The Tholian Web

[BlueStuff]

So, was Kirk phasing in and out from the Mirror Universe, the same place the Defiant went as shown in Enterprise? I ask because Kirk said he had an entire universe to himself, something that the Mirror Universe is decidedly not. If he didn't go there, where did he go and why did he go to a different place than the Defiant?

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Interphase seems to go to multiple different places, so there's no reason to believe that when Kirk was going in and out it wasn't to another universe altogether, before the Defiant wound up going to the Mirror Universe.

Of course it does raise questions about how the Mirror Universe didn't jump ahead (technologically) after Empress Sato got her hands on the Constitution-Class ship, instead they seemed to stagnate.

 

[UnknownSample]

The timeline of the Mirror Universe was changed by that.

Yeah, I hate that they mixed the MU up in Tholian Web on Enterprise. But when Kirk talked about having a whole universe to himself, it sounded to me as if that meant not even the Defiant was there. Just an impression. However, Kirk and the Defiant phased out of our universe together. All those dead people certainly stayed in the Defiant's new universe. Why wouldn't Kirk? Anyway, if a third Kirk-alone universe (and how would he know he has it to himself?) was involved, a second phasing must have happened, where Kirk is ejected from Defiantverse.

I forget, did all those dead bodies make it to the Enterprise episode?

 

[Timo]

No reason why they should - the Tholians would have mopped up the corridors already. Well, most of them anyway.

I doubt there's anything approaching "the timeline of the Mirror Universe". At the very least, that's two definite articles too many. A Mirror Universe is accessed in many episodes, but it appears to be a different one in each of them, tailored to the needs of the crossers-over. There won't be timewise connection between any two MU episodes, then, either.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Albertese]

I always assumed that there was an intermediary universe which Interphased objects slipped into and out of. The Defiant fell into that and then subsequently was let back out into the (a) Mirror Universe, while Kirk only got as far as the intermediary bridge where he was able to be retrieved.

As for Kirk being completely alone, there's no way he could factually know that. He is necessarily describing his impressions of where he was. An environment where he can not see or hear anything where he is left for many hours, in danger of running out of life support very soon with no contact from his ship or any other potential rescuers, must have felt very lonely indeed.

--Alex

 

[Scotchy]

Seems like there were a few dead bodies still present on the Defiant, but I could be wrong. I thought Spock's interphase theory in the original was that Kirk was trapped between universes, maybe that's why he didn't show up in the MU. If he had materialized in the MU Spock might not have been able to retrieve him the way he did.

 

[UnknownSample]

It's explained in a bare bones sort of way in DS9 how their MU situation grew out of the TOS MU situation. It all happened because of our Kirk's effect on MU Spock... All MU episodes are in one timeline. Ep's taking place in other kinds of alternate and/or parallel universes, that's different.

 

[BillJ]

I always assumed that there was an intermediary universe which Interphased objects slipped into and out of. The Defiant fell into that and then subsequently was let back out into the (a) Mirror Universe, while Kirk only got as far as the intermediary bridge where he was able to be retrieved.

As for Kirk being completely alone, there's no way he could factually know that. He is necessarily describing his impressions of where he was. An environment where he can not see or hear anything where he is left for many hours, in danger of running out of life support very soon with no contact from his ship or any other potential rescuers, must have felt very lonely indeed.

--Alex

This. Kirk seemed to be caught in the void the Enterprise flew through to escape the web.

 

[UnknownSample]

I started a thread some time back, to try to resolve whatever the hell actually was going on at the end of TW. It went nowhere. Posters just said it's unresolveable nonsense.

This stuff helps. Spock does keep using the word "interspacially". The empty Kirkverse would have been inbetween universes. It always baffled me why the Enterprise entered some zone with no stars at the end, before returning tour universe, never seeing the Defiant along the way. I still don't knowhow they returned from there, but things make much more sense now.

 

[Timo]

...All we are missing is the moment when Spock actually says "Mark!" to complete his "On my mark, save the Captain" plan. But the camera can't be everywhere all the time.

Yeah, ducking to an "interspace" is the way to escape the web. And apparently this "interspace" was created or exploited by the Tholians, even though they didn't actually operate inside it themselves. Now, the interesting question is, did it take just the MU Tholians, or the combined effort of both sets?

Sometimes the MU episodes are compatible with each other. Sometimes not (does cloaking exist there, say?). Arguing that they are all independent seems the easier way to go, especially as the "origin story" with MU Spock being responsible yadda yadda isn't the real origin story at all. As we learn in "IaMD", it all went differently centuries earlier already...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[UnknownSample]

Were there really Mirror Tholians? I'm not going to the lengths of actually seeking out the Enterprise episode and actually watching it again...

