I feel like Rom hypothesizing in "The Emporers' New Cloak". Serious answers only for Neelix and Kes!
What would Mirror Neelix/Kes/Seven have been like?
- Thread starter hxclespaulplayer
- Start date
Kes may very well have been the same. If in the mirror universe they were still sheltered underground there would be no reason for them to be different. On the other hand if circumstances led to the caretaker not destroying their planet and they continues to live on the surface who knows. Kes mentioned they used to have more advanced powers that atrophied from not being used. I would guess then they kept the use of those powers and were more like those we saw with Susperia. Kes herslef i would picture more of what she was like in Warlord
Last edited:
For some reason it's not hard for me to see an evil version of either of them.
If Kes had no powers, then maybe Neelix would be her slave master. The bruises from him, and the Kazon friendly cowards.
-I mean, Neelix already walks around dressed like a pìmp from 20th century earth.
If Kes had her powers, she would be the slave master, and Neelix the abused gopher(yaknow, gopher this go for that).
If Kes had no powers, then maybe Neelix would be her slave master. The bruises from him, and the Kazon friendly cowards.
-I mean, Neelix already walks around dressed like a pìmp from 20th century earth.
If Kes had her powers, she would be the slave master, and Neelix the abused gopher(yaknow, gopher this go for that).
But it's ALTERNATE lol
But in a different universe different things happen. Maybe neelix's family wasn't killed, maybe the caretaker didn't wreck the ocomapn homeworld. That could lead to character acting differently
Typically, mirror universe characters are the opposite of their counterparts, Terran empire or not. See: Worf, Kira, Quark, Ezri, Brunt, Sisko, Lorca, Burnham, etc.
Sometimes they are similar, like Spock, T'Pol, etc. They usually lack any form of empathy
It seems like the Vulcans in the Mirror Universe are essentially the same, while most everyone else is very different. I wonder why that is... their logical upbringing, perhaps?
7 would be the Borg Queen, Kes would be hard and calculating like in Warlord, and Neelix would be a rich, sociopathic corporate tycoon. Well, I tried. Lol
Mirror Kes = Warlord Kes. A psychokinetic psychopath.
Mirror Janeway = Living Witness HoloJaneway
Seven = never assimilated and probably gay because that's how 90's mirror universe people rolled
Neelix = Mirror Saru
Mirror Janeway = Living Witness HoloJaneway
Seven = never assimilated and probably gay because that's how 90's mirror universe people rolled
Neelix = Mirror Saru
So for Neelix instead of being the cook, he is cooked..., as in the main dish? Lol
In every one of those examples, those people's characterizations are the direct or indirect result of a history of the Terran Empire's repression or overthrow. In the Delta Quadrant, none of the inhabitants there would have been affected by that.
No, they're not "opposite," just different due to having a different upbringing and context. They lived in a harsher world and became harsher to survive. Prime Worf grew up among humans who were benevolent and allied with the Klingons, while Mirror Worf grew up among Klingons who had conquered and overthrown humanity. Prime Kira grew up fighting for freedom, while Intendant Kira grew with privilege and power; but they both had the same desire for Bajor to be strong. And so on. Sisko was hardly "opposite"; once he was persuaded to resist, he became as heroic as his counterpart, as did O'Brien and others.
People forget that "Mirror, Mirror" made the point at the end that Kirk and the others didn't have to reach too far to impersonate their savage counterparts -- because those counterparts were not their "opposites," but merely a freer expression of the potential for savagery that already existed within them. The title is a reference to the Magic Mirror from Snow White, whose defining attribute was not merely reflecting things, but revealing their innermost truths. So it was never about opposites. It was about "There but for the grace of God." The Prime characters could have been the Mirror characters if their upbringing, their context, had been different, if it had brought out their negative potential instead of their positive potential.
On the whole, the key divergence between the Prime and Mirror timelines is that Earth was ruled by tyranny in the latter rather than achieving democracy and peace. All the changes to other civilizations were the result of being enslaved by the Terrans or being at war with them. It wasn't some cartoonish oppositeness -- hyperemotional Vulcans, pacifist Klingons, etc. The cultures were all basically the same, just shaped by a darker, more violent history of interaction with humanity.
