Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Possible origins of the Mirror Universe

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Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :

I suppose from Necromancer's thread that we don't really know how the Mirror Universe came about. I was thinking it WAS general knowledge by now (only I never knew). So how did this universe come about? Here are some possibilities:

1) Hitler won WWII. I won't go into possible detail, but that event could make the earth as a ruthless and barbaric society where many are executed for even speaking out against this authoritarian regime. As for their space program? Maybe the Russians maintained their alliance with Germany.

2) Earth/Romulan War. Rather than Earth winning over the Romulans, the reverse happened, with Earth becoming under Romulan rule for more than a decade. That's when the resistance overpowers the Romulans and take back the planet. Of course, the leader of the Resistance is thinking about more conquests, so the Resistance becomes the Empire.

3) Eugenics Wars never happen. I really can't tie this in on how the Empire would come about.

4) A slightly different version of events in ST:FC. Perhaps someone had a xenophobic streak and shot the Vulcans. Another possibility is a different version of what happened in WWIII.

5) Bell Riots (remember DS9?) Gabriel Bell fails in his quest to free those from the ghettoes and make Earth aware of what's going on. Instead, the poor die in the ghettoes, creating a society filled with rich and very corrupt people. I know that in Past Tense, meddling in the timeline causes the Federation to cease to exist. Anything different could have happened instead........

Other theories?

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I can resist anything.......
Except Temptation

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Keep in mind that the Vulcans are apparently not very nice guys in the mirror universe. So maybe their aren't any Romulans. Or maybe the Romulans left, but this time, they wanted to flee their warlike brethren. Or maybe they left for exactly the same reasons, namely not wanting to embrace logic. Meaning the Romulans might still be nasty, but so are the Vulcans. Ouch.

Of course, considering how it was the Terran Empire and not the Vulcan Empire, and that Spock was a pretty big figure on the Enterprise, and letter in the Empire as a whole, I'd imagine that First Contact went roughly the same. That is, the Vulcans came down and found that humans shared all their favorite nasty qualities, though without as much discipline as they might like. Then, sometime later, the humans form an empire. "Hey, Vulcan dudes, wanna join?"

Uh, or something.

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"20th Century, go to sleep."
--
R.E.M.

Posted by Enterprise (Member # 48) on :

Remember that episode of TNG where Worf went around to all those Quantum realities? Well, the mirrior universe could be something like that, only still in the same quantum reality as our universe.

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Brandon "Enterprise" Grasmick
Commanding Officer, USS Sovereign (NX-74222)

"Captain, the Sona crew are willing to negotiate a cease fire. It may have something to do with the fact that we have 3 minutes of air left."
-- Worf

Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
-- In time of war the law falls silent.

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

Analysis:

quote:
1) Hitler won WWII. I won't go into possible detail, but that event could make the earth as a ruthless and barbaric society where many are executed for even speaking out against this authoritarian regime. As for their space program? Maybe the Russians maintained their alliance with Germany.

Highly implausible. Uhura is a crew member. Naziism was very intolerant of non-Aryans. Oddly, when Japan signed the Tripartite pact, one of the Nazi "Scientists" published a very convoluted dissertation explaining that the Japanese were pure Aryans, just like the blonde, blue-eyed Nazi ideal.

Huh?

quote:
2) Earth/Romulan War. Rather than Earth winning over the Romulans, the reverse happened, with Earth becoming under Romulan rule for more than a decade. That's when the resistance overpowers the Romulans and take back the planet. Of course, the leader of the Resistance is thinking about more conquests, so the Resistance becomes the Empire.

Hmmm... Actually that one is very plausible. It would also explain why the Vulcans put up with Human agressiveness -- it's logical to keep the big dogs on your side. Perhaps the Romulans were such a serious threat that the Vulcans willingly allied themselves with the humans, despite their homicidal tendencies.

quote:
3) Eugenics Wars never happen. I really can't tie this in on how the Empire would come about.

Neither can I. Not plausible.

quote:
4) A slightly different version of events in ST:FC. Perhaps someone had a xenophobic streak and shot the Vulcans. Another possibility is a different version of what happened in WWIII.

Shot the VULCANS?!? I don't think so. The Vulcans are sufficiently pacifist that they would have little to do with these violent humans, if that had happenned.

That second possibility might hold some water, but then the humans would have had to conquer the Vulcans. I can't see the Vulcans responding to that sort of stimulus with anything except resistance, passive or otherwise. I don't think they would join the humans as conquerers just to save their own skins.

quote:
5) Bell Riots (remember DS9?) Gabriel Bell fails in his quest to free those from the ghettoes and make Earth aware of what's going on. Instead, the poor die in the ghettoes, creating a society filled with rich and very corrupt people. I know that in Past Tense, meddling in the timeline causes the Federation to cease to exist. Anything different could have happened instead........

Somewhat plausible, but I would have to see the episode in question before passing judgement. Sorry, I'll have to abstain from analyzing this possibility.

--Baloo

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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
--Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
Come Hither and Yawn...

Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :

Two more possible Theories (taken from Necromancer's thread):

6) Eugenics Wars happen, but Khan was NOT overthrown. I cannot see how this would tie in as every single human would have to be genetically enhanced.

7) Both universes do not share the same timeline. Sure, but it would be basically coincidental that both universes have the same technological distinctiveness at the same time.

Now to reply to your posts, Baloo:

1) Hitler winning WWII: Suppose Hitler died not long after becoming World Leader. His idealism for the perfect race becomes diluted with every successive dictator to a point where it becomes irrelevant. Of course, that doesn't stop the earth from becoming a barbaric society.

