A couple notes: In the section starting at 10:43, I use the first person pronouns "us" and "our" to describe actions by the United States and its people. It occurred to me in post that this wording is, well, America-centric lol. But given that I live in the U.S., it's force of habit. Secondly, in the map section starting at 12:56 I've color coded member states of the Eastern Coalition of Nations (ECON) in yellow. Keen fans may notice not all of the countries normally associated with the ECON are highlighted, but that's because I didn't want to break continuity with the other "American Empire" map I had established earlier.
I Kinda disagree with the premise of America for going to war for oil companies when you consider the 2003 war in Iraq where oil was never seized. As a result, Isis was able to be formed because of the petroleum left over.
One interesting aspect of the Terran Empire to me is that it appears to be just as racially diverse as the Federation (in terms of humans). My theory would be that once humanity learned that there were other sentient beings in the universe, it gave humans a common foe to ultimately unite against. Whereas human racism on Earth in the Federation’s timeline probably faded over time through peaceful societal changes, I can imagine that the humans in the Terran Empire’s timeline probably eradicated racism between humans through more forceful and aggressive means. “Inter-human” racists may have been considered traitors to humanity’s cause in the universe, and therefore would be eliminated.
@@boredlawyer3382 lending you high credibility for this. One thought in current exopolitics dates back to Reagan at the UN saying “how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world". Maybe the first contact gives Mirror Universe US the perfect excuse to solidify the still warring factions of post WWIII into what later becomes the first global Terran Empire, to rally them against this newly discovered "alien threat". The global takeover soon follows. By alternate Archer's time there is already an emperor (who is quickly deposed). Probably the Terran Empire history is littered with a multitude of lineages and murders, like a tyrannomachy, holding together only through alliegance to the species and xenophobia toward extraterrestrials.
I'm really enjoying the special attention you are paying to the Mirror Universe. It's such a fun part of Star Trek. They don't try overly hard to rationalize it or explain it with a scientifically plausible origin. When the audience is forced to let go other technical nitpicking of a Sci-Fi Universe, it allows the storytellers and actors to explore fun and compelling ideas that would otherwise be too fanciful and dramatic for science fiction.
I seem to imagine Federation scholars debating how Mirror Terrans became so violent and warlike. If the Terran Empire hadn't fallen I imagine that Imperial scholars would be debating how Humans in the Prime universe became so pacifistic and weak compared to them. I doubt that they would think to exchange notes with each other though it would be cool if they did.
The Mirror Universe's divergence is probably not a single point. It's incremental changes where everything is getting more and more twisted and separate as time goes on. Everyone is just a bit more agressive, a bit more barbaric, a bit darker, a bit more murderous. One small change in prehistory, another in antiquity, a few during the middle-ages and so on. Similar or the same events might still happen from time to time, the same people are born more or less, but all those changes add up to something totally different than the prime universe.
Agree, I don't think the United States even really existed i the Mirror Universe. There is no real connection to the Liberty/Human Rights ethos of the United States. The only similarity is multi-cultural individuals. I think this is why people point to Rome since it was a multi-cultural state but had no love for Human Life. Mongolia would be another potential candidate and that would explain the Asiatic piece of the Empire. However, I think the general scheme is that all of Human history is pretty different in the Mirror Universe.
Ye, Ghengis Kahn could help, but also Caligula, Hannibal & Hitler. Instead of being conquered in the morror universe, they become the catalysts, to a darker & more barbaric mirror universe, which would push away more 'civilized/enlightened' leaders like Ghandi or Martin Luther King & make make others like FDR, Churchil or others more extreme, which causes the norm for the 'Terrans' to be more dark & bent towards power, murder, slavery & total domination, in a more Fascistic way...
The United States got the atomic bomb first! That's how, unlike Truman, the American Empire used the atomic bomb to become the Terran Empire. Roosevelt was in power for as long as Hitler.
@@drhibas You could even argue no-one's actually tried 'Communism,' pretty much every country I can think of from the USSR onwards has, at the very least 'played around' with the concept to 'reward' those 'loyal to the party.'
Here is my headcanon hypothesis: the Mirror Universe/Terran Empire was unwittingly created by Doctor McCoy when he saved Edith Keeler in 1930 in City on the Edge of Forever in S1 TOS. Kirk and Spock "restored" their original timeline but the Keelerverse continued to exist as the Mirror Universe.
If the Nazis had won WW2, they'd have wiped out all non-Whites and probably a bunch of White groups that weren't "pure Aryan" so there'd be no mirror Sulu, no mirror Uhara, no mirror Chekov with a Russian accent, no mirror Sisko, etc. Also, the symbol of the Empire would be something resembling the Swastika. Your idea's interesting and a dark universe where the Federation is the Terran Reich with Starfleet-like ships with Nazis symbols on them would be something to see but it isn't likely the mirror universe we've seen in canon.
@@girlgarde Actually, I like that theory somewhat but haven't thought it through. Still, the Nazis wouldn't have won if they didn't know where to *stop.* In any universe, even a crazy one. Cause the rest of the world would be 'mirror baddies' too. (I mean, Japan probably wouldn't have lost if evil mirror America said, 'Hey, you with the Manchuria massacres, you're our kind of people! Here, have some diesel and aviation fuel, mind taking care of some of the rest of that hemisphere? We're busy stealing from the French!" (I mean, if you carrry it further, mirror-universe Wiemar Republic woulda just killed the Nazis early on and fought in the name of the King of Prussia either for or against who was still calling themselves Holy Roman Emperor in the Alsace that week....)
I really like the idea of the "Keelerverse" becoming the Mirror universe. The idea that saving an inherently good person triggers some sort of butterfly effect whereby WW2 plays out largely the same but America emerges somehow more authoritarian, the cold war maybe becomes a bit more heated and by the end of the 1970/80s? Democratic America has become an "American Empire"...
@@AdumbroDeus The Enterprise Mirror credit sequence showed conflict, but not necessarily dominance. It was a parody of the snippets in the regular opening sequence, which showed a progression but not a geopolitical history.
@Major Problems Sadly our scientific and political movements currently in power are chock-full of anti-intellectualism and science denying. Any time there is a "Scientific consensus", it is a political fiction to keep in power or enrich the rulers. I read an article this morning that illustrated this and ended with the following tweet: Galileo contradicted the scientific consensus of geocentricism Wegener contradicted the scientific consensus that continents can't move Einstein contradicted the scientific consensus of Newtonian physics. Someday your climate cult will be remembered with the same disdain. - Tony Heller (@Tony__Heller) October 7, 2021
To be fair, Discovery explicitly stated that the _only_ biological difference between Terran humans and prime humans was an increased sensitivity to light, and that was only done to reveal Lorca as from there. It ties in nicely with most previous depictions of the Mirror Universe being lit more darkly, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop a prime human raised in the Mirror Universe from having the potential to be just as vicious and selfish.
Fatal flaw: Flocx compared Shakespeare in both universes. He said they were "equally grim," not identical. A fundamental difference existed between them, and for a long further back.
I always kind of assumed the TE was a warped outgrowth of the US, I mean the Roman symbolism is present in the US anyways and there are a number of times US history could have taken a very different path. Great video, as always, thank you!
Yes but the United States takes its inspiration from the Roman Republic, not the Empire, Russia however took its inspiration from the Empire. I think a dictatorship arose in the 1930s in the United States, that dictatorship takes the place of the Roosevelt Administration, this was inspired by Mussilini. The Manhattan Project would be key to America taking over the World.
I think that's simplistic. Roman symbolism is all over the world, Germany especially. Besides, the symbolism used most by the US is Greek and Egyptian.
@@OG_Wakanobi Romans copied Greek Architecture, and the United States wanted to project strength, not weakness, the Roman Republic symbolized strength, so our model was Rome, not Athens for our democratic Republic, we labeled one of our chambers the Senate after all. Germany, like a lot of European countries, liked to imitate the Roman Empire not the Republic, it started out as a monarch who's king went by the title of Kaiser. Germany had imperial ambitions, its ruler had imperial ambitions as the word Kaiser translates to Caesar, Germans had a long held fascination with the Roman Empire, not its predecessor Republic, that is why Germany's predecessor was called the Holy Roman Empire and not the Holy Roman Republic. Seems to me that the Terran Empire is rooted in the American Empire, which was the Mirror Universe counterpart to the United State. American Emperors were non hereditary, much like the Early Roman Emperors were. The American Empire spread out across North America much as the United States had, it was a fairly prosperous Empire, there was a slave uprising in the south led by the Great Emancipator Robert E. Lee, but after four years of brutal fighting it was crushed by the North under the Emperor Abraham Lincoln with the help of Generals Sherman and Grant. The American Empire became the Terran Empire shortly after the defeat of Germany in World War II. The American Empire got the atomic bomb first and used it, first to defeat Japan, and then to defeat the Soviet Union and conquer Europe and Asia, so by 1949 the Terran Empire was established under the Emperor Douglas MacArthur, after he deposed the previous American Emperor in a military coup.
@@LemonKotor I can't see an American Empire that acts like the protogenator of the Terran Empire ever allowing a Cold War to happen between itself and the Mirror Universe Soviet Union, if it has the choice to do otherwise and if Mirror history mirrors our own, then the American Empire gets the atomic bomb first, and its not going to sit on its hands for four years while the Soviet Union tries to get theirs in 1949. The Cold War doesn't happen because the American Empire conquers the Soviet Union using their four-year monopoly on the atomic bomb.
My theory is that the socalled _"prime universe"_ is a alternate timeline _(think Kelvin-Timeline)_ of one of the mirror universes - yes, I believe in the beta canon that there are multible mirror universes.
I mean, every alternate universe would be the "Prime" universe from their perspective. We only call this one Prime because it's from that perspective. It's all relative, with an infinite amount of alternate realities that differ in certain ways. The one "Mirror" universe seems to be somehow "near" the Prime universe so crossover is most likely between those two (possibly the closest one that has not collapsed on itself from some sort of dimmentional instability). Probably due to the relative recentness of branching off. They do say that they are getting farther appart in the far future. I think this has been well established throughout the Star Trek shows and not reliant on beta canon at all, as I've never read any of it and this is all based on Alpha canon.
@@wendtchr Ah while ago I did a fairly long post on reddit _(got buried sadly, probably 'cuz I more or less proved on a sidenote that ENT, STD and Picard are set in a different universe than TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY)_ where I explained my reasoning behind this theory of mine - and I also only used alpha canon for that.
I really just feel like we aren't dealing with just one Mirror Universe. Discovery seems pretty incompatible with the Klingon dominance in DS9 considering they blew up the Klingon's home world in the Discovery version. The TOS and DS9 versions may be the same universe. The Enterprise one seems like it fits in nicely with the Discovery one as it shows the same levels of extreme human dislike of other species, but would not fit with the TOS version as it seems like the Enterprise and Discovery ones would never tolerate a half-breed like Spock with any amount of authority, no matter how trivial.
My headcanon is that the events of Enterprise created these parallel universes because of Daniels' Temporal Cold War. Disco and Kelvin are divergent timelines with each divergent having a Mirror universe.
