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Within the “Star Trek: Picard” episode “Penance” (March 10, 2022), Admiral Picard (Patrick Stewart) is visited by the impish cosmic deity Q (John de Lancie) for the primary time in a long time. Q, for causes all his personal, has determined to check Picard’s cleverness and resolve, and has orchestrated a little bit sport for the Admiral. Q whisks Picard right into a parallel universe whereby Earth is dominated by evil, xenophobic, genocidal tyranny. Picard finds that his parallel self is a mass-murdering basic who retains the skulls of his enemies in his den, and that every one of Earth’s assets at the moment are dedicated to monitoring down and killing different species. It is fairly bleak. Picard finds that this evil timeline started someday within the yr 2024, and he gathers his compatriots to journey again and time to determine what went mistaken.
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Curiously, the tyrant timeline in “Picard” is not fairly the identical because the mirror timeline seen a number of occasions all through “Star Trek.” The mirror timeline was named after its first look within the authentic collection episode “Mirror, Mirror” (October 6, 1967), an episode whereby a number of Enterprise crew members, due to an ion storm, had been unintentionally beamed right into a parallel universe the place everybody was evil. In that universe, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) had a goatee, assassinations had been a standard prevalence, and miscreants had been punished with journeys to the Agony Sales space. The mirror timeline was revisited a number of occasions all through “Star Trek” thereafter, together with a number of occasions on “Deep House 9” and usually all through “Discovery.”
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In fact, in gentle of the tyrant timeline on “Picard,” Trekkies (who like to overthink issues) would possibly start to ponder: If Q created the tyrant timeline — or a minimum of granted Picard open entry to it — did he maybe do the identical with the mirror timeline? In any case, each are a good way to check the ethics of these from the “Prime” timeline. Was the Mirror Universe one other take a look at?
Did Q create the Mirror Universe?
The primary time Trekkies noticed Q, it was within the “Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology” pilot, “Encounter at Farpoint” (September 28, 1987). Within the episode, Q mentioned humanity had ventured out into the galaxy fairly far sufficient, thanks, declaring that people had been, for the majority of their historical past, a violent, warmongering species. Picard declares that people at the moment are peaceable and enlightened, so Q determined to check them. The occasions of “Encounter at Farpoint” had been to be the primary take a look at. Q would return in subsequent episodes to maintain the take a look at going. Humanity needed to show they would not slip again into tyranny at a second’s discover — that they weren’t motivated to worship autocrats simply because, say, grocery costs started to rise.
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In that gentle, one would possibly be capable to see the Mirror Universe as a multidimensional experiment carried out by Q. Maybe Q created this universe (or a minimum of subtly motivated its evolution) by letting humanity comply with its basest instincts towards domination and violence. Q is aware of how horrible humanity could be, as a result of he created what was primarily a “management group” of people that leaned laborious into torture and evil. When he heard Picard discuss how enlightened humanity was, Q was imminently skeptical, as he was only a godly snap of his fingers away from a model of humanity that beloved to torture, conquer, and dominate.
In fact, within the “Deep House 9” episode “Crossover” (Could 16, 1994), it could be revealed that, within the mirror timeline, humanity would finally be overthrown. An evil model of Main Kira (Nana Customer) explains that the visitation of Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to the Mirror Universe in “Mirror, Mirror” (set a century earlier) impressed a robust navy alliance between the Cardassians, the Klingons, and the Bajorans, forming an empire much more highly effective than Earth’s. They conquered Earth and enslaved all people. Maybe that was the top results of Q’s experiment. If humanity was dedicated to conquest, maybe the one logical finish result’s being conquered.
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To simply accept the idea, although, we even have to simply accept that Trelane was a Q
The human characters in “Crossover” are cowed, cowardly, and haven’t got the bandwidth to exert evil over others. They had been delivered to hell. And naturally, if “evil” humanity had been conquered within the Mirror Universe, Q would not use it as his management group. “Crossover,” not by the way, aired concurrently with the ultimate episodes of “Subsequent Technology.” Maybe Q’s look to Picard within the “Subsequent Technology” finale was a approach of “re-upping” his take a look at of humanity’s ethics. He not had an “evil” model of humanity to show his level, so the trial needed to have some new parameters. It will additionally clarify why Q needed to create a second Mirror-like universe in “Star Trek: Picard.” With one model of “evil” humanity taken care of, he merely created one other.
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The “Q created the Mirror Universe” principle additionally dovetails with a preferred Trek principle that Trelane (William Campbell), a godlike alien from the unique collection episode “The Squire of Gothos,” was an adolescent member of the Q Continuum. Trelane was obsessive about humanity, particularly its many historic wars. Trelane, nevertheless, was unintentionally Earth many centuries in its previous, and assumed that the entire planet was nonetheless concerned in world European colonialism … one thing he thought was delightfully and amusingly barbaric. When Trelane meets Kirk, he’s dismayed to see that humanity has advanced right into a peaceable society. It will finally be revealed that Trelane is a baby who seen humanity as playthings. On the finish of the episode, he was admonished by his “dad and mom,” depicted as glowing balls of sunshine.
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Trelane is as impish as Q, main some “Subsequent Technology” followers to posit that he’s certainly one of many similar species. This principle was semi-confirmed by the (non-canonical) Peter David tie-in novel “Q-Squared.” And if Trelane was a younger Q people at their most barbaric … might he have been trying into the Mirror Universe by mistake?
The opening credit to Enterprise supply an extra clue
As Trekkies know from the opening credit of the “Star Trek: Enterprise” episode “In a Mirror, Darkly” (April 22, 2005), the mirror timeline break up from strange human evolution in 1705, about when the HMS Enterprize was first constructed. That episode happened completely within the Mirror Universe, and the showrunners cleverly altered the episode’s opening credit to match the evil tone of a tyrannical humanity. As an alternative of being a montage of the historical past of exploration, it was a montage of the historical past of conquest. By the timeline of that opening credit sequence, humanity appears to have been following its standard historical past till about 1705, when the HMZ Enterprize was constructed. After that, it was all wars, destruction, and compelled colonization.
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If we’re to simply accept that timeline of the Mirror Universe, then it is attainable Trelane wasn’t trying into Earth’s previous, however on the Mirror Universe. As a result of if Trelane was a Q, he would have had entry to the ethics experiments that the Q Continuum was conducting, and any “evil” parallel universe they had been overseeing. Maybe Trelane’s obsession with Earth’s habits on conquest stemmed from his unintended glimpse into Q’s Mirror Timeline.
In fact, that principle would make “Mirror, Mirror” much less fascinating. It is extra thematically salient to level out that humanity was evil and tyrannical by itself — and {that a} distant alien would make assumptions about us — with out the necessity for Q to create a whole evil universe. Perhaps the “Q created the Mirror Universe” principle solely holds water if we depart Trelane out of it.
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