So Dukhat is right. There's no reason the MU's change in Terran history would have any effect on the Delta Quadrant or Neelix and Kes. However, Seven of Nine would probably never exist. The Terran Empire wouldn't be interested enough in pure research to approve Magnus Hansen's expedition, so Annika Hansen would never have been assimilated.
The novel The Mirror-Scaled Serpent by Keith R.A. DeCandido, in the omnibus Mirror Universe: Obsidian Alliances, portrayed Annika as a fun-loving crewmember aboard a Terran Rebellion ship with Chakotay as captain and Janeway as chief engineer. In that story, Neelix and Kes (essentially identical to their Prime counterparts) were the ones who got sent across the galaxy to the Alpha Quadrant, where they met Chakotay's crew.
The earlier Dark Passions duology by Susan Wright portrayed Annika as a human agent of the Cardassian Obsidian Order, where she was Agent Seven of Corps Nine (an implausible coincidence even by MU standards) and had a similarly icy personality to her Prime counterpart.
Vic Fontane was a human in the Mirror Universe, and it was played for laughs with no explanation. Leeta was gay in the Mirror Universe and it was played for laughs with no explanation.
By the end of DS9's run, the concept was closer to Farscape's goofy wormhole AU's than it was "Mirror, Mirror"
Annoying why there was no explanation! How could Vic Fontaine be real in the mirror universe where he was simply a hologram in this one?
JB
JB
That was dumb, but one isolated case doesn't disprove the pattern shown by every other bit of evidence.
My theory is that Felix based the holographic Vic Fontaine on a real-life 24th-century actor he hired as a reference model. And this was the actor's Mirror counterpart.
And how do you know Prime Leeta isn't bi? Heck, it's Leeta. I'd be surprised if she weren't.
Besides, sexuality is fluid and situational. Most people have at least some potential to go either way, but cultural prejudices and norms can shape which preferences they choose to emphasize. In Ancient Greece and Rome, it was considered normal for all adult men to take adolescent male lovers. They would've seen the idea of men having sex exclusively with women to be an aberration, whereas more modern Western cultures would've seen it the opposite way. But there was no fundamental change in human evolution in the interim, just a change in what the cultures defined as normal.
In the Prime universe, sexuality is a matter of personal affinity and affection, so it would be shaped more by individual preference. But in the Mirror Universe, sexuality is a weapon, a tool of domination and control. And that means it's not about who you're physically or emotionally attracted to, but whom you want to exert power over or want to win as an ally. So its expression would probably be largely independent of gender, more so than in Prime.
I said they are typically the opposite of their counterparts, and also gave examples of when they aren't.
If Kira grew up more priviledged, would she would turn out sadistic, power hungry, promiscuous, and deceitful? That's the exact opposite of who she is.
Worf is honorable. Mirror Worf is not. Worf isn't honorable simply from being raised by humans. His brother is honorable, too
How about Phlox? His mirror counterpart is also twisted and sadistic, but our Phlox is highly ethical. Is he ethical because of humans? Or is mirror Phlox sadistic because of Terrans?
Is the only thing separating the mirror universe the Terran empire? This thread seems to me to be an "what would an evil version of Kes and Neelix be like?"
The mirror universe isn't some alternate timeline, where an event in history changed the course of humanity. It's a physically distinct dimension.
If someone were to write a mirror universe story in the delta quadrant, would they simply say "It's exactly as we already know it, as those pesky Terrans have not contaminated this region"? That would render the endeavor pointless.
What you call "opposite," I call different. How do you define opposition? If everything were opposite, wouldn't all the women be men and vice-versa? Wouldn't Kirk be an ensign and Chekov the captain? Wouldn't Spock be a moron and Worf a pacifist? The MU characters aren't opposites; they're the same as their counterparts in most respects, but generally have one or two behavioral attributes that are different.