I mean, it wouldn't really make much sense for Enterprise to be a mirror universe. There's dislike toward aliens because aliens - the Vulcans - have been suppressing humanity's progress for effectively no reason. Then there came the Xindi and their weapon. That'd not go over well with mankind either. Or the Romulan War. It's understandable *why* there's a dislike of alien species, but also admirable that humanity overcame that to become a founding member of the Federation. If we're really saying that humans not being super nice all the time means the episode/series exists in an MU, then DS9 would exist in one. Humans aren't portrayed as the bestest friends. As Quark said: "But deprive them of creature comforts. Put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time, and they can become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon." Let's not forget the time Picard lost it in First Contact, smashing up his display cabinet because of his sheer hatred for the Borg. Is that an MU too? Other than the Kelvin Timeline and the actual Mirror Universe, Discovery is the only series that'd make sense being an MU cos of the shit that happens in it not lining up with continuity.
Like how in the T.O.S. episode 'Mirror Mirror' where Kirk,Scotty,McCoy and Uhura became aware of the mirror universe through a transporter mishap when they were beaming upto they're Enterprise at the exact same time as they're counterparts when an ion storm affected the transporter and caused the 2 different away teams to switch places.
One point that is often missed or misinterpreted: The Ancient Roman Salute is neither ancient, nor indeed Roman. It originated soon after the very first Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by two flag-selling brothers (the Bellamys), first to sell more American flags, but later to form a civil religion in which schoolchildren would be propagandized, where God would be replaced with America, and Christianity with socialism and loyalty to the State (due to the intellectual currents of the time, this could be stated openly and explicitly without drawing ire from cultural conservatives). Almost immediately after the publication and popularization of the pledge, a salute was devised, where the person would place their hand on their heart, then extend their hand to point at the flag, palm facing up. This was eventually changed to palm-downward, arm stiff at a 45-degree angle, which was easier and quicker for kids to do in a school setting. Every morning. Five days a week, thirty-six weeks per year. Plus Flag Day, Fourth of July, and every Scout meeting. In November, 1942, this was changed to hand-on-heart (alone), because the Nazis had copied off of us and ruined it for everybody. So, what about Rome? Didn’t ancient Roman statues depict Romans gesturing in this way? Well, not exactly. Certainly, there is a famous statue of Caesar Augustus with his right arm extended-parallel to the ground. Then there is a painting by Jacques-Louis David, “The Oath of the Horatii,” in which three Roman brothers are saluting their father, who is holding a bundle of swords. The problem is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (the official pre-internet arbiter and curator of literary memes), the first-ever usage of the phrase “ancient Roman salute” was in *1959*-a mere eight years prior to the broadcast of the original Mirror Universe episode “Mirror, Mirror,” in 1967. Twenty-five years after a chest-thump, “Nazi salute” had been dropped from the curriculum of American schoolchildren, long enough to seem exotic to Baby Boomers who had never seen it enacted save by Nazis and Romans. Aha! you say. So actual Romans *did* salute that way! Again, no. Romans *on tv and movies* saluted that way, notably on “Spartacus” (1960). However, again, there is no evidence that any actual Romans actually ever saluted that way, much less with an “Ave, Imperator” (which is Latin for “Heil, Fuhrer.”). So yeah, pretty sure that wasn’t a thing. What happened was, in 1913, an extra in a silent film (don’t recall which) added a salute to his character (a Roman soldier)’s action because he thought it looked cool. This was during a rise of American jingoism, and connecting America with Rome was a fairly common meme. The director left it in, somebody else copied it, and the meme flourished. After the war, we had to explain whence the Nazis had got it, which couldn’t be us, since the Nazis were bad guys, so it had to be some other source, and here were all these movie Romans. So it officially became the “ancient Roman salute” but not until fourteen years after the defeat of the Nazis. Spartacus therefore became the first “Romans” movie to promulgate the misconception that the Nazis had copied an “ancient Roman Salute™️.” Which means that the salute’s use in “Mirror, Mirror” was copied from Spartacus, which was copied from American schoolchildren, which was invented to sell more American flags for the Columbian Exposition. And now you know the rrrrrest! of the story.
It is interesting to think about, they've hinted the Mirror Universe diverged WAY before Cochrane invented the warp drive. There's a lot of Roman symbolism I wager the Roman Empire collapsed a LOT later and its influences were even greater.
My idea is that Christianity never arose so without its influence, Humanity didn't get the ideas of peace, tolerance and other things that Jesus preached and so Humans retained a Roman mindset.
If we just assume that there's some sort of "spooky woo" which keeps the two universes connected and pumping out matching casts of people, then this explanation for the origin of the Terran Empire is...really good! 👍 Although I must admit I'd not heard of this proposed doctrine before, so learning new history is always a win in my book 😁
Enterprise showed a completely different first contact situation. This may have occurred either because the third world war ended differently or there was no interference by time traveling Borg in their timeline, or there were more partially modified humans around after the eugenics war, which is my favorite as it accounts for the aggressiveness of the humans in the Terran Empire.
Another reason for the Enterprise (or indeed another Imperial starfleet ship) to travel back to the past. Dissident Vulcans use a temporal displacement device to prevent first contact. Their presence, along with the "Enterprise" away team causes the events of first contact to play out as historically detailed.
@@paulo9991 Holy Roman Empire ended in 1806, via the abdication of Emporer Francis II Western Roman Empire fell in 476AD. with the desposition of Romulus Augustus. (However by then the Empire had already disibtugrated into separate domains.) Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire fell in 1453, to the Ottoman Empire, under Mehmed II (He and his successors claimed to be the heirs of the former until the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922.)
If Enterprise was 100ish years after the first warp flight, and knowing the events of first contact happened differently in the mirror universe, I'd speculate a more open admiration to Col. Green as well as Terra Nova founders being responsible for organizing and founding the Terran Empire instead of Terra Nova. I'd look at all links being there.
Just found your channel and it's GREAT! I love your delivery and your dry wit adds comedic moments without detracting from the delivery. Excellent work.
One interesting alternative to the 1950s is the 1930s. Hitler expected the UK to join him as an ally, and was surprised when they didn't. Without Churchill's leadership they may well have. In the US there were many anti-semitic fascists who supported Hitler and wanted the US to join on their side, against the communists. So what if these forces had won out, the UK had allied with Germany and the US later followed suit. With the larger economy the US would have soon been the senior fascist state, Germany and the UK would have been minor partners, and the USSR would have been crushed. Throw in an allied Imperial Japan as another junior partner (likewise conquering China) and it looks like a good basis for the Terran Empire.
@OrangeRiver I appreciate your videos, and the tremendous amount of research that you do (I completely agree with statements in many of your comment sections that you should be hired by the companies producing 'star trek' content as a historian) after being a fan of 'star trek' for 50 years and consuming all types of trek content (tv, cinema, comics, novels, video games) you still present information that even i hadn't known before, so bravo. my only criticism is your monotone delivery, just a little variation in your tone of voice would put your work over the top. Thank you for all your efforts, your doing a fantastic job!
I like this theory. One thing gets me, though, and a quick search on Memory Alpha doesn't seem to pull anything up. What about The City on the Edge of Tomorrow? In that they find that a young activist is agitating for peace, cooperation, and generally all of the things that the United Federation of Planets stands for, but at a time when all of the things that the United Federation of Planets stands for was in genuine peril from the Third Reich. Had she come sooner in Earth's history, or sometime after World War II, perhaps her living would have brought about the United Federation of Planets sooner. But she came when she did, and McCoy saving her from being hit by a car meant that the US did not enter World War II until it was too late. I've always thought of this as the beginning of the mirror universe. In that episode, they even state something about the Federation never having existed because of the history change. They can't raise anyone from the Federation on Federation frequencies because the Federation isn't there. They also don't draw the attention of the Terran Empire, whose universe they now exist in, because the Terran Empire hasn't expanded out that far yet. Which typically lines up with my reading of fascist regimes. It typically takes longer to get anything other than military action going. But I don't know how to reconcile fascist regimes' slow-to-grow history, with other things we see in Star Trek mirror universe episodes. Like you mention, it seems that something like the space race still happens at roughly the same time. But maybe this gives you some additional food for thought. Or maybe this was already covered in one of your other episodes on the topic. I do apologize if that's the case. RUclips gave me this video to look at, and I thought it was really interesting. I'll check out the other videos, too.
I always saw the Federation of the prime universe as a combination of the best attributes of the US and the USSR, or at least in the mind of Gene Roddenberry. It had the respect for human rights of the US and the cooperative economics of Russia. The Terran Empire would be a combination of the worst aspects, the jingoism of the US and the authoritarianism of the USSR.
According to his wife Magel Barrett, his last wife, Gene’s political leaning was communist. She said at a local convention that the Chinese model of communism was his ideal.
One point, if the Mirror universe started with an event on Earth in the 1950's, that would not affect the rest of the galaxy. In all the mirror universe episodes I have watched, save for Discovery, all the species that are common to Star Trek have all been "turned to the dark side", at some point in history, irrespective of Earth.
That is why I think the Mirror Universe existed since the Big Bang. I think there's some general principle that makes evil approaches to things more successful. And our universe has a general principle that makes good approaches to things more successful. Finally I think the two universes are entangled and resynchronize constantly.
I mostly ignore the mirror universe. I was down with it the first time but now it makes zero sense. In the empire people progress through assasination and in Enterprise a ton of people die. So how exactly does this universe have all the same people in the same positions every time anyone goes there? By the time Discovery went there is was so absolutely ridiculous I couldn't bring myself to care about anything StarTrek. They have beat the hell out of that lame horse and there is simply no way to work any of it into a sensible storyline. Discovery is even less sensible when you consider how Xenophobic humans are there, yet all the mixed characters like Spock still exist somehow.
I agree with that. Except the Spock part. Fascists or Nazis. Whatever you want to call them are very inconsistent. Look at WW2. Germany allied itself with Nationalist China and than dropped that alliance in favor of Japan. Not exactly white guys. The SS, so called the purest of the German race, also had an Arab legion and several Slavic legions. For example their was an SS Legion made out of former Tsarist loyalist who joined the SS to destroy the communists and restore the Romanov dynasty (as if Hitler had any intention of actually doing that lmao, he hated communists, but he also disliked the royalty) Races they considered inferior. Herman Goering, leader of the Luftwaffe and perhaps the second most powerfull in Nazi Germany (at least at some point, the Nazi party was a crab's nest) had a Jewish 4 star General. Hermann faked his papers and had the Jewish General declare his Jewish father (or grandfather? Not sure) was not actually his (grand)father but that his (grand)mother had cheated on his wife with a non-Jew. Commenting on this Hermann simply said "In the Luftwaffe I decide who's a Jew or not" Hermanns brother was actually anti-Nazi and used his famous last name to save many Jews or at least tried to. He even faked being his brother to release Jews. He got arrested a lot for this, but if Herman Goering said "release my brother" you released his brother. They had different politics, but they were still brothers I guess.
I must. Admitt the begining of the Enterprise episode A Mirror Darkly confused me a bit. In the begining we see Corcan's evil counter part murdering the Vulcan landing party and leading a mob of a mob into their ship to loot their technology. Then in the opening credits there is footage from the two World Wars and the Cold war. I have read Star Trek novels and watched episodes from each series with the exception of Lower Decks which I haven't got a chance to see yet. I have learned the Star Trek saga is set in a vast multiverse with several different universes. There are at least two Mirror Universes. In a STNG novel I read Picard and his crew discover a Mirror Universe inwhich the Terran Empire survived into Earth's 24th Century. In that Mirror Universe. Spock was killed twelve years after meeting Kirk from Universe Prime and unable to stop the Terran Empire's growth and long era of militaritism. And oppression. However DS9. Introsuced us to a Second Mirror Universe inwhich Spock survives to become Emporer with mixed results. On one hand he his a kinder and genteler ruler but on the other hand under his leadership the Terran Empire's military becomes to weak to be a match for the Klingons and Cardassians. Who bring down the Terran Empire and take over that Empire's former subjects. In this Universe Bajor is taken over by the Terran Empire some time before that Empire falls. By the time that Empire does fall Klingons and Cardassians might have been greeted as liboraters. Kira appears to be in charge if both DS9 and Bajor. I can't rember if the Cardassians regarded her as an equal or a puppet ruler but the Klingons. Definately saw her as big time royalty. When a Klingon ship in the second Mirror Universe comes face to face with Major Kira from Universe Prime he thinks she's the Mirrror Kira and drops to one knee calling her Mistriss.
