that's the case, but I do recall several times when the lineage of popes became a matter of conflict between separate claimants, or when secular rulers installed puppet popes to serve their own agendas. And then there's the question of how much the institution of the Catholic Church has itself evolved over the millennia. A lot of its modern beliefs and practices that are assumed to be intrinsic to its identity would've no doubt seemed very alien and shocking to the founders of the institution, as is the way with any long-lived institution.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I hope the beginnings of the Terran Empire can be told in a book one day

Although contradicted by "In A Mirror, Darkly", I liked the DC comics version, depicting a divergeance point where Earth lost the Romulan War, spent 20+ years under Romulan occupation and the Empire was formed after the uprising to ensure Earth was never conquered again.

IaMD pushes the divergeance point at least as far back as Shakespeare, and has the Empire land on the moon, presumably in the 60's (although in a 22nd century spacesuit?) so there's no telling when the Empire began.

Three words: Mirror. Universe. Bible.

 

[Christopher]

IaMD pushes the divergeance point at least as far back as Shakespeare...

Not necessarily. One thing that tyrannies do as a matter of course is to rewrite their history. Whatever Terran Empire subjects are raised to believe about the Empire's history may not be the true story. Literary works as well as history texts could be altered to serve the Empire's propaganda needs. If you can convince your subjects that things have always been the way they are, that the Empire is eternal, then they're less likely to believe it's possible to bring the Empire down. And if you redact ideas such as peace, freedom, and dissent from your literature, it reduces the chance that the public will be inspired to rebel.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^Good point.