Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 1x10 - "Despite Yourself"

"As little fantasy elements as possible" does not mean "non-existent"...

Speak for thyself on magickal Khan blood.

 

I'd actually love to see something like that happening, having all their hopes dashed and forcing the crew to improvise a plan from scratch. I still think the Defiant might be the Palace that Stamets was speaking about and the Emperor is using it as a base of operations.

 

Any theories as to who the Emperor is?

Pike perhaps?

 

All the defiant can do is help them find Tholian space.

I see only Georgieu as a possible Emperor(Empress)

 

First planet-side away team adventure in the Mirror U next episode.

 

Haha, the guy making the eyes at Captain Killy is Lieutenant Rhys, who MA reminded me hit on her at the party in "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad."

 

Doesn't work like that, no timeline changes made to the main universe will effect the Mirror universe.

 

In my opinion, the risk is far too high to tell Starfleet. If Kirk & Co. of the future don't know about the Mirror Universe it's imperative they remain in the dark. Sure, maybe Starfleet classifies it super duper top secret, but what if word gets out?

I don't know how they'll end up handling it, but that's the best way if you ask me because it makes the most sense.

 

Nah, MU Kirk kills him to become captain of the Enterprise.

If it's not Georgiou (extremely unlikely as that is), it could maybe be Robert April (though that'd be a hell of a place to finally meet him).

 

If it *is* Georgiou, is there a possibility they'll make her a descendent of Sato herself?

 

Kirk and Company don't seem to know about Romulan cloaking technology or the Temporal Cold War, either, so Starfleet seems to have a track record of classifying sensitive information that goes back at least a century.

 

Now I'm wondering if the Romulans exist in the Mirror U. I can't remember ever seeing or hearing of them there.

 

Actually, in rewatching episodes of DS9 and Enterprise over the past few months there's a lot more isolationist/nationalist talk amongst the Klingons than you'd think. It's sometimes subtle, sometimes indirect, but often dialog spoke straight to this "Klingon First" mentality. I think the one like that I can recall clearly is when in "The Drumhead" J'Dan says "the blood of all Klingons has become water." He continues, decrying the alliance with the Federation, and how it has turned them into a race of "mewling babies." There's many more instances.

Traditionally, Klingons have long had a disdain for other cultures, up to and including outright bigotry; outside of Worf, Martok and Gowron, Klingon characters often looked down upon humans, and were outright adversarial even if they were allies.

 

Maybe in the MU they never diverged with the Vulcans.

 

But if you showed racism the same way it is in real life (human on human) then it's not really science fiction. The whole point of sci-fi is to illuminate controversial themes using aliens, technology, and allegories instead of the real thing.

 

No, the Defiant would not degrade. It's not trapped in a loop.

After the ship is transported to the Mirror Universe (and back in time), pretty much anything can happen to it after that. It's not like the ship has to survive into the 23rd century in order to be sent back in time again, because it's a different version of the ship that gets sent back.

Think of it this way:

- Sometime in the 23rd century, the Defiant is constructed.
- The ship is commissioned and begins its normal Starfleet service record (mentioned by Saru in a throwaway line in "Despite Yourself")
- Shortly before the events of "The Tholian Web", the Defiant becomes trapped in interphasic space.
- Sometime AFTER that episode, it disappears and ends up in the 22nd century of the Mirror Universe.
- Whatever happens to the Defiant after that, is pretty much irrelevant, because the ORIGINAL Defiant will one day be built in the regular universe's 23rd century.

The thrust of the gist is, the "old" ship doesn't have to survive long enough to become its own original counterpart, because a brand new Defiant will one day be built - that's what always happens. There is a loop, yes, but it's not the same ship that gets used over and over again. The Defiant is built, gets sent back in time, probably serves for awhile in the MU, is destroyed and never seen again, and (decades later, in the Regular Universe) its original "self" is built which will later have all those things happen to it, etc. etc.

To rephrase: If you travel back in time - far enough back so that you arrive before you are born - obviously you don't become your own younger self. Your "old self" may die, but your younger self is destined to be born, because that's what history records. Same goes for the Defiant.

 

In all seriousness, what dictator would they be commenting on?

 

If you're thinking of who I think you're thinking of - the Mirror Universe and all of its accompanying story arcs cannot, logically, be a commentary on that person, because those story ideas were conceived long before said person became active in politics.

Even "Despite Yourself" can't be a commentary on that person, because the episode simply derives from the MU as originally conceived, back in TOS' time.

 

Even as previously constructed from TOS through ENT, elements of the existing MU could be played up and focused on to make statements about current politics, whether it's Trump, Brexit, or the Arab Spring.

 

Please lets not start this again.