4) ST:FC and the Vulcans: Just because a UFO lands in your yard doesn't mean that it comes in peace or you don't grab your shotgun to defend yourself. Here is what I'm suggesting: Vulcans touch down. But just before Cochrane goes out to greet him, someone, fearful that the Vulcans are here to kill kill kill, they SHOOT the Vulcan. The vulcan ship takes off for good. We know in FC that the contact with Vulcans unites all of society. What would have formed instead is a society based on aggression and offense.

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I can resist anything.......
Except Temptation

Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :

In "City on the Edge of Forever", didn't McCoy's meddling allow Hitler to win the war. I gues we never found out anything about the new timeline created other than the fact that there was no longer an Enterprise in orbit of the planet. But still, I don't think that did it.

As I mentioned in the other Mirror thread, I agree with one of the new suggestions, that the two universes never shared a common timeline. This would eliminate alot of problems. For instance, if the two universes shared a common timeline and that timeline was altered at some point in the distant past from the TNG era's point of view, the likely hood of all the characters still being born and coming together as a group would be astronomical, for all intents and purposes, impossible.

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"A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx

Aban's Illustration www.thespeakeasy.com/alanfore

Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :

Eugenics Wars happened, but Khan was not overthrown

Explanation:

Khan was agressive. If he was world dictator, he could have initiated the space program, and started out to rule the galaxy.

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Ross: "Inter arma, enim silent leges."
Bashir: "'In the time of war the law falls silent.' Cicero. Have we become a 24th-century Rome, driven by the fact that Caesar can do no wrong?!"
-Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges

Posted by Mythril (Member # 286) on :

I believe the mirror univer began around the time of the human/romulan war, resulting in a romulan occupation until they were defeated. At this time people became some what zenophobic and decided to conquer rather than be conquered, some joined willingly and others were conquered look at bajor.

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I am not responsible for the stupidity of other people.

Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :

In "City on the Edge of Forever", McCoy ended up saving Edith Keeler, who was a pacifist who would've convinced Roosevelt to delay entry into the war. Hence, the Axis (Italy excluded, I presume) was capable of taking the entirety of Europe, a lot of Asia, and a fair chunk of the Pacific before the U.S. realised their big mistake. Count one more continent for the fascists.

If I had to pick a turning point, I'd say it's probably either something solely in the Star Trek universe, during WWII (I like the anti-semitism dilution theory, although I haven't given it a whole lot of thought), or during the Paix de Paris.

Hmm... Didn't Germany break the pact with the USSR in WWII, anyway, launching Operation Barbarosa?

Posted by Enterprise (Member # 48) on :

Elim, yes, that is how Barbarossa got started, but Hitler never planned on keeping the peace treaty anyway...

...Neither did Stalin for that matter.

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Brandon "Enterprise" Grasmick
Commanding Officer, USS Sovereign (NX-74222)

"Captain, the Sona crew are willing to negotiate a cease fire. It may have something to do with the fact that we have 3 minutes of air left."
-- Worf

Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
-- In time of war the law falls silent.

Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :

Goes back even farther; Rome never fell!

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What started in Jerusalem as a relationship, went on to become a philosophy in Athens, an institution in Rome, a culture in nothern Europe, and was turned into an enterprise in America.
-paraphrased, author unknown-

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

Possibly, but then why is the Lingua Franca English then?

--Baloo

Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :

Well, most Romans spoke Greek and we speak English so if the show was in Latin we couldn't have understood what they were saying.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Well, we saw what would happen if Rome never fell in "Bread and Circuses."

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You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend far too much time reading this sort of trash.

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

Isn't the Mirror Universe always the opposite of our universe, instead of a 'normal' alternative timeline wich originated from ours?

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So small,
so innocent,
so young,
so delicately done,
grown up in your poison.

"Little Baby Swastikkka"
-Skunk Anansie

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

No, as Rom found out when he got really confused.

The idea that the Mirror Universe sprung out of Earth's conquest by the Romulans was put forth in an old comic-book story, set (in our universe) just after Star Trek III, and whose plotline was immediately contradicted by Star trek IV.

In 'Dark Mirror' it seemed as though the Mirror Universe had always been more savage, as evidenced by Alt-Picard's version of Shakespeare, but this could have been due to USSR-style revision of history and literature.

Shatner's stories, at least as far as "Spectre," have not yet revealed any origin for the Mirror Universe, as far as I can remember.

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Calvin: "No efficiency, no accountability... I tell you, Hobbes, it's a lousy way to run a Universe." -- Bill Watterson

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Here's the interesting thing... If the two universes did share a common timeline, we know that they split at least two centuries before the current Trek time (since the UFP was never formed). However, even after all that time, the same people, for the most part, exist in both timelines. In a normal mulitple timeline progression (like the various alternates seen in "Parallels"), this wouldn't happen. The longer the timelines were apart, the more dissimilar they would become. There is obviously something about these two timelines that keeps them intertwined and constantly connected.

I think I agree that the two timelines were never actually a single timeline. If the two are so closely tied together, despite being separate for so long, there's no reason to assume that they had to split apart at any time. It's quite possible that they have maintained this relationship... well, forever.

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Col. Maybourne: "Teal'c... It's good to see you well."
Teal'c: "In my culture, I would be well within my rights to dismember you."
-Stargate SG-1: "Touchstone"

Posted by Stued Gagh on :

First of Two.$$$Spoilers.In the Shatner books(Dark Victory)it's speculated by BOTH Spocks that the timelines were the same leading up to First Contact.The reason for the difference is that they(Humanity,Vulcans)forsee a grave threat among the stars.What is the threat you ask?Well lets just say that a certain group of people from the Delta Quadrant do not exist shortly after First Contact.

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I'd give my right eye for a bowl of fresh Gagh.