One of the reasons that imperialism and fascism became less popular was a result of the excesses of the Nazis and Japanese during WW2. It is possible that if Hitler was stopped earlier, then Fascism would have continued to appear attractive as an efficient, effective form of government. Taking direct, as opposed to hegemonic, control would have also continued to appear attractive and morally acceptable. Imperialism was viewed by members of Imperialist powers as in the best interests of lesser societies who ultimately "benefitted" from being controlled by more scientifically and morally "advanced" nations.
I will make your theory my headcanon, considering the interventions in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Phillipines following the Spain-US war and the intervention of Grenada. Let's ponder the question WHAT IF... the Korean War of Vietnam result in a USA victory, and then Bay of Pigs succeeds, or, later Nixon/Kissinger go for a more overt form of intervention to depose Allende and impose a more authoritarian form of neoliberalism in South America
Uhmmm… the U.S. did impose an authoritarian neoliberal agenda on not just Latin America, worldwide. Until the U.S. installed Pinochet Chile was pretty much the only nation in Latin America that didn’t have a authoritarian (often military) right wing government. The U.S. has always supported fascist over democracy abroad. I don’t understand why people think otherwise. This is the country that practically invented crap like Social Darwinism and championed the eugenics movement. Why do people think racism thrives today, it didn’t start yesterday. These types of over arching attitudes are reflected in sociopolitical and macroeconomic policies.
What you have described (although you have made references to capitalism, fascism an communism) is called "Managerialism". One of it's hallmarks being that ideology does not matter, only the processes of control and distribution of production to a favored class (which typically evolves in government in much the same way that it does in business, which is to say that 'leaders' do not matter, because leaders do not have or exercise control, and stated aims are lip service incompatible with the true aim of the organization. It is the bureaucratic organizations to which both are beholden to that exercise true power and authority). The Federation is WITHOUT A DOUBT a Managerialist organization. Sometimes, the bureaucratic organ achieves a level of control that puts it beyond anyone's control, as for example when The IRS can pursue and prosecute private citizen and corporation alike into oblivion due to it's ability to make use of unlimited resources, or when judges step outside Constitutional bounds to legislate from the bench, often based upon little more than personal opinions, or when corporations of wealthy individuals can spend untold sums to buy influence on behalf of themselves or an entire industry...*cough* Zuckerberg...*cough*). Ideology is secondary; the Nazis, for example, called themselves "Socialist", but their brand of Socialism was to be reserved for a single class -- ethnic Germans -- hence, their obsession with race and need for conquest (because SOMEONE has to pay for Socialism, after all). Rome eventually developed the same defect. North Korea and Cuba call themselves 'democratic republics' but neither is practiced there. The Soviet Union was a hyper-Managerialist state, for certain. Managerialism came to the U.S. in the form of The New Deal and never stopped (the Military-Industrial Complex and the Welfare State are Managerialist creations). This theory was worked out in a series of books by James Burnham, beginning with "The Managerial Revolution" in 1940. Burnham postulated that Capitalism was dead, but Socialism would not replace it, and that what would arise was a Technocracy of "experts' (The Managers) who would control the means of both production and distribution by virtue of the specialized -- but vital -- functions they practiced in all areas of society, and so exercise true control. (This book served as the basis for Orwell's '1984', incidentally, even though Orwell almost made a career out of sh*tting all over Burnham's theories. 'The Party' is a Managerialist organization; the splitting of the world into massive superstates is a Managerialist phenomenon foretold by Burnham (it has happened: NAFTA created a trading bloc in the Americas; The European Union exists; lesser organizations like SEATO, OAS, the G8, the proposed 'Anglosphere', all the trans-Government claptrap about Climate Change, all reek of Managerialism) as bureaucracies often transcend national borders, Continuous warfare is used as an excuse to maintain a status quo). It's very possible the Terran Empire began much like many of our modern institutions -- the UN, the WTO, NATO, NAFTA, or any of the international NGO-based organizations dedicated to a particular (presumably good) cause. However, Burnham also postulated that since the purpose of any Managerialist group was to maintain it's power, prestige, privileges and position against all comers, this meant it would come into conflict with OTHER Managerialist organizations, and what eventually results is internecine fights and intrigue where each Managerialist group is seeking nothing less than the elimination of all others. And who is to say just how far any organization will go to protect or advance itself? You see it in the West today when things like 'The Deep State' truly plays by a different set of rules than the ones it enforces on non-members (as an example), uses coercion, perversions of law, 'othering', social pressure, violence (official and sanctioned unofficial) and often plays upon peoples' fears, prejudices and ignorance to manipulate public opinion , public policy, or even elections (allegedly). We see that Presidents, Prime Ministers, and so forth are merely mouthpieces: the business of government takes place in nameless, faceless, unknown bureaucracies of whose functions the average person is ignorant, and upon which political power truly rests. Maybe the Terran Empire is a Managerialist state where the Military faction came out on top, perhaps co-opting a few of it's rivals that it didn't destroy, as well. Sorry, wandered off a bit, but the parallels between the Terran Empire and the historical Managerialist states is too close.
My take on it would be, what if the military had taken Patton's advice, and invaded the Soviet Union, and Soviet occupied Eastern Europe while we had all of America's troops, and weapons there before The Soviets had tested their first atomic bomb in 1949? That would certainly fit the Terrain Empire coming into existence about the 1950's. Of course, in our timeline this didn't happen because the U.S. population, and the government weren't hungry for another war following World War II. Although, if in the alternate timeline there had been a war with the Soviet Union about that time then maybe there would have been so many protests, and rising crime, which was the backstory for how the world of Escape From New York happened, then you could forsee the U.S. having to become more of a dictatorship to clamp down on the war protests. Thus you get The Terrain Empire in perpetuity.
You only have to take what you wrote a few steps further: To get ahead in the Mirror Universe is not so much the "opposite" of what happens in the Prime universe, just the more aggressive path such as ALL US generals in WWII were as aggressive as Patton. You don't even have to add in the 'what ifs' much either (such as 'what if Patton lived and commanded the 1st wave against the Soviets in 1945' rather, the decision was made to do it regardless but IF Patton lived AND re-armed the defeated Germans to combine forces against the USSR. . . ) All rocket technology for space originated from the Nazi war machine (yes, Robert Goddard is the father of US rocket tech but it was Von Braun who took it writ large) AND if only the US had that tech instead of allowing the USSR to capture enough Nazi scientists to build their systems, the US would be the ONLY nation-state with BOTH nuclear capability AND heavy lift rocketry. The UK, US and Nazi Germany had the 1st generation of jet aircraft as well. See the tech picture? The US in Prime universe was only more benevolent than the Mirror US (by the way, TERRAN is merely using the Latin 'terra' which means Earth so references to extension of the Roman Empire could merely be language related) and therefore allowed a shared and more peaceful/rational view on tech; Mirror US had only to hoard ALL advanced tech for itself to become dominant plus not stopping the global war in 1945. So now imagine a tech-dominate US in 1949: jet aircraft, intermediate & intercontinental ballistic missiles and both Fission & fusion weapons to back up the largest industrial based logistics system spanning all of Terra. IF the nuclear secrets did not leave the US, both the USSR and PRC could not have developed their nukes in time to counter a fully-dominate US military. The Korean War may not have occurred (or in the same way) and Indo-China devolved into the Vietnam war, etc.
To be honest I don’t think the Mirror Universe has anything to do with the United States, or whatever it’s counterpart would be called, Terrans are all united and equal, if the Empire has evolved from any specific country then there would be lower class Terrans we see which is obviously not the case, it seems to have sprung up from some global movement. Another sign of this is as well as all Roman-esc western culture there seems to be some eastern imperialistic culture mixed in to such as the Empires of achina and Japan having an obvious influence especially in Discovery. Perhaps in the mirror universe one of the alien species that meddled in Earths pre-warp history was noticed causing humanity to be united much earlier but with an obvious xenophobic outlook, this would be why they perceived the Vulcans as “yet another invasion” in their eyes. In the mirror first contact the man standing behind Cochrane who rallies the Terrans to board the Vulcan ship seems to have a disruptor a weapon which humanity in the Prime Universe obviously doesn’t have at that point, which means either humanity spent more time focusing technological advancements on weapons instead of exploration (they don’t seem to have gone to the moon until the 22nd century based on the space suit) or that it is reverse engineered alien technology,
The USA is probably genuinely the best starting point. While they occasionally make efforts to be more diverse, Star Trek has generally been fairly "American" in tone and viewpoint. We usually ignore this for the actual aliens but we really cannot do that if we insist on trying to interpolate the origins of the Terran Empire. We HAVE TO base it on how they are represented because it is all we have. But I think the origins would show major divergence from 19th century. The US was actually very aggressive and expansionist during this period. Pretty much all of contiguous US beyond the east coast is land Spain or Mexico lost in wars during this century. Beyond this there was military action on the Caribbean, the Latin America, and the Pacific. In the real and prime this was moderated by the US being fairly democratic and the people just not being comfortable turning the US into a colonial empire resembling the British Empire they just broke off due to injustices of the colonial system. So actual expansion was almost exclusively to areas where American settlers would move in large enough numbers to make cultural and political integration to the US proper relatively simple. But given that the mirror universe seems to affect how people think this limit probably would not exist there. I think it is entirely feasible that the entire Spanish speaking Americas would end up as formal US client states. It would have been entirely practical arrangement even in the real apart from both the Americans and the locals having severe issues with pseudo-colonialism after their various wars of independence or liberation. And the resulting political structure of a strong central state with several subject states is what word "empire" actually means. This empire would have been one of the strongest players in the game and would have none of the issues historical US had with competing for colonies in Africa and Asia. History probably would have been mostly the same until world war two. But during the cold war an American Empire would have been quite different from the the real and prime US. Where in the real the US supported variety of non-communist dictators and military juntas, the empire would have just moved in and taken over. Similarly the NATO counterpart would not have had the thin pretense of equality and respect the real one has. The US would have just openly become the hegemon of the alliance. They would have had open power over even internal affairs of other members by legally ratified treaty. In some ways it might have worked better than what actually happened because it would have been more transparent with reality and appearances being more in sync. This almost always results in better efficiency, which means less corruption and even less people dying in avoidable wars. It would have been quite reasonable for such empire where the American culture openly politically dominates the entire world to take more fascist tones. They would have had very good reason to think the Americans are superior because that would be the openly accepted reality. It would also been quite reasonable to take inspiration from the Roman Empire. It would be just common sense for a power dominating western Europe, the Americas, much of the Middle East, and Africa to claim to be the inheritors of the Roman Empire because that is what they effectively would be. Openly stating that would be essentially free legitimacy and just make everything more stable and manageable.
