Mirror Universe Star Trek: Encyclopedia II - Mirror Universe Star Trek - Novels

Mirror Universe Star Trek - Novels

Various novels have been set in the Deep Space Nine version of the mirror universe, including a trilogy by William Shatner, which reveals the Mirror-Kirk (or "Emperor Tiberius", as he calls himself) was still alive, and plotting to reconquer his Empire. Apparently, it had been he who originally created the Alliance to overthrow Spock, before it turned on him. His right-hand man is Regent Jean-Luc Picard, who works with the counterparts of other Enterprise-E bridge crew. He is opposed in his aims by Mirror-Spock, now the Intendant of the Vulcan Resistance. Mirror versions of Kathryn Janeway, other Voyager crewmembers and Tasha Yar also appeared.

Shatner provides a mind- and time-bending explanation for the point of departure between the Mirror Universe and our own: In the Mirror Universe, the events of "Star Trek: First Contact" caused the brand-new Human/Vulcan alliance to become paranoid about Borg invasion; this in turn led to an increasingly military theme in their alliance, and by the time of the 23rd Century depicted in "Mirror, Mirror," this military Human/Vulcan alliance had evolved into the totalitarian Terran Empire.

The Star Trek: Stargazer novel Three, by Michael Jan Friedman also features the Mirror Universe. Since the Stargazer novels are set during Picard's first command, nearly 40 years before the DS9 crossover, it gives us a glimpse of the Mirror Universe during the war between the Empire and the Alliance. In it, the counterpart of a member of the USS Stargazer crew crosses over from the ISS Stargazer to kidnap the Stargazer's chief engineer Simeon for the Empire. The captain of the ISS Stargazer is the counterpart of the USS Stargazer's first officer, Gilaad Ben Zoma.

Dark Passions by Susan Wright is also set before the DS9 episodes, at about the time of The Next Generation. It focussed on the mirror-Seven of Nine, a Terran slave who had been fitted with cybernetics to be a spy for the Obsidian Order. The sequence ended with her escaping in a ship she named Voyager, along with the counterparts of many of the Voyager crew (this may contradict the Shatner novels).

Mirror Universe Star Trek - Another view of the Mirror Universe

Diane Duane, in her Star Trek: The Next Generation book "Dark Mirror" offers another explanation of what happened after Captain Kirk and three others of his crew encountered the Mirror Universe.

In Dark Mirror, the Mirror-Spock left the Enterprise and rose through the ranks and spearheaded an effort to reform the Empire. However, the Mirror-Kirk framed him for treason, which resulted in the execution of Mirror-Spock. Soon afterwards Mirror-Sarek was assassinated by another Vulcan seeking his job. As a result, Mirror-Spock's reform efforts died with him. The Empire is still alive and still quite powerful in this book. The Klingons were a conquered race in this book who were forced into slavery by the Empire after their defeat. The Romulan Empire had been destroyed early on by the Empire.

Dark Mirror tells how Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D were forced to deal with their counterparts. Their counterparts were also brutal and savage. A tag line for the book said that the crew was going to deal with their worst enemies - themselves. For example, the Mirror-Captain Picard had murdered the Mirror-Jack Crusher so that he could have the Mirror-Beverly Crusher to himself. Mirror-Dr. Crusher used her skills to build bioweapons. Troi was the Gestapo-like security officer who freely used torture to obtain information. The missions of the crew of the Mirror-Enterprise-D's were filled with brutality and even genocidal activities.

When the Enterprise-D crew met with their alternates in this book, they discovered that the Empire was planning to cross into our universe and invade the Federation. The first step of the plan was to capture our universe's Enterprise, kill the crew, and use the vessel as an infiltrator. However, the crew of the Enterprise was able to foil their plans, and find a means to prevent the Empire from invading the Federation.

Captain Picard found that the Mirror Universe Empire had almost conquered all that it could, and that in a matter of only decades, it would collapse. He also finds that the seeds of the Mirror Universe's brutality lie far far in the past; Plato sings the praises of fear as part of a ruler's arsenal, and their version of The Merchant of Venice is called The Revengers Tragedy (not to be confused with the actual play of the same name), in which Portia (perhaps to avenge an injury done to her by Antonio - who is probably not the good man he is in "our" version) sides with Shylock, and allows him to slice off a pound of his flesh.

Obviously, the book Dark Mirror would not be part of the Star Trek canon since later episodes of DS9 contradict what was written in the book. One possible theory for this version of the Mirror Universe is again the TNG episode "Parallels." In this episode, Data explained that for every choice made, the other choices available were made in alternate universes. As a result, at some point in the course of the history of the Mirror Universe, a choice would have made that would have resulted in the branching off of two universes. One would be the Mirror Universe found in Dark Mirror, the other would be the one seen in several episodes of Deep Space Nine. Essentially, the Mirror Universes seen in "Dark Mirror" and Deep Space Nine are not each *the* Mirror Universe, but *a* Mirror Universe; again, as seen in "Parallels" the number of possible Mirror Universes is infinite, and in many of them the Terran Empire probably never fell.

Mirror Universe Star Trek - The Mirror Universe Saga DC Star Trek comic 1984-85

The Mirror Universe Saga (ISBN 0-930289-96-X) is a trade paperback that reprints eight issues of DC Comics's Star Trek comic book (issues #9 - #15, as well as issue #16 which completed the arc but did not actually involve the Mirror Universe) chronicling an encounter between the Mirror Universe and our own. It is set immediately after the events of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, which had just been released shortly before the series was first published. The series was credited to Mike W. Barr (head writer for DC's Trek comic at the time), Tom Sutton, and Ricard Villagran. When originally published, this story arc was called "New Frontiers", though it is best known by the title used in this section heading.

