Introduction and terrans
shamelessly crossposting content from AH.com...
Pretty sure I'm not the first, or even the 100th, person to think about this but then again I'm mainly just trying to jot down some of my thought on making a more 'sustainable' mirror universe.
The thing is, many of us love the mirror universe, although most of us would also acknowledge that there's no way that such a savage universe (or at least the political entities that resides within) would still be functional after all the paranoia and backstabs.
Final note, this is heavily inspired by Count of Crisco's (he's over at AH.com, and SB under a different name, he's also crossposting his content on multiple forums so someone should try to get him here) project in rebooting TOS (disclosure: I'm sort of helping out his project in a few small parts), and since he has no intention of doing anything related to the mirror universe I know I'm not gonna accidentally bump into his project or anything.
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Let's start with the humans.
In the prime universe, the humans (okay, so the united federation of planets, but given the humans are the dominate force in starfleet and starfleet holds most of the firepower... oh, and not to mention section 31) are a peaceful and post-materialistic species with very enlightened views on most things. That being said despite all the peacefulness, democracy, and sapient rights the UFP is an ever expanding power, whose military powers can match, if not overcome, far more militant species.
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The history of the humans in the mirror universe would be the one of a journey... to find the most efficient form of authoritarianism. Assuming a fundamental difference in human nature, finding a POD from prime universe would be an exercise in futility, not to mention the need for similar people would require similar/familiar social-political entities... so the differences would have to be not so different.
-Rome's transition from the republic to... not an empire, at least not for long. For the fate of such a vast entity at the hands of a single person is akin to gambling and expecting to win every time. Instead, the republic would transform into an oligarchy (much like OTL late republic, but in this case more overt and less relying on the mob)
-the failures of Athenian democracy being far more stressed in later history, rather than the praise of in their golden era. The perception formed that the success of the Athenian empire was in spite of its democracy rather than because of it.
-the fall of Roman civilization being due to the inability for the ruling class to keep the rabble in line, either due to limits of technology, outside variables (changing climate wrecking the still mainly agrarian economy), or them becoming soft. The last of which is seen by later history as the primary cause
-the dark age ended when strong rulers once again becoming the norm and conquered their weaker neighbors, utilizing better technologies. This has the impact of people (or at least the ruling class) valuing technological progress (but not the spreading of techs, quite the opposite in fact).
-age of discovery and imperialism went hand in hand, as the powers that be are too evenly matched, so they must expand outward for ever more resources and [cannon] fodder.
-The American Civil War being a war between the merits of wage slavery vs chattel slavery rather than over the existence of slavery itself, with the former winning and seen as the superior method of extracting labor from the masses.
-world wars fought between various groups of authoritarian nations for entirely selfish purposes. While later history would cast it as a form of competition between various forms of authoritarian to see which is the most efficient.
-cold war between the forces of oriental despotism and occidental oligarchism. Basically pick your poison. The former invested heavily in robotics (cut out the middle man oppressor/enforcers for the regime) while the latter dabbled in eugenics and genetic engineering (to bred a superior generation of leaders)... needless to say things went wrong in both cases, which leads to...
-final world war, because the planet isn't big enough for the two ideologies (or two groups of self serving bastards, because quite frankly under the hood they're rather similar).
-post war chaos, shit happens yo, brought to an end by the usual means: strong authority enforcing their will and bring order into chaos.
-development of FTL/warp drive pursued because the ruling class realize the planet is always too small, and humanity must funnel their bloodlust and land hunger outward.
-after developing warp, humanity went out... and found themselves the small fish in a big pond. All is not lost however, and humanity quickly got into the business of being mercenaries.
-with mercenary jobs, more advance tech and capital quickly flowed, and soon the hired guns became a conquering army, quickly annexing their former employers and opponents such as the vulcans, andorians, etc. (sounds familiar?)
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So overall the Terran... State would be a highly authoritarian nation state, but with clear line of organization and lack of chronic back stabbing and betrayals. Technological progression would be comparable to OTL (if at far, far greater costs, not only in research but also in production) but spread of technologies would be much slower. So while the Terran State could build reactors as good as any the UFP, such technology would be almost exclusively in the hands of the military and higher government organizations. Obviously, concepts such as human/sapient rights and freedoms would be unheard of, or seen as weakness that brings down nation states.
The various -isms (racism, sexism, etc.) and the various -phobias (homophobia, xenophobia, etc.) have become the means to an end rather than the driving force and motivation. The end in this case being the channeling of discount amongst the masses towards each other and the outside other, but not to the extent of destabilizing social cohesion. The historical failure of democracies and tolerant societies were the result of the lack of the various hatreds, while the failure of the various super authoritarian states were the result of excess hatreds.
In terms of starships the Terran State, unlike the UFP, would rarely retrofit/upgrade their warships with newer tech. The reason being that given the much slower rate of industrial production of higher end tech components excess parts wouldn't make it in enough quantities before the hulls of the ships themselves wore out (or ships themselves destroyed, it's a far more violent universe after all) or production of newer generation of gear begins. Speaking of gear older generation and sometimes even obsolete parts, equipment, and even ships will continue production to sustain necessary numbers.
In terms of fleet composition, the TS space navy would be even more top heavy than the UFP starfleet, as befitting a more dangerous galaxy and the lack of need/use for more peaceful missions. Smaller ships are only useful for beating up and conquering primitive species (which are usually of marginal uses given their lack of relevant industries, but sometimes their planet/solar system do have some rather useful resources... best not think about what happens to them). The space navy's main goals would be to smash enemy fleets and crush planets.