I thought the beginning of the Terran Empire was shown in the early episodes of "Star Trek: Enterprise" season 4 where the Axis powers almost won WW2 with alien help. The fractured, war weary Earth would become xenophobic when they found out about aliens, would become more agressive, militant, etc. Eugenics War would start in the 1990's and ultimately lead to the Terran Empire.
Interesting. Just a thought…the opening sequence of Enterprise In A Mirror Darkly seemed to me to be a similar opening to the normal but in such a universe they’d focus on the war aspects of society. Which would mean things were basically the same until the divergence happened but if we were occupants of the mirror universe, this would be more important for the shows opening than the usual opening
Excellent video. I keep thinking there is something to the sensitivity to light as a cause of divergence - maybe Terrans evolved to be active during different parts of the day than humans, causing more fights for resources and adding to their aggressive behavior. I do still think there is something to the Roman theories, as they refer to themselves as “Terrans.” Perhaps the evolution of the Roman republic was different in the mirror universe (possibly there was no Senate) pushing different ideas when the USA was formed. Keep these videos coming!
Love the mirror in the background and the dark shadow reflected. Reminding us the intentions of the writers, it matters not how or why, but just that they are our darker representations of ourselves.
I think Discovery desribes the Terrans more a distinct race, then as a species. If the Terrans have their greater aggression rooted going as far back as pre-history, there's going to be very real genetic differences between Federation humans and Terrans.
It would be nice to think so. But don't fool yourself. Humans today, all it would take is a very slight cultural shift toward self and ambition and a government that chooses force over dialogue in it's international relations.
A simple action such as the Vulcan’s arriving after detecting humanities first nuclear detonation at the end of WW2, and subsequently attacking humanity as we present a threat to galactic peace and aren’t far away from developing interstellar travel could have lead to the Terran Empire. Don’t forget the Vulcans had a policy of always attacking the Klingons first upon detection and asking questions later… And that was after one bad experience in the normal Star Trek universe… They’re also extremely paranoid and selfish and screwed over the Andorians on their other border time and time again, even lying to humanity about the conflict.
Then it would be the Vulcan Empire we would be discussing not the Terran. Since has Earth history (and indeed galactic history) has detailed in multiple entries, that the party that arrives first with the superior weapons technology, the numbers and the more virulent diseases, tends to make a historical footnote of those doorsteps they've suddenly arrived upon.
First of all, thank you for all the work you put into these videos. I found them recently and enjoy them a lot. Honestly, I think your probably right on the source of the Terran Empires nature. It’s a mixture of their universe being fundamentally darker than ours and the worst aspects of the us magnified, a mirror of the UFP. That’s probably as close as we’ll ever get to a origin for them given how ‘flexible’ and weird trying to make all the lore canon is. That being said, your video provided me with my own more dramatic fan theory. That is that the big divergence is genuinely Washington leading the mutiny at Trenton rather than suppressing it and ended up as Kings. This reinforcing the basic tenants of Monarchism, Absolutism, and Imperialism. Combine that with the potential French Revolution devolving into the Napoleonic Empire. It could go a long way to creating a world view and world very similar the Mirror Universe.
All this said and done. Watching the episodes where the mirror universe features, you can see how much fun the actors are having with their mirror versions.
This was a great video, everything was on point. Now as far as discovery's TE, again this is a distinct possibility it would have been, and then I See Mirror Mirror as the reality and discovery as an another yet darker mirror universe.
Yeah, that stuck out to me too. Is anyone still in denial about America being an empire? But yes, I know there is. Americans; or a subset of us, anyway.
Except that we're not openly killing each other to get promotions, most people still believe in love, friendship and compassion plus lots of people protest and take actions to try and stop corrupt people like Trump. We shouldn't let the media and people like Trump make us think that we're doomed to die out or become the mirror universe of Star Trek. Every era of Human history has had lots of problems but we shouldn't focus solely on what's wrong with the world. We need to put some focus on what's right in the world. We've got vaccines for Covid, much of the world has been pulled out of poverty because of capitalism, much of the world is at least somewhat democratic, we haven't killed ourselves in a nuclear war and the world isn't controlled by the Nazis or the Soviets /both of whom the West has defeated/ plus Communist China is crumbling from within and the West's enemies will likely maul each other in Afghanistan pretty soon. My point is that we've got a lot of serious issues to contend with but so has every generation. They somehow survived and so can we, we just can't lose hope that we'll survive and that things will eventually improve.
@@girlgarde You're lost still trying to put things on Trump as if our issues started with him. Plus, do you see how people are treating the vaccinated and people who don't wear masks? Its disgusting. I ain't trying to start no ish with you but open your eyes past loving the liberal/democrat side of the game. Obama bombed a country we were not supposed to be in until we had no more bombs in country. Then they killed so many civilians that they changed the definition of what was a successful bombing to military aged males because the casualties were in the 90th percentile of innocent victims. People here have lost all moral fiber and sense of logic as to what to actually protest and fight for and how to do it. The people in the empire are comfortable with the slow erosion of morals. Its great to be positive and optimistic but lets be realistic and look at facts. All of them.
I don't think the Mirror Universe has ever shared a history with the Prime Star Trek Universe. It has always been the dark reflection There may have been times when the two universes shared events, but they were always their versions of events. They come togther and then fly apart. The fact they have common denizens is likely something akin to quantum entanglement across dimensions. People born connected, but the qualities of their universes directed their lives on different paths. The connections are not as close as quantum entanglement, thus the deaths of Jennifer Sisko and Jadzia were delayed but inevitable.
Don't forget the Star Trek Voyager episode 'Living Witness' where Voyager was portrayed like a warship of the Terran Empire even though it was shown differently nearly 700 years later after the real Voyager visited they're world even though everything that was shown about they're version of Voyager was a holographic program and in they're version of it the Doctor was an android and not a hologram and of all the Star Trek series after T.O.S. that didn't have any encounters with the Mirror Universe was TNG.
I think you're spot on with your analogy of the US to the Terran Empire. However, I think it's a bit bleaker than you anticipate. In the immediate aftermath of the second world war, there were strong calls for a US nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union as troops were already there, and the US had temporary nuclear supremacy. This wasn't a far-fetched possibility, even noted pacifist Bertrand Russel advocated for this, and I think that this could be a very reasonable start for the Terran Empire with the US becoming the sole uncontested superpower.
Probably an outgrowth of american imperialism similar to the fallout universe. in Fallout before the nuclear war the US and other superpowers became desperate at low resources and went to war for them becoming increasingly imperialist and somewhat evil in their actions. Possibly this happened in some form in the mirror universe, some crisis caused nations to be forced to fight for survival and change to accomodate it.
Like this analysis. Ever since Enterprise, I have generally looked at the Terran Empire this way. I felt that the shot of the Terran Empire flag over the US Army marching was a pretty clear sign of American world domination paving the way for the rise of the empire. I do wonder what the Eugenics Wars looked like in the mirror universe, however.
The United States engaging in Imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is an established fact--there is a reason we have so many island territories in the Pacific (dating back well _before_ WW2) and have such close ties with the Philippines and many Caribbean nations. Whether what happened later in the 20th century is Imperialism is up for debate however; I tend to think it's similar but a subtly different idea.
Prior to the arrival of TNG, DS9 and all the later Star Trek series the only information given about the Mirror Universe was from a Star Trek graphic novel released in the early eighties. It postulated that the Terran Empire rose as a result of Earth LOSING the war with the Romulans and the subsequent occupation of Earth by them. After a couple of decades of occupation Earth managed to regain its freedom and in order to avoid being defeated again started its expansion and occupation of other worlds resulting in the founding of the Terran Empire.
Its the golden rule: those who have most of the gold (money buys power, influence and resources) make all the rules. Thats always been the case, even though these days such a notion is considered a delusional conspiracy theory completely detached from all logic, reason and possibility. Most warfare has always been primarily psychological. When you've got the minds of the people, you've got the nation. Thats why people running for office make campaign speeches. The hearts and minds of the people, matter when it comes to how much power and control is able to be gained.
While I love to speculate about the mirror universe, I hope it never gets a canon history and whenever we see it in an episode again, it's just the evil counterpart to the current trek show's setting.
As I see this question today: West Empire domination in XXI century -> Mirror Universe -> Terran Empire BRICS hegemony in XXI century -> Prime Universe -> Federation Thanks very much for the video.
It's also perhaps worth noting that the American Republic had a lot of neo-classical revivalism in its founding. The Roman salute was used during the pledge of allegiance in schools up until WW2. The public buildings of Washington DC were built to mimic ancient Rome. Its mirror counterpart not getting squeamish about the symbolism because of fascism the way it did in reality (or prime universe if you will) could have seen that Roman fetishisation ramped up over time for propaganda purposes. It's also possible that a US that had a more overt Roman ideal from its beginnings could have disrupted the formation of the Axis powers by making America more favourable towards supporting Mussolini (and possibly Franco in Spain and Peron in Argentina). Hitler may have found himself without European allies (not that that would have altered the outset of the war all that much as Germany conquered the low countries and France on its own. The big question is Russia. If the Terrans were always temperamentally different to prime timeline humans then what would the ideology of the mirror Soviet Union be? Likely their Stalin would be an even bigger tyrant than ours was but would he be leading a nominally communist regime or something else? Would the USSR exist in the mirror universe at all or would tsarist Russia have been overthrown by a different set of revolutionary ideals?
Interesting video, I always assumed it was a victorious combination of Germany/Italy/Japan in WW2, but it could just as easily be a result of the fascistic and racist tendencies of the US at different times, and simply the victory of those tendencies. You could also imagine combinations of this where the US simply didn't get involved in WW2, and then later sided with the winners and began amassing it's own similar fascist empire.
And the use of the transporter to go to the mirror universe wouldn't be seen again til Star Trek Deep Space Nine where Smiley and the mirror universe Jennifer and Ezri Dax used it.
Since the date of divergence is hovering around the 50’s, what if the Nazis employed under “paper clip” and the Roswell incident, that could have triggered severe xenophobia to non-humans.
I was working 2nd shift during the Discovery days and only saw 3 episodes of the entire series. No opinions to share there. But I liked what you had to say, it has a certain logic to it, without going into any current political discussion.
I always wondered if the mirror universe is what happened if the protestant reformation never happened (or was thoroughly snuffed out) and Roman Catholicism ruled on. Said religion does tend to favor authoritarianism and facism. The holdover of Romanlike traditions could be the result of the line of popes continuing to pretend that they were still a part of the Roman Empire. Ae science evolved (fueled by warfare) eventually a secular leader would have come along to snuff out the religious aspect of things while keeping many of the traits fostered by the church.
Considering the salute that Spock 2 gives Kirk, I would say that the foundation of the Terran Empire is a combination of the ancient Roman Empire and Nazi Germany.
In the mirror universe, maybe Edith Keeler didn't die. Consider what was foretold in City on the Edge of Forever. In the prime universe, Spock discovered the alternative future from his tricorder recordings of the images shown by the Guardian of Forever. Keeler had to die, otherwise her well-meant pacifism would delay or prevent the US entry into WW2, allowing the Axis powers to win the war and create very different history on Earth. That could have been the turning point, the beginnings of the Terran empire.
A couple notes:
In the section starting at 10:43, I use the first person pronouns "us" and "our" to describe actions by the United States and its people. It occurred to me in post that this wording is, well, America-centric lol. But given that I live in the U.S., it's force of habit.
Secondly, in the map section starting at 12:56 I've color coded member states of the Eastern Coalition of Nations (ECON) in yellow. Keen fans may notice not all of the countries normally associated with the ECON are highlighted, but that's because I didn't want to break continuity with the other "American Empire" map I had established earlier.
You did a good job on this video 🙂
I Kinda disagree with the premise of America for going to war for oil companies when you consider the 2003 war in Iraq where oil was never seized. As a result, Isis was able to be formed because of the petroleum left over.
My girlfriend would insist on the term US instead of America. She's from Mexico City 😀
@@VolkerHett my dad is from Canada my relatives up in the great white north call the US "the states"
@@VolkerHett it is difficult to say United Statesian rather than American.
One interesting aspect of the Terran Empire to me is that it appears to be just as racially diverse as the Federation (in terms of humans). My theory would be that once humanity learned that there were other sentient beings in the universe, it gave humans a common foe to ultimately unite against. Whereas human racism on Earth in the Federation’s timeline probably faded over time through peaceful societal changes, I can imagine that the humans in the Terran Empire’s timeline probably eradicated racism between humans through more forceful and aggressive means. “Inter-human” racists may have been considered traitors to humanity’s cause in the universe, and therefore would be eliminated.
Your point is a good one. It is why I doubt that a Nazi victory would lead to the Terran Empire.
The Terran Empire... or the Terran Imperium?
T think it's a bit naive to say that 'racism on Earth in the Federation’s timeline probably faded over time' - too many agents acting against that.
Q
@@boredlawyer3382 lending you high credibility for this. One thought in current exopolitics dates back to Reagan at the UN saying “how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world".
Maybe the first contact gives Mirror Universe US the perfect excuse to solidify the still warring factions of post WWIII into what later becomes the first global Terran Empire, to rally them against this newly discovered "alien threat". The global takeover soon follows.
By alternate Archer's time there is already an emperor (who is quickly deposed). Probably the Terran Empire history is littered with a multitude of lineages and murders, like a tyrannomachy, holding together only through alliegance to the species and xenophobia toward extraterrestrials.
I'm really enjoying the special attention you are paying to the Mirror Universe. It's such a fun part of Star Trek. They don't try overly hard to rationalize it or explain it with a scientifically plausible origin. When the audience is forced to let go other technical nitpicking of a Sci-Fi Universe, it allows the storytellers and actors to explore fun and compelling ideas that would otherwise be too fanciful and dramatic for science fiction.
I seem to imagine Federation scholars debating how Mirror Terrans became so violent and warlike. If the Terran Empire hadn't fallen I imagine that Imperial scholars would be debating how Humans in the Prime universe became so pacifistic and weak compared to them. I doubt that they would think to exchange notes with each other though it would be cool if they did.
The Mirror Universe's divergence is probably not a single point. It's incremental changes where everything is getting more and more twisted and separate as time goes on. Everyone is just a bit more agressive, a bit more barbaric, a bit darker, a bit more murderous. One small change in prehistory, another in antiquity, a few during the middle-ages and so on. Similar or the same events might still happen from time to time, the same people are born more or less, but all those changes add up to something totally different than the prime universe.
Agree, I don't think the United States even really existed i the Mirror Universe. There is no real connection to the Liberty/Human Rights ethos of the United States. The only similarity is multi-cultural individuals. I think this is why people point to Rome since it was a multi-cultural state but had no love for Human Life. Mongolia would be another potential candidate and that would explain the Asiatic piece of the Empire. However, I think the general scheme is that all of Human history is pretty different in the Mirror Universe.
It’s all because of the light sensitivity
Ye, Ghengis Kahn could help, but also Caligula, Hannibal & Hitler. Instead of being conquered in the morror universe, they become the catalysts, to a darker & more barbaric mirror universe, which would push away more 'civilized/enlightened' leaders like Ghandi or Martin Luther King & make make others like FDR, Churchil or others more extreme, which causes the norm for the 'Terrans' to be more dark & bent towards power, murder, slavery & total domination, in a more Fascistic way...
Sounds like what is happening now people are not as nice as they used to be and covid is wearing us down.
@@raytylicki9001 You mean like back when slavery was legal, or just back to the Jim Crow era. Bro, people weren't nicer back in the past at all.
If the UFP represents the best aspects of the US, then it makes logical sense for the Terran Empire to reflect the darkest aspects of the US.
The United States got the atomic bomb first! That's how, unlike Truman, the American Empire used the atomic bomb to become the Terran Empire.
Roosevelt was in power for as long as Hitler.
@@AgentPepsi1 In TOS when everything started, the socialist part of the utopia was not really established yet in story telling.
@@AgentPepsi1 unlike actual communism you mean? I dont think any country has tried actual socialism?
@@drhibas You could even argue no-one's actually tried 'Communism,' pretty much every country I can think of from the USSR onwards has, at the very least 'played around' with the concept to 'reward' those 'loyal to the party.'
You mean dystopia.
Here is my headcanon hypothesis: the Mirror Universe/Terran Empire was unwittingly created by Doctor McCoy when he saved Edith Keeler in 1930 in City on the Edge of Forever in S1 TOS. Kirk and Spock "restored" their original timeline but the Keelerverse continued to exist as the Mirror Universe.
While an interesting idea, it contradicts American mirror universe dominance shown in the opening crawl on ENT.
If the Nazis had won WW2, they'd have wiped out all non-Whites and probably a bunch of White groups that weren't "pure Aryan" so there'd be no mirror Sulu, no mirror Uhara, no mirror Chekov with a Russian accent, no mirror Sisko, etc. Also, the symbol of the Empire would be something resembling the Swastika.
Your idea's interesting and a dark universe where the Federation is the Terran Reich with Starfleet-like ships with Nazis symbols on them would be something to see but it isn't likely the mirror universe we've seen in canon.
@@girlgarde Actually, I like that theory somewhat but haven't thought it through. Still, the Nazis wouldn't have won if they didn't know where to *stop.* In any universe, even a crazy one. Cause the rest of the world would be 'mirror baddies' too. (I mean, Japan probably wouldn't have lost if evil mirror America said, 'Hey, you with the Manchuria massacres, you're our kind of people! Here, have some diesel and aviation fuel, mind taking care of some of the rest of that hemisphere? We're busy stealing from the French!" (I mean, if you carrry it further, mirror-universe Wiemar Republic woulda just killed the Nazis early on and fought in the name of the King of Prussia either for or against who was still calling themselves Holy Roman Emperor in the Alsace that week....)
I really like the idea of the "Keelerverse" becoming the Mirror universe. The idea that saving an inherently good person triggers some sort of butterfly effect whereby WW2 plays out largely the same but America emerges somehow more authoritarian, the cold war maybe becomes a bit more heated and by the end of the 1970/80s? Democratic America has become an "American Empire"...
@@AdumbroDeus The Enterprise Mirror credit sequence showed conflict, but not necessarily dominance. It was a parody of the snippets in the regular opening sequence, which showed a progression but not a geopolitical history.
Keep the videos coming! King Washington is one of my favourite alternate uninverse concepts, not just Star Trek but in general.
It would have spelled disaster and left America a lot weaker.
The way the US is heading today I can believe this theory.
@Major Problems Sadly our scientific and political movements currently in power are chock-full of anti-intellectualism and science denying. Any time there is a "Scientific consensus", it is a political fiction to keep in power or enrich the rulers. I read an article this morning that illustrated this and ended with the following tweet:
Galileo contradicted the scientific consensus of geocentricism
Wegener contradicted the scientific consensus that continents can't move
Einstein contradicted the scientific consensus of Newtonian physics.
Someday your climate cult will be remembered with the same disdain.
- Tony Heller (@Tony__Heller) October 7, 2021
Bush: "Your either with us or with the terrorists!
@@Awestefeld6612 You're trying WAY too hard. Trump and MAGA ally with Putin, Xi, the lot.
To be fair, Discovery explicitly stated that the _only_ biological difference between Terran humans and prime humans was an increased sensitivity to light, and that was only done to reveal Lorca as from there. It ties in nicely with most previous depictions of the Mirror Universe being lit more darkly, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop a prime human raised in the Mirror Universe from having the potential to be just as vicious and selfish.
Fatal flaw: Flocx compared Shakespeare in both universes. He said they were "equally grim," not identical. A fundamental difference existed between them, and for a long further back.
I always kind of assumed the TE was a warped outgrowth of the US, I mean the Roman symbolism is present in the US anyways and there are a number of times US history could have taken a very different path. Great video, as always, thank you!
Yes but the United States takes its inspiration from the Roman Republic, not the Empire, Russia however took its inspiration from the Empire.
I think a dictatorship arose in the 1930s in the United States, that dictatorship takes the place of the Roosevelt Administration, this was inspired by Mussilini. The Manhattan Project would be key to America taking over the World.
I think that's simplistic. Roman symbolism is all over the world, Germany especially. Besides, the symbolism used most by the US is Greek and Egyptian.
@@OG_Wakanobi Romans copied Greek Architecture, and the United States wanted to project strength, not weakness, the Roman Republic symbolized strength, so our model was Rome, not Athens for our democratic Republic, we labeled one of our chambers the Senate after all. Germany, like a lot of European countries, liked to imitate the Roman Empire not the Republic, it started out as a monarch who's king went by the title of Kaiser. Germany had imperial ambitions, its ruler had imperial ambitions as the word Kaiser translates to Caesar, Germans had a long held fascination with the Roman Empire, not its predecessor Republic, that is why Germany's predecessor was called the Holy Roman Empire and not the Holy Roman Republic.
Seems to me that the Terran Empire is rooted in the American Empire, which was the Mirror Universe counterpart to the United State. American Emperors were non hereditary, much like the Early Roman Emperors were. The American Empire spread out across North America much as the United States had, it was a fairly prosperous Empire, there was a slave uprising in the south led by the Great Emancipator Robert E. Lee, but after four years of brutal fighting it was crushed by the North under the Emperor Abraham Lincoln with the help of Generals Sherman and Grant.
The American Empire became the Terran Empire shortly after the defeat of Germany in World War II. The American Empire got the atomic bomb first and used it, first to defeat Japan, and then to defeat the Soviet Union and conquer Europe and Asia, so by 1949 the Terran Empire was established under the Emperor Douglas MacArthur, after he deposed the previous American Emperor in a military coup.
@@thomaskalbfus2005 Fascinating alternative history theory to go with an awesome video 🤓😎✌️
@@LemonKotor I can't see an American Empire that acts like the protogenator of the Terran Empire ever allowing a Cold War to happen between itself and the Mirror Universe Soviet Union, if it has the choice to do otherwise and if Mirror history mirrors our own, then the American Empire gets the atomic bomb first, and its not going to sit on its hands for four years while the Soviet Union tries to get theirs in 1949. The Cold War doesn't happen because the American Empire conquers the Soviet Union using their four-year monopoly on the atomic bomb.
My theory is that the socalled _"prime universe"_ is a alternate timeline _(think Kelvin-Timeline)_ of one of the mirror universes - yes, I believe in the beta canon that there are multible mirror universes.
It stands to reason
I mean, every alternate universe would be the "Prime" universe from their perspective. We only call this one Prime because it's from that perspective. It's all relative, with an infinite amount of alternate realities that differ in certain ways. The one "Mirror" universe seems to be somehow "near" the Prime universe so crossover is most likely between those two (possibly the closest one that has not collapsed on itself from some sort of dimmentional instability). Probably due to the relative recentness of branching off. They do say that they are getting farther appart in the far future. I think this has been well established throughout the Star Trek shows and not reliant on beta canon at all, as I've never read any of it and this is all based on Alpha canon.
@@wendtchr Ah while ago I did a fairly long post on reddit _(got buried sadly, probably 'cuz I more or less proved on a sidenote that ENT, STD and Picard are set in a different universe than TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY)_ where I explained my reasoning behind this theory of mine - and I also only used alpha canon for that.
@@wendtchr Imagine the Optimus Prime universe! where it crosses over with transformers! lol.
I really just feel like we aren't dealing with just one Mirror Universe. Discovery seems pretty incompatible with the Klingon dominance in DS9 considering they blew up the Klingon's home world in the Discovery version. The TOS and DS9 versions may be the same universe. The Enterprise one seems like it fits in nicely with the Discovery one as it shows the same levels of extreme human dislike of other species, but would not fit with the TOS version as it seems like the Enterprise and Discovery ones would never tolerate a half-breed like Spock with any amount of authority, no matter how trivial.
agreed
My headcanon is that the events of Enterprise created these parallel universes because of Daniels' Temporal Cold War. Disco and Kelvin are divergent timelines with each divergent having a Mirror universe.
I mean, it wouldn't really make much sense for Enterprise to be a mirror universe. There's dislike toward aliens because aliens - the Vulcans - have been suppressing humanity's progress for effectively no reason. Then there came the Xindi and their weapon. That'd not go over well with mankind either. Or the Romulan War. It's understandable *why* there's a dislike of alien species, but also admirable that humanity overcame that to become a founding member of the Federation.
If we're really saying that humans not being super nice all the time means the episode/series exists in an MU, then DS9 would exist in one. Humans aren't portrayed as the bestest friends. As Quark said: "But deprive them of creature comforts. Put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time, and they can become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon." Let's not forget the time Picard lost it in First Contact, smashing up his display cabinet because of his sheer hatred for the Borg. Is that an MU too?
Other than the Kelvin Timeline and the actual Mirror Universe, Discovery is the only series that'd make sense being an MU cos of the shit that happens in it not lining up with continuity.
Discovery is not cannon!!!
I think Star Trek Enterprise is canonical with TOS and TNG, but Discovery is definitely not Canon.
Like how in the T.O.S. episode 'Mirror Mirror' where Kirk,Scotty,McCoy and Uhura became aware of the mirror universe through a transporter mishap when they were beaming upto they're Enterprise at the exact same time as they're counterparts when an ion storm affected the transporter and caused the 2 different away teams to switch places.
Hey the evil black jacket is back
I believe you are the most learned Star Trek guy ever! Bravo to your great research and delivery!
One point that is often missed or misinterpreted: The Ancient Roman Salute is neither ancient, nor indeed Roman.
It originated soon after the very first Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by two flag-selling brothers (the Bellamys), first to sell more American flags, but later to form a civil religion in which schoolchildren would be propagandized, where God would be replaced with America, and Christianity with socialism and loyalty to the State (due to the intellectual currents of the time, this could be stated openly and explicitly without drawing ire from cultural conservatives).
Almost immediately after the publication and popularization of the pledge, a salute was devised, where the person would place their hand on their heart, then extend their hand to point at the flag, palm facing up. This was eventually changed to palm-downward, arm stiff at a 45-degree angle, which was easier and quicker for kids to do in a school setting. Every morning. Five days a week, thirty-six weeks per year. Plus Flag Day, Fourth of July, and every Scout meeting. In November, 1942, this was changed to hand-on-heart (alone), because the Nazis had copied off of us and ruined it for everybody.
So, what about Rome? Didn’t ancient Roman statues depict Romans gesturing in this way? Well, not exactly. Certainly, there is a famous statue of Caesar Augustus with his right arm extended-parallel to the ground. Then there is a painting by Jacques-Louis David, “The Oath of the Horatii,” in which three Roman brothers are saluting their father, who is holding a bundle of swords. The problem is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (the official pre-internet arbiter and curator of literary memes), the first-ever usage of the phrase “ancient Roman salute” was in *1959*-a mere eight years prior to the broadcast of the original Mirror Universe episode “Mirror, Mirror,” in 1967.
Twenty-five years after a chest-thump, “Nazi salute” had been dropped from the curriculum of American schoolchildren, long enough to seem exotic to Baby Boomers who had never seen it enacted save by Nazis and Romans. Aha! you say. So actual Romans *did* salute that way! Again, no. Romans *on tv and movies* saluted that way, notably on “Spartacus” (1960). However, again, there is no evidence that any actual Romans actually ever saluted that way, much less with an “Ave, Imperator” (which is Latin for “Heil, Fuhrer.”). So yeah, pretty sure that wasn’t a thing. What happened was, in 1913, an extra in a silent film (don’t recall which) added a salute to his character (a Roman soldier)’s action because he thought it looked cool. This was during a rise of American jingoism, and connecting America with Rome was a fairly common meme. The director left it in, somebody else copied it, and the meme flourished. After the war, we had to explain whence the Nazis had got it, which couldn’t be us, since the Nazis were bad guys, so it had to be some other source, and here were all these movie Romans. So it officially became the “ancient Roman salute” but not until fourteen years after the defeat of the Nazis. Spartacus therefore became the first “Romans” movie to promulgate the misconception that the Nazis had copied an “ancient Roman Salute™️.”
Which means that the salute’s use in “Mirror, Mirror” was copied from Spartacus, which was copied from American schoolchildren, which was invented to sell more American flags for the Columbian Exposition.
And now you know the rrrrrest! of the story.
It is interesting to think about, they've hinted the Mirror Universe diverged WAY before Cochrane invented the warp drive. There's a lot of Roman symbolism I wager the Roman Empire collapsed a LOT later and its influences were even greater.
My idea is that Christianity never arose so without its influence, Humanity didn't get the ideas of peace, tolerance and other things that Jesus preached and so Humans retained a Roman mindset.
If we just assume that there's some sort of "spooky woo" which keeps the two universes connected and pumping out matching casts of people, then this explanation for the origin of the Terran Empire is...really good! 👍
Although I must admit I'd not heard of this proposed doctrine before, so learning new history is always a win in my book 😁
Enterprise showed a completely different first contact situation. This may have occurred either because the third world war ended differently or there was no interference by time traveling Borg in their timeline, or there were more partially modified humans around after the eugenics war, which is my favorite as it accounts for the aggressiveness of the humans in the Terran Empire.
Another reason for the Enterprise (or indeed another Imperial starfleet ship) to travel back to the past. Dissident Vulcans use a temporal displacement device to prevent first contact. Their presence, along with the "Enterprise" away team causes the events of first contact to play out as historically detailed.
Darkly through the looking past?
A first contact darkly?
but first contact did away with the borgs assimilation of earth
My head canon used to always be that the mirror universe was what would’ve happened if Edith Keeler had lived.
The Terran Empire is just the successor of the Mirror Roman Empire in my books. Long live the Empire!
Eastern or Western half of the Roman empire. The Holy Roman Empire, or one of its many successor claimants after its initial collapse?
@@misterjei I don't know. Whatever the superior side was.
@@paulo9991
Holy Roman Empire ended in 1806, via the abdication of Emporer Francis II
Western Roman Empire fell in 476AD. with the desposition of Romulus Augustus. (However by then the Empire had already disibtugrated into separate domains.)
Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire fell in 1453, to the Ottoman Empire, under Mehmed II (He and his successors claimed to be the heirs of the former until the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922.)
@@misterjei Western Roman Empire. Pont of divergence would be that they never fell and continued to absorb.
@@misterjei "holy" """roman""" """""empire""""" is not even an option to consider
I love the way you wear your leather in this video to kinda display your own “dark” side. ;)
Yeah yeah. I kinda got the feeling that this is the Mirror Universe version of him 😁
If Enterprise was 100ish years after the first warp flight, and knowing the events of first contact happened differently in the mirror universe, I'd speculate a more open admiration to Col. Green as well as Terra Nova founders being responsible for organizing and founding the Terran Empire instead of Terra Nova. I'd look at all links being there.
Some excellent food for thought in this episode!!
Just found your channel and it's GREAT! I love your delivery and your dry wit adds comedic moments without detracting from the delivery. Excellent work.
Welcome Shawn!
Slavery, Genoci.., Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny and interventions sounds perfect for this to happen.
One interesting alternative to the 1950s is the 1930s. Hitler expected the UK to join him as an ally, and was surprised when they didn't. Without Churchill's leadership they may well have. In the US there were many anti-semitic fascists who supported Hitler and wanted the US to join on their side, against the communists. So what if these forces had won out, the UK had allied with Germany and the US later followed suit. With the larger economy the US would have soon been the senior fascist state, Germany and the UK would have been minor partners, and the USSR would have been crushed. Throw in an allied Imperial Japan as another junior partner (likewise conquering China) and it looks like a good basis for the Terran Empire.
@OrangeRiver I appreciate your videos, and the tremendous amount of research that you do (I completely agree with statements in many of your comment sections that you should be hired by the companies producing 'star trek' content as a historian) after being a fan of 'star trek' for 50 years and consuming all types of trek content (tv, cinema, comics, novels, video games) you still present information that even i hadn't known before, so bravo. my only criticism is your monotone delivery, just a little variation in your tone of voice would put your work over the top. Thank you for all your efforts, your doing a fantastic job!
Maybe it all came down to how drunk Zephram Cochrane was when Vulcans made first contact 😅😅
Excellent video provides a lot to think about in regards to the Terran Empire.
Are "Members Only" leather jackets standard issue in the mirror universe?
They're definitely a uniform requirement, yes. Also, love your profile pic!
@@OrangeRiver wait what is his pfp, i recognize it but i can't remember exactly
I like this theory. One thing gets me, though, and a quick search on Memory Alpha doesn't seem to pull anything up. What about The City on the Edge of Tomorrow? In that they find that a young activist is agitating for peace, cooperation, and generally all of the things that the United Federation of Planets stands for, but at a time when all of the things that the United Federation of Planets stands for was in genuine peril from the Third Reich. Had she come sooner in Earth's history, or sometime after World War II, perhaps her living would have brought about the United Federation of Planets sooner. But she came when she did, and McCoy saving her from being hit by a car meant that the US did not enter World War II until it was too late.
I've always thought of this as the beginning of the mirror universe. In that episode, they even state something about the Federation never having existed because of the history change. They can't raise anyone from the Federation on Federation frequencies because the Federation isn't there. They also don't draw the attention of the Terran Empire, whose universe they now exist in, because the Terran Empire hasn't expanded out that far yet. Which typically lines up with my reading of fascist regimes. It typically takes longer to get anything other than military action going.
But I don't know how to reconcile fascist regimes' slow-to-grow history, with other things we see in Star Trek mirror universe episodes. Like you mention, it seems that something like the space race still happens at roughly the same time. But maybe this gives you some additional food for thought. Or maybe this was already covered in one of your other episodes on the topic. I do apologize if that's the case. RUclips gave me this video to look at, and I thought it was really interesting. I'll check out the other videos, too.
I have always liked the thought that we, our timeline, is the mirror universe.
Wasn't until about 15 mins in before I realized he was sitting in front of a mirrored wardrobe, not a threshold. ...i dig the irony.
I always saw the Federation of the prime universe as a combination of the best attributes of the US and the USSR, or at least in the mind of Gene Roddenberry. It had the respect for human rights of the US and the cooperative economics of Russia.
The Terran Empire would be a combination of the worst aspects, the jingoism of the US and the authoritarianism of the USSR.
According to his wife Magel Barrett, his last wife, Gene’s political leaning was communist. She said at a local convention that the Chinese model of communism was his ideal.
Awesome vid!!!!! I am The Terran Emperor of The 1st Terran Empire from 58,000 B.C on Star Trek Online =)
Washington was offered to stay president for the rest of his life but he declined. In the mirror universe maybe he didnt.
I feel this fact was a huge oversight during the early part of the video. The man had many, many flaws but did set up the two term precedent.
One point, if the Mirror universe started with an event on Earth in the 1950's, that would not affect the rest of the galaxy.
In all the mirror universe episodes I have watched, save for Discovery, all the species that are common to Star Trek have all been "turned to the dark side", at some point in history, irrespective of Earth.
That is why I think the Mirror Universe existed since the Big Bang. I think there's some general principle that makes evil approaches to things more successful. And our universe has a general principle that makes good approaches to things more successful.
Finally I think the two universes are entangled and resynchronize constantly.
I mostly ignore the mirror universe.
I was down with it the first time but now it makes zero sense.
In the empire people progress through assasination and in Enterprise a ton of people die. So how exactly does this universe have all the same people in the same positions every time anyone goes there?
By the time Discovery went there is was so absolutely ridiculous I couldn't bring myself to care about anything StarTrek.
They have beat the hell out of that lame horse and there is simply no way to work any of it into a sensible storyline.
Discovery is even less sensible when you consider how Xenophobic humans are there, yet all the mixed characters like Spock still exist somehow.
I agree with that.
Except the Spock part. Fascists or Nazis. Whatever you want to call them are very inconsistent. Look at WW2. Germany allied itself with Nationalist China and than dropped that alliance in favor of Japan. Not exactly white guys.
The SS, so called the purest of the German race, also had an Arab legion and several Slavic legions. For example their was an SS Legion made out of former Tsarist loyalist who joined the SS to destroy the communists and restore the Romanov dynasty (as if Hitler had any intention of actually doing that lmao, he hated communists, but he also disliked the royalty) Races they considered inferior.
Herman Goering, leader of the Luftwaffe and perhaps the second most powerfull in Nazi Germany (at least at some point, the Nazi party was a crab's nest) had a Jewish 4 star General. Hermann faked his papers and had the Jewish General declare his Jewish father (or grandfather? Not sure) was not actually his (grand)father but that his (grand)mother had cheated on his wife with a non-Jew.
Commenting on this Hermann simply said "In the Luftwaffe I decide who's a Jew or not"
Hermanns brother was actually anti-Nazi and used his famous last name to save many Jews or at least tried to. He even faked being his brother to release Jews. He got arrested a lot for this, but if Herman Goering said "release my brother" you released his brother. They had different politics, but they were still brothers I guess.
I must. Admitt the begining of the Enterprise episode A Mirror Darkly confused me a bit. In the begining we see Corcan's evil counter part murdering the Vulcan landing party and leading a mob of a mob into their ship to loot their technology. Then in the opening credits there is footage from the two World Wars and the Cold war. I have read Star Trek novels and watched episodes from each series with the exception of Lower Decks which I haven't got a chance to see yet. I have learned the Star Trek saga is set in a vast multiverse with several different universes. There are at least two Mirror Universes. In a STNG novel I read Picard and his crew discover a Mirror Universe inwhich the Terran Empire survived into Earth's 24th Century. In that Mirror Universe. Spock was killed twelve years after meeting Kirk from Universe Prime and unable to stop the Terran Empire's growth and long era of militaritism. And oppression. However DS9. Introsuced us to a Second Mirror Universe inwhich Spock survives to become Emporer with mixed results. On one hand he his a kinder and genteler ruler but on the other hand under his leadership the Terran Empire's military becomes to weak to be a match for the Klingons and Cardassians. Who bring down the Terran Empire and take over that Empire's former subjects. In this Universe Bajor is taken over by the Terran Empire some time before that Empire falls. By the time that Empire does fall Klingons and Cardassians might have been greeted as liboraters. Kira appears to be in charge if both DS9 and Bajor. I can't rember if the Cardassians regarded her as an equal or a puppet ruler but the Klingons. Definately saw her as big time royalty. When a Klingon ship in the second Mirror Universe comes face to face with Major Kira from Universe Prime he thinks she's the Mirrror Kira and drops to one knee calling her Mistriss.
One of the reasons that imperialism and fascism became less popular was a result of the excesses of the Nazis and Japanese during WW2. It is possible that if Hitler was stopped earlier, then Fascism would have continued to appear attractive as an efficient, effective form of government. Taking direct, as opposed to hegemonic, control would have also continued to appear attractive and morally acceptable. Imperialism was viewed by members of Imperialist powers as in the best interests of lesser societies who ultimately "benefitted" from being controlled by more scientifically and morally "advanced" nations.
I will make your theory my headcanon, considering the interventions in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Phillipines following the Spain-US war and the intervention of Grenada. Let's ponder the question WHAT IF... the Korean War of Vietnam result in a USA victory, and then Bay of Pigs succeeds, or, later Nixon/Kissinger go for a more overt form of intervention to depose Allende and impose a more authoritarian form of neoliberalism in South America
Uhmmm… the U.S. did impose an authoritarian neoliberal agenda on not just Latin America, worldwide. Until the U.S. installed Pinochet Chile was pretty much the only nation in Latin America that didn’t have a authoritarian (often military) right wing government.
The U.S. has always supported fascist over democracy abroad. I don’t understand why people think otherwise. This is the country that practically invented crap like Social Darwinism and championed the eugenics movement.
Why do people think racism thrives today, it didn’t start yesterday. These types of over arching attitudes are reflected in sociopolitical and macroeconomic policies.
What you have described (although you have made references to capitalism, fascism an communism) is called "Managerialism". One of it's hallmarks being that ideology does not matter, only the processes of control and distribution of production to a favored class (which typically evolves in government in much the same way that it does in business, which is to say that 'leaders' do not matter, because leaders do not have or exercise control, and stated aims are lip service incompatible with the true aim of the organization. It is the bureaucratic organizations to which both are beholden to that exercise true power and authority).
The Federation is WITHOUT A DOUBT a Managerialist organization.
Sometimes, the bureaucratic organ achieves a level of control that puts it beyond anyone's control, as for example when The IRS can pursue and prosecute private citizen and corporation alike into oblivion due to it's ability to make use of unlimited resources, or when judges step outside Constitutional bounds to legislate from the bench, often based upon little more than personal opinions, or when corporations of wealthy individuals can spend untold sums to buy influence on behalf of themselves or an entire industry...*cough* Zuckerberg...*cough*).
Ideology is secondary; the Nazis, for example, called themselves "Socialist", but their brand of Socialism was to be reserved for a single class -- ethnic Germans -- hence, their obsession with race and need for conquest (because SOMEONE has to pay for Socialism, after all). Rome eventually developed the same defect. North Korea and Cuba call themselves 'democratic republics' but neither is practiced there. The Soviet Union was a hyper-Managerialist state, for certain. Managerialism came to the U.S. in the form of The New Deal and never stopped (the Military-Industrial Complex and the Welfare State are Managerialist creations).
This theory was worked out in a series of books by James Burnham, beginning with "The Managerial Revolution" in 1940. Burnham postulated that Capitalism was dead, but Socialism would not replace it, and that what would arise was a Technocracy of "experts' (The Managers) who would control the means of both production and distribution by virtue of the specialized -- but vital -- functions they practiced in all areas of society, and so exercise true control.
(This book served as the basis for Orwell's '1984', incidentally, even though Orwell almost made a career out of sh*tting all over Burnham's theories. 'The Party' is a Managerialist organization; the splitting of the world into massive superstates is a Managerialist phenomenon foretold by Burnham (it has happened: NAFTA created a trading bloc in the Americas; The European Union exists; lesser organizations like SEATO, OAS, the G8, the proposed 'Anglosphere', all the trans-Government claptrap about Climate Change, all reek of Managerialism) as bureaucracies often transcend national borders, Continuous warfare is used as an excuse to maintain a status quo).
It's very possible the Terran Empire began much like many of our modern institutions -- the UN, the WTO, NATO, NAFTA, or any of the international NGO-based organizations dedicated to a particular (presumably good) cause. However, Burnham also postulated that since the purpose of any Managerialist group was to maintain it's power, prestige, privileges and position against all comers, this meant it would come into conflict with OTHER Managerialist organizations, and what eventually results is internecine fights and intrigue where each Managerialist group is seeking nothing less than the elimination of all others.
And who is to say just how far any organization will go to protect or advance itself? You see it in the West today when things like 'The Deep State' truly plays by a different set of rules than the ones it enforces on non-members (as an example), uses coercion, perversions of law, 'othering', social pressure, violence (official and sanctioned unofficial) and often plays upon peoples' fears, prejudices and ignorance to manipulate public opinion , public policy, or even elections (allegedly). We see that Presidents, Prime Ministers, and so forth are merely mouthpieces: the business of government takes place in nameless, faceless, unknown bureaucracies of whose functions the average person is ignorant, and upon which political power truly rests.
Maybe the Terran Empire is a Managerialist state where the Military faction came out on top, perhaps co-opting a few of it's rivals that it didn't destroy, as well.
Sorry, wandered off a bit, but the parallels between the Terran Empire and the historical Managerialist states is too close.
I think the simpler explanation is that the axis and allied powers just reversed roles and everything was always different.
My take on it would be, what if the military had taken Patton's advice, and invaded the Soviet Union, and Soviet occupied Eastern Europe while we had all of America's troops, and weapons there before The Soviets had tested their first atomic bomb in 1949? That would certainly fit the Terrain Empire coming into existence about the 1950's. Of course, in our timeline this didn't happen because the U.S. population, and the government weren't hungry for another war following World War II. Although, if in the alternate timeline there had been a war with the Soviet Union about that time then maybe there would have been so many protests, and rising crime, which was the backstory for how the world of Escape From New York happened, then you could forsee the U.S. having to become more of a dictatorship to clamp down on the war protests. Thus you get The Terrain Empire in perpetuity.
You only have to take what you wrote a few steps further: To get ahead in the Mirror Universe is not so much the "opposite" of what happens in the Prime universe, just the more aggressive path such as ALL US generals in WWII were as aggressive as Patton. You don't even have to add in the 'what ifs' much either (such as 'what if Patton lived and commanded the 1st wave against the Soviets in 1945' rather, the decision was made to do it regardless but IF Patton lived AND re-armed the defeated Germans to combine forces against the USSR. . . ) All rocket technology for space originated from the Nazi war machine (yes, Robert Goddard is the father of US rocket tech but it was Von Braun who took it writ large) AND if only the US had that tech instead of allowing the USSR to capture enough Nazi scientists to build their systems, the US would be the ONLY nation-state with BOTH nuclear capability AND heavy lift rocketry. The UK, US and Nazi Germany had the 1st generation of jet aircraft as well. See the tech picture? The US in Prime universe was only more benevolent than the Mirror US (by the way, TERRAN is merely using the Latin 'terra' which means Earth so references to extension of the Roman Empire could merely be language related) and therefore allowed a shared and more peaceful/rational view on tech; Mirror US had only to hoard ALL advanced tech for itself to become dominant plus not stopping the global war in 1945. So now imagine a tech-dominate US in 1949: jet aircraft, intermediate & intercontinental ballistic missiles and both Fission & fusion weapons to back up the largest industrial based logistics system spanning all of Terra. IF the nuclear secrets did not leave the US, both the USSR and PRC could not have developed their nukes in time to counter a fully-dominate US military. The Korean War may not have occurred (or in the same way) and Indo-China devolved into the Vietnam war, etc.
