Terran Empire better off if Lorca had won?

That's a good point!

 

Comparing mirror Lorca to mirror Kirk, it seemed easier for Lorca to blend in to the DSC universe (albeit in wartime) than it would for Tiberius Kirk to fit in to the TOS universe.

I think that speaks to mirror Lorca’s character and suggest that perhaps he was a more decent human being, less corrupted by power and the moral inversion of the MU than Kirk?

Lorca was also less self critical and didn’t seem to have an inferiority complex like mirror Archer. Just as there are morally inverted people in our universe (Suder?) there must be more decent humans in the MU, just in smaller numbers.

So if Lorca’s coup had been successful perhaps he would have tried to guide the empire towards a more honourable way of conducting itself. Still aggressive but not as internally suspicious and with less backstabbing, plotting and paranoia.

 

MU-Lorca probably wasn't "decent" in any sense of the word (that's a rare quality indeed in the Empire; only people like Spock and Maximilian Forrest would really qualify), but at least he's not a raving lunatic like MU-Kirk was. That's why it was easier for Lorca to pose as his prime counterpart.

That said, I do believe that MU-Lorca did the best he could to help win the Klingon war in the prime universe. He doesn't like Klingons any more than the Discovery's crew did. And it's in his best interest that the Starfleet of the prime universe wins the war, because it helps him return to his own universe. So while 'undercover', Lorca was the best captain that he knew how to be.

Although I am curious about one thing - Burnham once said that if MU-Lorca had just asked for help (and come clean about being from the mirror universe), Starfleet would have helped him get home. I wonder how true that was.

 

Well, if he had said that he was from some other universe and could have proved it, then probably. If he had said that he was basically a human supremecist with probably a high kill count I could see Starfleet maybe putting him on trial or something a bit more sinister.

 

A despot replacing a despot. That always goes so well. But Burnham managed to create an unprecedented power vacuum by snatching Mirror!Georgiou and dragging her into whatever universe Discovery inhabits. For the mirror universe, no emperor. No usurper. No clear heir thanks to the destruction of the Emperor's flagship. Seems pretty obvious to me.

Emperor DETMER!

 

Well, someone has to get rid of Alexander

 

Starfleet of the prime universe has no jurisdiction over MU-Lorca's activities in the mirror universe. They have no right to put him on trial for anything he did in his "old life".

They may have been able to bring him up on charges of impersonating Prime Lorca, though. And of any crimes he may have committed in the process.

 

Starfleet law, at this particular point, has no precedence regarding trans-universe jurisdiction. Lorca's exploits would be remanded as a purely scientific investigation. His actions in the "normal" universe are... unique.

End Of Line

 

All of this is interesting to me, because I think the state of the Terran Empire is perfect now for Spock to come along and do whatever it was that he did to get us from "Mirror, Mirror" to the DS9 episodes of the MU.