This season is without a doubt the best season of any Star Trek series to date. Such a shame with the power of this season that the series will not be returning to boldly go where no man has gone before. I guess we’ve boldly gone and we got scared so the network decided no more travels? I tell you, this week’s episode would definately scare a person!
This week we jumped through the looking glass and into the Mirror Universe. Who doesn’t like the Mirror Universe? The women are a little bit slutty, the men are delightfully evil, and everyone is a little bit cocky and willing to plunge a knife in each other’s backs.
We saw a turning of the tables with Zephram turning on the Vulcans at the very start which led into a terrifying new opening. Scary music with frightening images of war and bombing that without a doubt sent shivers down the spines of many.
The only thing wrong is that the men were not sporting the classic evil Mirror Universe goatee. As we all know in the Trek-verse a goatee means you are strong in your evil prowress. Who can forget the eerie images of Spock with his goatee looking a bit demonic? Mmmmm, delightful!
Star Trek may be dying, but it is most definately going down on top of its game. We can only assume that game is 3D chess.
Target photon torpedos at UPN headquarters and fire at will.
Lady Ozma's Journey 
loadhan said:
It took nearly 40 years but we finally answered the “biggest” question in all of Trek lore….
Was that a helmet or a head in “The Tholian Web”. 😀
The Mirror Universe must have progressed a bit faster in certain tech than our Universe. They tranported the Tholian pilot off its ship and into the decon chamber – site-to-sight transport. That was uncommon and dangerous in our Universe’s Kirk’s time. Plus the Tholian web was deployed a lot faster!
And here I thought poor Mayweather was going to have a more important role… I guess he could have been played by a Mirror potted plant. :p
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Lady Ozma said:
ROFL!
Well at least they finally explained some things!! As for tech, I’m a little confused about the tech thing myself. Especially since they seemed advanced and yet then they want this supposedly advanced ship?
Oh well, it was totally fun so who cares. 🙂 I love the mirror universe… seeing everyone all baddie is FUN! 🙂 I wouldn’t want it all the time, but once in a while it’s a lot of fun. I think they had a lot of fun with the credits at any rate!
🙂
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loadhan said:
Re: ROFL!
Perhaps the uber Tholian web was because they integrated technology from the future Defient already? Evil Captain Forrest seemed surprised at the Tholian web. Granted, they didn’t know too much about them but they did take out a Tholian ship with ease earlier.
Interesting though… according to Star Trek, being violent and warlike does not drastically speed up technological inventing. We’ve seen 300 years (Cohcrane, 2150’s, 2260’s, 2370’s) in the more war filled Mirror Universe (not that the normal Universe is entirely peaceful) but except for that super-transporter we saw this past week the tech is the same.
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: ROFL!
I thought the same. I would have thought that not having the Vulcans trying to get us to take our time and test things and figure things out, with us having attacked them, assumably stealing their ship and their tech, and being warlike they would be so much further advanced.
I guess the problem is that in the original mirror universe episode all those moons ago, they were so close to our world technologically speaking because the original thought was just do the alter egos… no one ever expected 20 odd years of Trek and 10 major motion pictures and five series so no one thought you’d have to really think out this mirror universe that much! I’m thinking this is probably what happened. So by this point they had established the tech was roughly the same more or less and couldn’t really digress any. I mean how could you explain them being like 100 years further advanced in the mirror universe let’s say…. when 100 years later they were the same… they stagnated?
Though it seems like they did have some other advancements in less than politically correct pursuits, such as torture…
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loadhan said:
Re: ROFL!
Someone on a message board suggested the flippant use of site-to-site transport was because the Terran Empire didn’t care about those pesky things like safety tests. The fact the warp cause releases lethal radiation to the engineering crew would support this. As for the Tholian web they suggested it was faster because they had many more ships. This makes sense since… I always wondered how the one in TOS was an effective weapon since most ships didn’t sit there for hours waiting to be ensared.
I was thinking the MU Enterprise NX-01 might have been built earlier than 2151. They have more fight capable ships out in local space than in our universe. They somehow made slaves of (seemingly all) the Vulcans and at least some Tellerites and I think a few other species. Last season’s “E^2” proved Enterprise can last for some time so it could be much older.
I’m guessing in 2063 other people were trying to build a warp ship. It’s been argued that happened in the normal universe since many new breakthrough inventions have had a bunch of people and teams pursing their development. In the war filled MU, desire for a new tech or weapon probably prompted others too. So a bunch of warp ships probably happened right after 2063 with Cochrane leaching the pack as the first builder and in control of the Vulcan ship. I’m guessing soon they went to Vulcan with human nukes. Probably got the Andorians involved and captured Vulcan. Maybe turned on the Andorians at some point once they had Vulcan ships.