The I.S.S. Enterprise (which has undergone a refit similar to that of the "real" Enterprise) obtains the Genesis technology developed by Dr. Carol Marcus (killing her and destroying the Regula I spacelab once said information is obtained), then enters our universe (the Empire having learned how to artificially re-create the conditions originally used to breach the dimensional barrier in the "Mirror, Mirror" episode) to spearhead the Empire's intended conquest of the Federation. Meanwhile, in the "real" universe, Captain Styles of the Excelsior has arrived at Regula I, where Kirk and crew have found temporary safe haven, to take them back to Earth to stand trial for their mutinous actions (as depicted in Star Trek III). When they encounter a mystery attacking ship, Styles overconfidently believes the Excelsior can defeat the attacker, which is an "outdated" Constitution-class ship, but it turns out to be the I.S.S. Enterprise under the command of Mirror-Kirk. The Mirror-Enterprise crew easily overpowers the inexperienced Excelsior crew, taking over the advanced vessel, and Mirror-Kirk dispatches Mirror-Spock (who despite his words at the end of "Mirror, Mirror" had elected to return to Mirror-Kirk's side after all, after logically deducing that the efforts of any one single man would be a useless gesture against the Empire), Mirror-Sulu and Mirror-Chekov to Vulcan (aboard Kruge's Klingon bird-of-prey, captured by Kirk during Star Trek III and confiscated by Styles when taking custody of the Enterprise survivors) to find Spock, still recovering from the fal-tor-pan ritual on Vulcan. Kirk and his own crew manages to escape and take over the I.S.S. Enterprise, which is destroyed by remote control by the Mirror-Kirk; the real Kirk's crew survives by escaping in the ship's saucer section.

After retaking the Excelsior from Mirror-Kirk (and placing the Mirror-Enterprise crew in stasis), Kirk takes command of Excelsior and takes it to the Mirror Universe in a gambit of impersonating Mirror-Kirk yet again. His plan is to break the back of the Empire's planned invasion by taking command of the Imperial fleet aboard Excelsior, then turning on the fleet at the critical moment. One Empire officer, a Captain Blaine, is suspicious of Kirk's intentions; however, rather than suspecting Kirk is in fact his counterpart from the other (our) universe, he is familiar with Mirror-Kirk's history of advancing through the ranks by use of treachery and intrigue and thinks Kirk is out to take control of the Empire for himself.

Saavik researches Imperial history to help familiarize the crew with the Mirror Universe and its history, so as to better portray their own counterparts. Her research reveals the likely point of divergence between the two universes - the Romulan War. In our universe, Earth and Romulus fought their war in deep space. In the mirror universe, the war was fought in Earth's solar system, and Earth lost. The Romulans held Earth for ten years until a resistance overthrew them. This resistance did not disband once the Romulans were deposed, however; rather, its leaders proclaimed that Earth would no longer be conquered, but rather would be the conquerors themselves. Thus did the resistance movement form the seeds of what would eventually become the Terran Empire.

Meanwhile, Mirror-Spock reaches Vulcan, where he engages in a mind meld with the recovering Spock of our universe. However, once Mirror-Spock touches his mind, Spock is able to reflexively initiate a meld of his own. In the ensuring battle of minds, Spock draws strength to restore his mind, and at the same time, while Mirror-Spock realizes becomes reconciled and the two make common cause to stop the Empire. The two Spocks use the captured Klingon ship to cross into the Mirror universe,

Also seen during this storyline is the counterpart of Kirk's son, David Marcus - still very much alive in the Mirror Universe, and leading a resistance cell against the Empire.

The Empire accepts Kirk's proposal to align with the Romulans and Klingons to defeat the Federation, Klingons and Romulans. However, Kirk and Scott have a plan to disable the entire fleet of Empire ships, then, when sufficiently defeated, disable the Romulan and Klingon ships (correctly suspecting both parties would turn their guns on Excelsior once the battle had ended) and return home. The empire, however, already had its own Excelsior built; they had studied the Federation ship earlier in the arc, and used the data gleaned from this examination for help in making their own Excelsior operational. The Mirror-Excelsior is under the command of Captain Blaine, who had evidently convinced others within the Empire's Admirality of Kirk's duplicity. Fortunately, Scotty had deliberately screwed up the Excelsior's sytems before Empire technicians studied them, giving their scanners false readings; as a result, the Mirror-Excelsior cannot draw enough power to operate and is easily defeated.

The Excelsior then returns to the Federation, having dropped off their mirror counterparts in shuttles. When Mirror-Kirk awakens, he tries to contact the nearest Imperial vessel for assistance - not realizing he and his crew have been branded as traitors after the real Kirk's actions left the Imperial fleet crippled. The I.S.S. Nogura picks up Mirror-Kirk's distress signal, and after verifying the identity of those aboard, destroys the shuttle, killing all aboard. Of the Mirror-Enterprise crew, only Mirror-Spock survives, and he elects to join David Marcus's resistance cell.

After returning to his own universe, Kirk gives a reporter an exclusive on how he and his crew saved the Federation from an invasion they would have never known about. Her reports in the mass media paint the Enterprise survivors as heroes, much to the consternation of Starfleet brass who still wanted Kirk court-martialed. In the end, facing a public-relations nightmare if they proceeded with a full trial, Starfleet reluctantly gives Kirk full command of the Excelsior, ostensibly for an extended shakedown cruise to help work out all the bugs in its system. With the exception of Spock (who is assigned to a command of his own, the science vessel Surak), Kirk's entire crew joins him on this new mission. This sets up the later Star Trek comics stories which were published in the interim leading up to the release of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in 1986.

This story, like all Trek comics stories and novels, is not considered canonical with the main Star Trek universe.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Novels", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki