The Mirror Universe storyline and small-universe syndrome

[lawman]

Nog was pretty much the only Ferengi I could stand. I did enjoy stories involving him, with or without Jake.

I suppose I don't have much patience for stories that are ruminations on faith, though, as "faith" is a mental concept I simply can't relate to. Never have. I'm a skeptic by nature.

(Which is one more reason I'm less than wholeheartedly optimistic about where DSC is promising to go in its second season, as I can't imagine the show handling any "science vs. faith" themes with anything more than wishy-washy let's-offend-nobody blandness...)

 

[MakeshiftPython]

OF COURSE lawman doesn't like Quark.

 

[lawman]

"Of course"?

I mean, sure, I just said I don't. But what exactly makes you say that?...

 

[MakeshiftPython]

I've met your MU counterpart, and you're not at all like him.

 

[lawman]

???

 

[MakeshiftPython]

He's good at taking a ribbing, for one. :P

 

[eschaton]

???

He's making a joke about your handle, and Quark's dislike of legal authorities.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

He's making a joke about your handle, and Quark's dislike of legal authorities.

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[lawman]

...Quark's dislike of legal authorities.

Ah. Thank you. Hate it when I have to have a joke explained. But I guess that just doesn't stick in my memory as one of Quark's defining characteristics. (I mean, obviously he was always at odds with Odo, but I took that to be more of a personal antagonism...)

FWIW, I didn't like Quark because I just don't think he worked as a character. First, like any Ferengi, one of his main thematic purposes was to serve as a satirical critique of capitalism. But that fell flat because it wasn't sharp or biting; it was just too broad... Quark was so obsessed with money he made a Wall Street hedge fund manager look like an exemplar of modesty and moderation.

The same over-broadness interfered with his additional purpose as a source of comic relief. He simply wasn't funny. That brand of humor conflicted too egregiously with the overall tone of the show, and induced cringes rather than laughs. (It's not that the show didn't have room for humor; it just needed a different style, something more clever and sly. Bashir, for instance, was often very amusing.)

 

[MakeshiftPython]

I find Quark to be charming in a roguish way, and he never felt tonally off with the show. For instance, "In the Pale Moonlight" doesn't feature Quark in the same comedic manner as a Quark-centric episode often would. He's still a comic relief, but more calibrated to the tone of the episode that's very fitting.

An example of DS9 being tonally off probably goes to "Life Support". I actually like that episode, but the A and B plots couldn't be more mismatched than anything else.

 

[cultcross]

Quark got abused by the writers on occasion, but generally speaking I really liked the character. His interaction with Odo is a real highlight of the early seasons. I also liked how he became affected by the Federation values over time but as soon as he realised that, he rejected them entirely. He's a rare example of an alien who doesn't adapt once he sees the humans are just better.

 

[lawman]

Humor is a very personal thing, I have to admit. For instance, some people think the Marx Brothers are funny, and some people think the Three Stooges are funny, and there's not a whole lot of overlap in that Venn diagram.

(FWIW, I'm a Marx Brothers person through and through...)

 

[fireproof78]

Humor is a very personal thing, I have to admit. For instance, some people think the Marx Brothers are funny, and some people think the Three Stooges are funny, and there's not a whole lot of overlap in that Venn diagram.

(FWIW, I'm a Marx Brothers person through and through...)

I love both.

 

[lawman]

Oh, sure, be the one in the middle!...

 

[fireproof78]

Oh, sure, be the one in the middle!...

I will break your curves and diagrams even if it kills me!!!

 

[MakeshiftPython]

Just goes to show that things aren't as simple as black and white.

May explain how one has the ability to reconcile the different visual styles of TOS and DSC.

 

[fireproof78]

Just goes to show that things aren't as simple as black and white.

May explain how one has the ability to reconcile the different visual styles of TOS and DSC.

That's impossible

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Imagine that you're Michael Burnham. You've served under exactly two captains in your Starfleet career. Now you find yourself in the MU, and lo and behold! Your previous captain just happens to be Emperor of the entire Terran Empire, while your current one is her main rival for that position, leader of an internal insurrection.

Actually, that's an ontological scenario: Burnham is only here in the first place BECAUSE her duplicate is the Emperor's adopted daughter, and BECAUSE the guy who lead the insurrection had the hots for her. If Burnham had been just an ordinary (if talented) underling in the MU, Lorca wouldn't have bothered to bring her along in the first place.

 

[Greg Cox]

I will break your curves and diagrams even if it kills me!!!

It's a spectrum: The Marx Bros trump Abbott & Costello who trump Laurel & Hardy who trump the Stooges. Not sure where Harold Lloyd fits in.

(Couldn't figure out how to do "greater than" signs on my keyboard.)

 

[CorporalCaptain]

And yet in an infinite multiverse law of big numbers says it would be weirder if it didn't happen.

Yeah.

The premise of "Mirror Mirror" is, in so many words, that, because of the accident caused by the ion storm, the transporter beam tunneled through to a universe that was similar to Kirk's home universe at that time. The degree of similarity guaranteed the existence of counterparts.

A universe in which counterparts for both those involved in transposition as well as everyone they personally know also exists with very small but non-vanishing probability, even as a historical development from the MM universe a century later. We can presume that the method of crossing over selects it non-randomly from the multiverse because of its similarity.

/Treknobabble