Because of Terran pride and ego, they probably wanted their own ships of not Vulcan design. They probably used Vulcan slaves to help build the new tech though – and slavery is never the best labor. Probably why it still took 70, 80, 90 years to get a Warp-5 ship.
Until Kirk’s time they seem to have advanced on par with the normal universe. No idea what will happen to the Defient. Ignoring that, maybe they still get into a war with the Romulans. I don’t think we ever heard anything about them in the MU. Maybe they completely obliterated the Romulan Star Empire instead of fighting to a stand still. The war would have taken a lot longer, more of a toll. Might have taken longer to rebuild so tech was the same as normal universe in 2260’s. This could explain why the Klingons didn’t (sorta) have cloaking devices in the MU – no Romulans to give them. Of course… there is contradictory useage of cloaking in the MU; in one episode the Klingons do but then a 7 season episode is all about them trying to steal one. Plus we know that the Terran Empire is using a cloak taken from the Suliban and would probably take them from the Romulans too (and the Romulans in normal universe had cloaking technology at least before 2152).
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: ROFL!
I think you might be right on the money with the whole “lack of safety” thought process. Sure does seem like they are into “whatever works, consequences later” now don’t they? Of course, they didn’t work with the Vulcan GUIDANCE, testing everything to the nth degree and the like. Yes the humans in Prime Universe thought this was annoying, but looking at the MU and what they are like with dangerous tech that poisons their own people… you see the lesson. Patience is a virtue, always test before you implement!
That is the striking differance (other than warlike) between Prime and Mirror. In the prime universe you do everything very beurocratic, conservative, and safely. Test a thousand times, talk things over, thing and double think every single step. In the Mirror Universe it’s jump in both feet first guns blazing and figure everything out afterwords.
Even in the original MU episode you see this. The MU guys cross over and instead of going “What the heck?” they just immediately are like “OK, we’ll take over and figure things out later!” Whereas the Prime guys were like “Um, I think something’s up…” And after the “What the heck phase” (let’s face it, hard to quite show it all in only an hour) they started planning and trying to figure out what to do.
I think the key is that in the MU, mankind impatient, just like in the Prime Universe. Let’s face it, we’re a pack of impatient little two year olds. We want what we want today, we don’t want to wait, we don’t care, we want it NOW. One of those commonalities that goes past just appearance of the two sides. The differance lies not in the goatees (missing from this episode! Dangit!), but in the ability to deal with one’s impatience. Many of us realize, yes we can want something now but there are some things we just have to wait for. In the prime universe, the people are that way. Sure they whine about it, they hate the fact it takes so long… but they realize deep down, it’s better that way. In the mirror universe they just go off the instinct. I want so I get. And with horrendous results, like radiation scarred Trip.
I also think that pride does play into it. In the Prime Universe, sure they moan and groan and whine that the Vulcans made them be really sure everything was good to go. But they have the pride in their craftmanship. This is what WE made. WE did this. It is OURS. It is a good use of “pride”. They are really self sufficient. Sure they still need guidance, but really if the Vulcans all vanished “tomorrow” the Federation would be OK. They can stand on their own two feet and they know it. However in the mirror universe you see where pride corrupts. They think they are so hot, when really they aren’t. That pride corrupts, and so they aren’t going to be happy with someone else’s stuff, they want to make it their own. However, they want someone else’s stuff so they steal it and find a way to slap it all together and incorporate it into their stuff. Back to the dangerous consequences.
Anyway, that’s a lot of thoughts right there. I also agree on the web… and on how there were probably others working on warp as I agree… it’s never just one guy. You really can’t stop progress, you can only slow it down. I also wonder about the whole timeline… I can see what you say about the Klingons and the Romulans and etc…
There are mixed messages, but that’s to be expected in a series that’s been around for so long. Between all the fans, we remember everything, but it is a lot for the writers to keep track of!
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loadhan said:
Re: ROFL!
Someone on the same message board said Shran should be leading the Resistence they mentioned… and should have a white gotee. 😉
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Lady Ozma said:
Re: ROFL!
OMG! I love it!!! I totally agree! I would love to see Shran leading the resistance, especially if he has a white goatee! ROFL… but then again, wouldn’t that mean he’s evil 😉
Oh that’s a riot… hehehehe…
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