No, it's just different. Prime Kira was a self-admitted terrorist. She killed innocents, employed treachery and torture, and did all sorts of terrible things with the goal of securing Bajor's freedom. Intendant Kira is just as motivated by her commitment to Bajor, but in her timeline, Bajor was enslaved by Terrans instead of Cardassians, and the Alliance freed it and gave it influence. So her loyalty to Bajor is manifested by keeping it strong by any means necessary, just as Prime Kira's loyalty to Bajor was manifested by fighting to make it stronger by any means necessary. And both Kiras feel hate for Bajor's conquerors, but Major Kira ended up in circumstances that encouraged her to grow beyond her hatred for Cardassians, whereas the Intendant lived in circumstances that encouraged her to embrace and act upon her hatred for humans. Not absolute opposition, merely variations on the same themes -- the same potentials shaped by different circumstances.
And why would you list "promiscuous" as a negative? That's rather judgmental. As I said above, sexuality in the Mirror Universe is more about power dynamics than personal affinities. We've seen Major Kira use her sexuality as a tactic to gain advantage over people, like in the second-season premiere when she pretended to be a prostitute to distract the prison camp guards. Intendant Kira is in a position of greater power and has more opportunity and incentive to manipulate people through sex.
They exist in the context of their culture. Prime Universe Klingons have not always been honorable; indeed, much TNG-era storytelling has been about revealing that the Klingon government and military are often quite corrupt and treacherous no matter how much lip service they pay to honor.
In the Mirror Universe, the Klingons and Cardassians both faced conquest by the Terran Empire. We've recently learned in Discovery that the Empire razed Qo'noS and the Klingon people were fighting with the resistance. The Klingon-Cardassian Alliance restored them to power, but like any oppressed and victimized people, they would've been scarred by the abuse they suffered and would be more likely to lash out in return. Honor would have been a luxury, set aside in the fight for bare survival. Together, the Klingons and Cardassians took brutal revenge on their former oppressors and now oppress them in turn. That different history is the reason their culture and politics manifest differently, and the reason individuals have grown up in different ways.
Yes, obviously. The Terrans conquered and oppressed other races. The only way members of those races could achieve a place in the Imperial Starfleet, or fill any role other than as servants, was to conform to the norms of the Empire. To be seen as useful, one had to play by their ruthless rules.
Besides, we know from real life that most people tend to submit to what authority figures tell them to do, even if it's against their normal morality. Consider the Milgram Experiment. Or read books like Ordinary Men and The Banality of Evil, exploring why so many German citizens were willing to go along with the Holocaust. Plenty of people will assimilate into brutal and murderous regimes because they want to keep their jobs, or because they let themselves be convinced their actions are justified, or because they figure the blame lies with their superiors instead of them. Context changes people.
To all indications, yes. The Halkans were exactly the same. The other species seem to differ only in how they were affected by Imperial conquest, how they submitted or adapted or resisted. Vulcans are still logical. Klingons are still warriors. Cardassians are still political and devious. Kelpiens are still herbivorous prey creatures. And so on.
Impossible. An independently evolved universe would not have the same planets, star systems, species, and historical events, any more than an alien planet would have the exact same rivers and mountains and individual trees and birds and fish that Earth does. Sure, some people use the handwave that in an infinite multiverse, the odds of a coincidentally near-identical universe to ours become a certainty, but that overlooks the fact that the odds of finding it out of an infinity of alternatives are infinitely small, i.e. effectively zero. The only way an alternate reality with its own Earth, humans, Vulcans, Kirk, Spock, etc. could ever be directly encountered or visited by characters from the Prime reality is if it's an alternate timeline branching off a common origin. Any other explanation is magical twaddle, not science fiction.
The question was about the Mirror Universe, not some arbitrary "Everything is magically opposite" universe. Some fans mistake the former for the latter, but that's factually incorrect.
Thanks for clearing that up.
And some of the characters actually weren’t all that different from their Prime counterparts.
In Sorrows of Empire, Clark Terrell risked his life to get information to Spock so that the latter would be able take action against Reyes (and get Carol and David off of Vanguard). In both universes, he acted honorably at the cost of his own life.
Similar threads