---------------
Pretty sure I'm not the first, or even the 100th, person to think about this but then again I'm mainly just trying to jot down some of my thought on making a more 'sustainable' mirror universe.
The thing is, many of us love the mirror universe, although most of us would also acknowledge that there's no way that such a savage universe (or at least the political entities that resides within) would still be functional after all the paranoia and backstabs.
Final note, this is heavily inspired by Count of Crisco's (he's over at AH.com, and SB under a different name, he's also crossposting his content on multiple forums so someone should try to get him here) project in rebooting TOS (disclosure: I'm sort of helping out his project in a few small parts), and since he has no intention of doing anything related to the mirror universe I know I'm not gonna accidentally bump into his project or anything.
---------------------------
Let's start with the humans.
In the prime universe, the humans (okay, so the united federation of planets, but given the humans are the dominate force in starfleet and starfleet holds most of the firepower... oh, and not to mention section 31) are a peaceful and post-materialistic species with very enlightened views on most things. That being said despite all the peacefulness, democracy, and sapient rights the UFP is an ever expanding power, whose military powers can match, if not overcome, far more militant species.
------
The history of the humans in the mirror universe would be the one of a journey... to find the most efficient form of authoritarianism. Assuming a fundamental difference in human nature, finding a POD from prime universe would be an exercise in futility, not to mention the need for similar people would require similar/familiar social-political entities... so the differences would have to be not so different.
-Rome's transition from the republic to... not an empire, at least not for long. For the fate of such a vast entity at the hands of a single person is akin to gambling and expecting to win every time. Instead, the republic would transform into an oligarchy (much like OTL late republic, but in this case more overt and less relying on the mob)
-the failures of Athenian democracy being far more stressed in later history, rather than the praise of in their golden era. The perception formed that the success of the Athenian empire was in spite of its democracy rather than because of it.
-the fall of Roman civilization being due to the inability for the ruling class to keep the rabble in line, either due to limits of technology, outside variables (changing climate wrecking the still mainly agrarian economy), or them becoming soft. The last of which is seen by later history as the primary cause
-the dark age ended when strong rulers once again becoming the norm and conquered their weaker neighbors, utilizing better technologies. This has the impact of people (or at least the ruling class) valuing technological progress (but not the spreading of techs, quite the opposite in fact).
-age of discovery and imperialism went hand in hand, as the powers that be are too evenly matched, so they must expand outward for ever more resources and [cannon] fodder.
-The American Civil War being a war between the merits of wage slavery vs chattel slavery rather than over the existence of slavery itself, with the former winning and seen as the superior method of extracting labor from the masses.
-world wars fought between various groups of authoritarian nations for entirely selfish purposes. While later history would cast it as a form of competition between various forms of authoritarian to see which is the most efficient.
-cold war between the forces of oriental despotism and occidental oligarchism. Basically pick your poison. The former invested heavily in robotics (cut out the middle man oppressor/enforcers for the regime) while the latter dabbled in eugenics and genetic engineering (to bred a superior generation of leaders)... needless to say things went wrong in both cases, which leads to...
-final world war, because the planet isn't big enough for the two ideologies (or two groups of self serving bastards, because quite frankly under the hood they're rather similar).
-post war chaos, shit happens yo, brought to an end by the usual means: strong authority enforcing their will and bring order into chaos.
-development of FTL/warp drive pursued because the ruling class realize the planet is always too small, and humanity must funnel their bloodlust and land hunger outward.
-after developing warp, humanity went out... and found themselves the small fish in a big pond. All is not lost however, and humanity quickly got into the business of being mercenaries.
-with mercenary jobs, more advance tech and capital quickly flowed, and soon the hired guns became a conquering army, quickly annexing their former employers and opponents such as the vulcans, andorians, etc. (sounds familiar?)
------
So overall the Terran... State would be a highly authoritarian nation state, but with clear line of organization and lack of chronic back stabbing and betrayals. Technological progression would be comparable to OTL (if at far, far greater costs, not only in research but also in production) but spread of technologies would be much slower. So while the Terran State could build reactors as good as any the UFP, such technology would be almost exclusively in the hands of the military and higher government organizations. Obviously, concepts such as human/sapient rights and freedoms would be unheard of, or seen as weakness that brings down nation states.
The various -isms (racism, sexism, etc.) and the various -phobias (homophobia, xenophobia, etc.) have become the means to an end rather than the driving force and motivation. The end in this case being the channeling of discount amongst the masses towards each other and the outside other, but not to the extent of destabilizing social cohesion. The historical failure of democracies and tolerant societies were the result of the lack of the various hatreds, while the failure of the various super authoritarian states were the result of excess hatreds.
In terms of starships the Terran State, unlike the UFP, would rarely retrofit/upgrade their warships with newer tech. The reason being that given the much slower rate of industrial production of higher end tech components excess parts wouldn't make it in enough quantities before the hulls of the ships themselves wore out (or ships themselves destroyed, it's a far more violent universe after all) or production of newer generation of gear begins. Speaking of gear older generation and sometimes even obsolete parts, equipment, and even ships will continue production to sustain necessary numbers.
In terms of fleet composition, the TS space navy would be even more top heavy than the UFP starfleet, as befitting a more dangerous galaxy and the lack of need/use for more peaceful missions. Smaller ships are only useful for beating up and conquering primitive species (which are usually of marginal uses given their lack of relevant industries, but sometimes their planet/solar system do have some rather useful resources... best not think about what happens to them). The space navy's main goals would be to smash enemy fleets and crush planets.
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