If you're going to talk about a sort of mirror-opposite to a universe, it can only really be a bipolar thing. Two universes total, opposite ones anyway. Things don't have multiple opposites, but just one opposite.

Of course, oppositeness is a human idea anyway, not anything objectively existing in physics, unless we're talking about matter vs. anti-matter.

 

[UnknownSample]

The Tholians seemed not to have any idea the "interspace" existed, if they were being truthful with Spock that is.

 

[johnnybear]

The timeline of the Mirror Universe was changed by that.

Yeah, I hate that they mixed the MU up in Tholian Web on Enterprise. But when Kirk talked about having a whole universe to himself, it sounded to me as if that meant not even the Defiant was there. Just an impression. However, Kirk and the Defiant phased out of our universe together. All those dead people certainly stayed in the Defiant's new universe. Why wouldn't Kirk? Anyway, if a third Kirk-alone universe (and how would he know he has it to himself?) was involved, a second phasing must have happened, where Kirk is ejected from Defiantverse.

I forget, did all those dead bodies make it to the Enterprise episode?

Although I didn't mind the episode, do we have to accept it as canon or do we just say it's not part of 'my Trek universe?' I don't count it anyways!
JB

 

[Smoked Salmon]

So, was Kirk phasing in and out from the Mirror Universe, the same place the Defiant went as shown in Enterprise? I ask because Kirk said he had an entire universe to himself, something that the Mirror Universe is decidedly not. If he didn't go there, where did he go and why did he go to a different place than the Defiant?

Probably just a figure of speech. As far as he knew, there was nobody around and the Tholians had yet to show up to claim the ship.

 

[Kor]

It behooves us to ignore retcons from the Trek spinoffs and just focus on the original concepts as presented within Star Trek itself. From a TOS standpoint, we do not know exactly where the Defiant and Kirk were phasing to, because that was not important to the story of "The Tholian Web."

Kor

 

[Timo]

Were there really Mirror Tholians? I'm not going to the lengths of actually seeking out the Enterprise episode and actually watching it again...

That was the TOS connection, really: that the MU Tholians were responsible for the interphase, using it to capture the Defiant.

If you're going to talk about a sort of mirror-opposite to a universe, it can only really be a bipolar thing.

Nothing of the sort is suggested in Star Trek, though. It just happens that the people in the Mirror Universes are all evil and hypersexual by birth, resulting in certain twists and turns of history.

Except in the mirror universe of "The Counter-Clock Incident", where a great many things are opposites to what we know. But of course not all of them.

Of course, oppositeness is a human idea anyway, not anything objectively existing in physics, unless we're talking about matter vs. anti-matter.

If anything, oppositeness is the one thing that nature provides, everything else being human invention. There can be left vs right, hot vs cool, fast vs slow, all of them essentially deriving from either "there or not" or "there or anti-there". Humans have invented the further idea that this can be turned into mathematics, as in "1 or 0" or "1 or -1", and thus either quantified or graduated. (It doesn't follow in nature that 1+1 should be 2, of course: if nature has two of anything, it's just one plus another one, the latter necessarily slightly different from the first one.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

I think the universe Kirk had all to himself was a borderworld between the universes. Not unlike Lazarus' corridor between matter and antimatter universes.

Scientific as Barney the Dinosaur, but that's what I'm going with.

 

[UnknownSample]

Yes KDB, I'm now so certain of that, because of this thread, that I consider the matter settled. TW could have used a couple more lines of dialogue to establish this.

Timo--
As far as its being an opposite universe, I'll go by the title "Mirror Mirror" (as their intent).

Nature provides the only objective opposites that exist in hard reality. Matter vs. anti-matter, say. Moral opposites? "Opposite" personalities? That bi-polar thing is purely a human subjective judgment, and pure human self-indulgence when applied to the nature of universes! I'm sure you agree, just fine-tuning things a little here.

 

[Kemaiku]

Yup, Kirk was stuck in the interdimensional blister, the Defiant either slipping herself or being tractored, moved through the barrier to the other side leaving him behind.

Anyway, really want to see more of the Tholians.

 

[uniderth]

So, was Kirk phasing in and out from the Mirror Universe, the same place the Defiant went as shown in Enterprise? I ask because Kirk said he had an entire universe to himself, something that the Mirror Universe is decidedly not. If he didn't go there, where did he go and why did he go to a different place than the Defiant?

He didn't. The Defiant didn't go to the Mirror universe either. It's still sitting in that empty universe right now.

Where do people come up with this silly stuff?