From "Terra Firma, Part 1" it seems like the Terran Empire is actually the Roman Empire still being around. So is the main religion the same one as in ancient rome or something else? There were clues hinting at polytheism before, but Georgiou compared Burnham to Michael the Archangel. And burying servants with their masters wasn't a feat of roman religion but something that happened in most cases during the bronze age, with the exception of asia, africa and mesoamerica. Another interesting issue is the believe in taking the people they killed with them as servants in the afterlive in combination with some kind of reincarnation. So what's the deal with religion in the mirror universe?
For what reasons are we identifying the Terran Empire with Rome? Is it because it appears in the Emperor's titles? Byzantium was the continuation of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne's realm was the continuation of the Roman Empire, continuing to the 19th century. Russian's call Moscow the Third Rome. Mussolini deliberately contextualize what he did as remaking the Roman Empire. Hitler said that he was carrying on as the Holy Roman Emperor. In and of itself, there isn't much that can be said about the usage in Gerogiou's titles. The name has been tossed around so often that being the "emperor of Rome" has no meaning in the modern context beyond having lots of ambition and asserting dominance.
They're probably Christian. But just like every version of the Roman Empire in our world, they're as Christian as they want to be. They conquered the known world (and then some), so whatever branch of Christianity they professed, whether Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, is the only accepted branch for the Empire. I wonder if there's a Pope or Patriarch, or if the Emperor (like in early Rome) is Head of the Church as well as the State.
I have my doubts about this. Maybe christianity exists in the MU, as hinted at by Georgiou comparing Michael to an Archangel, but i guess it's not really big and there is another religion shared by most Terrans. Because there is talk about multible gods and the other things that are contrary to christian believes.
Like most empires the Terran Empire connects traditions from past empires to offer legitimacy to their own reign.
It might be a mishmash of many religions that the Empire absorbed. Rome it’s self borrowed from conquered people. Christianity was borrowed and Romanized. Mithras, an Iranian god, had a large following.
I do not even want to contemplate the figure of Christ in the mirror universe. Do unto others before they can do unto you.
True. Having had more time to think about it, if the Terran Empire is a continuation of the (Western) Roman Empire, adding an extra 2000 years to its lifespans (longer than it was in existence in the first place), they probably dropped Christianity or adopted something else a few times. The Archangel Michael is just a mythological figure to Georgiou like the Roman Gods before him. With complete control of the globe and beyond, I suspect the Terran state religion is something completely unrecognizable that squashes all the upstart cults and movements within its territory.
These are really good points. Do you think the main pantheon of the Terran empire still consists of Mars, Jupiter and the other roman gods and/or other mythological figures from our religions or are they something else?
The scenario that I think we are imagining is that Christianity fails, and its mythology is incorporated into Roman religious practice. Romans were aggressively syncretic, incorporating the deities of those whom they encountered/conquered without too much concern. In some instances, the conquered deities were equated with Roman deities, but any differences were generally passed over: pay at the temple, go on your way. However, the late Roman Empire was intellectually swayed by Neo-Platonism, which among other things, proposed that there should be a legitimately most power god. This current trended toward more worship of Jupiter to the extent that Jupiter could be considered a generic name for the greatest or only deity, like "God" or "HaShem" or "Allah." Some have suggested that this was difficult to distinguish from monotheism. I would speculate that had Roman paganism continued in the mainstream, the other gods would be subsumed under the larger umbrella of Jupiter worship. They would be like the Son and Holy Ghost or the saints of Christianity. Likewise, the story of Jesus and the mythology it entails would just be pages in an epic collection of stories.
But wouldn't a real polytheism make more sense for the MU, considering that the Federation in the Prime Universe is mostly secular with a long history of monotheism on Earth?
However,it would still be polytheistic, just extremely centered on one figure. There might be small abbeys or monasteries for the other gods, but the main places of worship would all be dedicated primarily to Jupiter, assuming that trends continued in the same direction. If we are strickly looking at how Star Trek would deal with Roman religion, I think that Bread and Circuses says more than enough. The worship of all the main gods would continue as usual with little development beyond the incorporation of media technology. Instead of Facebook, we would have Janusbook. Christ would probably appear in a guise that would be entirely gnostic, having much more emphasis on his divinity, less on the story as a human being.
There is a deleted ENT clip - from "In a Mirror, Darkly" - in which muArcher invokes the blessings of "the gods", but my overall impression is that the Terran Empire's stance on religion is the same as that of the Imperium from W40K - meaning, only worship of the Emperor is permitted (indeed, it's mandatory) and no other gods are tolerated. I admit I don't have a ton of evidence to support this but after seeing how brutal the MU gets, I don't see them tolerating any gods other than the Emperor. That's just the vibe I'm getting from these DSC eps. As for the aforementioned ENT clip, hey, it's a deleted scene. So we can probably ignore it.
The conversation between the two Stamets back in season 1 could indicate there is some sort of belief in a singular God in the Mirror Universe. Mirror Stamets begins with "You're dead, this is the afterlife, there is a God, and She is very angry with you" before laughing at the expression on Prime Stamets's face before explaining they're really in the Mycelial Network. Prime Stamets then asks "So there is no God?" to which Mirror Stamets answers "since we're not actually dead, who knows?"
At a guess, there are multiple religions and people practice different ones, just as they likely do on Earth in the Prime Universe. I don’t believe there is no religion or that they all believe the same thing. If Georgiou wasn’t playing mind games, she expressed a belief that was held by the Zodiac Killer and likely also a twisted version of some Viking or Hindu beliefs. But coming from the Mirror Universe, it would be twisted.
Watching Terra Firma, it seems like the Terran Empire's aesthetic is borrowed from a bunch of historical empires, with Rome being the main influence: Latin titles in the emperor's name, a literal circus performance for Roman bread and circuses, the Aztec or Incan sun god crown, the Nazi salute... I could see them practicing a religion that affirms their violence and emperor worship. Also, on a meta-level, I could see a writer incorporating religion into the mirror universe depending on their own biases. Religion would signal primitiveness (the prime universe has "evolved beyond" religion after all), exoticness (polytheism), and a doubling-down on the violence of the system (Georgiou is rewarded for a violent death by servants in the afterlife).
Being such a totalitarian and fascist state, i would guess that the Terran Empire has a state religion to keep the masses docile.