To be honest I don’t think the Mirror Universe has anything to do with the United States, or whatever it’s counterpart would be called, Terrans are all united and equal, if the Empire has evolved from any specific country then there would be lower class Terrans we see which is obviously not the case, it seems to have sprung up from some global movement.
Another sign of this is as well as all Roman-esc western culture there seems to be some eastern imperialistic culture mixed in to such as the Empires of achina and Japan having an obvious influence especially in Discovery.
Perhaps in the mirror universe one of the alien species that meddled in Earths pre-warp history was noticed causing humanity to be united much earlier but with an obvious xenophobic outlook, this would be why they perceived the Vulcans as “yet another invasion” in their eyes. In the mirror first contact the man standing behind Cochrane who rallies the Terrans to board the Vulcan ship seems to have a disruptor a weapon which humanity in the Prime Universe obviously doesn’t have at that point, which means either humanity spent more time focusing technological advancements on weapons instead of exploration (they don’t seem to have gone to the moon until the 22nd century based on the space suit) or that it is reverse engineered alien technology,
I say it's an alternate universe were the Roman Empire and the Han dynasty managed to formalize the alliance they both desired
The sword through the Earth logo is similar to the KGB logo, so it could be a timeline from the result of the U.S losing the cold war.
The USA is probably genuinely the best starting point. While they occasionally make efforts to be more diverse, Star Trek has generally been fairly "American" in tone and viewpoint. We usually ignore this for the actual aliens but we really cannot do that if we insist on trying to interpolate the origins of the Terran Empire. We HAVE TO base it on how they are represented because it is all we have.
But I think the origins would show major divergence from 19th century. The US was actually very aggressive and expansionist during this period. Pretty much all of contiguous US beyond the east coast is land Spain or Mexico lost in wars during this century. Beyond this there was military action on the Caribbean, the Latin America, and the Pacific.
In the real and prime this was moderated by the US being fairly democratic and the people just not being comfortable turning the US into a colonial empire resembling the British Empire they just broke off due to injustices of the colonial system. So actual expansion was almost exclusively to areas where American settlers would move in large enough numbers to make cultural and political integration to the US proper relatively simple. But given that the mirror universe seems to affect how people think this limit probably would not exist there. I think it is entirely feasible that the entire Spanish speaking Americas would end up as formal US client states. It would have been entirely practical arrangement even in the real apart from both the Americans and the locals having severe issues with pseudo-colonialism after their various wars of independence or liberation.
And the resulting political structure of a strong central state with several subject states is what word "empire" actually means.
This empire would have been one of the strongest players in the game and would have none of the issues historical US had with competing for colonies in Africa and Asia. History probably would have been mostly the same until world war two. But during the cold war an American Empire would have been quite different from the the real and prime US. Where in the real the US supported variety of non-communist dictators and military juntas, the empire would have just moved in and taken over. Similarly the NATO counterpart would not have had the thin pretense of equality and respect the real one has. The US would have just openly become the hegemon of the alliance. They would have had open power over even internal affairs of other members by legally ratified treaty. In some ways it might have worked better than what actually happened because it would have been more transparent with reality and appearances being more in sync. This almost always results in better efficiency, which means less corruption and even less people dying in avoidable wars.
It would have been quite reasonable for such empire where the American culture openly politically dominates the entire world to take more fascist tones. They would have had very good reason to think the Americans are superior because that would be the openly accepted reality. It would also been quite reasonable to take inspiration from the Roman Empire. It would be just common sense for a power dominating western Europe, the Americas, much of the Middle East, and Africa to claim to be the inheritors of the Roman Empire because that is what they effectively would be. Openly stating that would be essentially free legitimacy and just make everything more stable and manageable.
I thought the beginning of the Terran Empire was shown in the early episodes of "Star Trek: Enterprise" season 4 where the Axis powers almost won WW2 with alien help. The fractured, war weary Earth would become xenophobic when they found out about aliens, would become more agressive, militant, etc. Eugenics War would start in the 1990's and ultimately lead to the Terran Empire.
Interesting. Just a thought…the opening sequence of Enterprise In A Mirror Darkly seemed to me to be a similar opening to the normal but in such a universe they’d focus on the war aspects of society. Which would mean things were basically the same until the divergence happened but if we were occupants of the mirror universe, this would be more important for the shows opening than the usual opening
So detailed. I love your videos. Interesting theory! Thank you!
The opening sequence for _In A Mirror Darkly_ had a better music score than the regular openings.
Excellent video. I keep thinking there is something to the sensitivity to light as a cause of divergence - maybe Terrans evolved to be active during different parts of the day than humans, causing more fights for resources and adding to their aggressive behavior. I do still think there is something to the Roman theories, as they refer to themselves as “Terrans.” Perhaps the evolution of the Roman republic was different in the mirror universe (possibly there was no Senate) pushing different ideas when the USA was formed. Keep these videos coming!
Love Alternative Sci-Fi Fiction/ History, Great video
Love the mirror in the background and the dark shadow reflected. Reminding us the intentions of the writers, it matters not how or why, but just that they are our darker representations of ourselves.
"... because it was cheaper." I like that you don't try to interpret every odd production detail into the story.
Kudo's my friend, every comment is damn near a paragraph. That's 10000% engagement! Keep em coming please!
Thank you for these videos. Definitely worth watching
I think Discovery desribes the Terrans more a distinct race, then as a species. If the Terrans have their greater aggression rooted going as far back as pre-history, there's going to be very real genetic differences between Federation humans and Terrans.
It would be nice to think so. But don't fool yourself. Humans today, all it would take is a very slight cultural shift toward self and ambition and a government that chooses force over dialogue in it's international relations.
Truly am digging the videos btw! You are the man!
Thank you so much Clint!
A simple action such as the Vulcan’s arriving after detecting humanities first nuclear detonation at the end of WW2, and subsequently attacking humanity as we present a threat to galactic peace and aren’t far away from developing interstellar travel could have lead to the Terran Empire.
Don’t forget the Vulcans had a policy of always attacking the Klingons first upon detection and asking questions later… And that was after one bad experience in the normal Star Trek universe… They’re also extremely paranoid and selfish and screwed over the Andorians on their other border time and time again, even lying to humanity about the conflict.
Then it would be the Vulcan Empire we would be discussing not the Terran. Since has Earth history (and indeed galactic history) has detailed in multiple entries, that the party that arrives first with the superior weapons technology, the numbers and the more virulent diseases, tends to make a historical footnote of those doorsteps they've suddenly arrived upon.
Yet what Archer said does contradict the theory. The Vulcan ship that arrived to Earth was what the Terrans thought was a prelude to invasion.
First of all, thank you for all the work you put into these videos. I found them recently and enjoy them a lot. Honestly, I think your probably right on the source of the Terran Empires nature. It’s a mixture of their universe being fundamentally darker than ours and the worst aspects of the us magnified, a mirror of the UFP. That’s probably as close as we’ll ever get to a origin for them given how ‘flexible’ and weird trying to make all the lore canon is.
That being said, your video provided me with my own more dramatic fan theory. That is that the big divergence is genuinely Washington leading the mutiny at Trenton rather than suppressing it and ended up as Kings. This reinforcing the basic tenants of Monarchism, Absolutism, and Imperialism. Combine that with the potential French Revolution devolving into the Napoleonic Empire. It could go a long way to creating a world view and world very similar the Mirror Universe.
All this said and done. Watching the episodes where the mirror universe features, you can see how much fun the actors are having with their mirror versions.
This was a great video, everything was on point.
Now as far as discovery's TE, again this is a distinct possibility it would have been, and then I See Mirror Mirror as the reality and discovery as an another yet darker mirror universe.
It's crazy how it's almost 2022 and people still have a problem with the term "American Imperialism". We are almost the mirror universe.
Takes awhile to unlearn nationalistic biases, that's for sure
Yeah, that stuck out to me too. Is anyone still in denial about America being an empire?
But yes, I know there is. Americans; or a subset of us, anyway.
Except that we're not openly killing each other to get promotions, most people still believe in love, friendship and compassion plus lots of people protest and take actions to try and stop corrupt people like Trump.
We shouldn't let the media and people like Trump make us think that we're doomed to die out or become the mirror universe of Star Trek. Every era of Human history has had lots of problems but we shouldn't focus solely on what's wrong with the world. We need to put some focus on what's right in the world.
We've got vaccines for Covid, much of the world has been pulled out of poverty because of capitalism, much of the world is at least somewhat democratic, we haven't killed ourselves in a nuclear war and the world isn't controlled by the Nazis or the Soviets /both of whom the West has defeated/ plus Communist China is crumbling from within and the West's enemies will likely maul each other in Afghanistan pretty soon.
My point is that we've got a lot of serious issues to contend with but so has every generation. They somehow survived and so can we, we just can't lose hope that we'll survive and that things will eventually improve.
@@girlgarde You're lost still trying to put things on Trump as if our issues started with him. Plus, do you see how people are treating the vaccinated and people who don't wear masks? Its disgusting. I ain't trying to start no ish with you but open your eyes past loving the liberal/democrat side of the game. Obama bombed a country we were not supposed to be in until we had no more bombs in country. Then they killed so many civilians that they changed the definition of what was a successful bombing to military aged males because the casualties were in the 90th percentile of innocent victims. People here have lost all moral fiber and sense of logic as to what to actually protest and fight for and how to do it. The people in the empire are comfortable with the slow erosion of morals. Its great to be positive and optimistic but lets be realistic and look at facts. All of them.
Dude, the Mirror Universe is just our universe.
5:00 Lorca mentioning him in his speech should've been the first clue that he wasn't from here.
I had no idea this was happening. Is anyone trying to stop this? And if not, WHY NOT? Great video :)
I don't think the Mirror Universe has ever shared a history with the Prime Star Trek Universe. It has always been the dark reflection There may have been times when the two universes shared events, but they were always their versions of events. They come togther and then fly apart. The fact they have common denizens is likely something akin to quantum entanglement across dimensions. People born connected, but the qualities of their universes directed their lives on different paths. The connections are not as close as quantum entanglement, thus the deaths of Jennifer Sisko and Jadzia were delayed but inevitable.
We are the Terrans, living in the broken mirror..
There are hints that the second Season of Picard will be about that moment of seperation, which looks like it's supposed to be right about now.
Don't forget the Star Trek Voyager episode 'Living Witness' where Voyager was portrayed like a warship of the Terran Empire even though it was shown differently nearly 700 years later after the real Voyager visited they're world even though everything that was shown about they're version of Voyager was a holographic program and in they're version of it the Doctor was an android and not a hologram and of all the Star Trek series after T.O.S. that didn't have any encounters with the Mirror Universe was TNG.
I think you're spot on with your analogy of the US to the Terran Empire. However, I think it's a bit bleaker than you anticipate. In the immediate aftermath of the second world war, there were strong calls for a US nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union as troops were already there, and the US had temporary nuclear supremacy. This wasn't a far-fetched possibility, even noted pacifist Bertrand Russel advocated for this, and I think that this could be a very reasonable start for the Terran Empire with the US becoming the sole uncontested superpower.
Probably an outgrowth of american imperialism similar to the fallout universe. in Fallout before the nuclear war the US and other superpowers became desperate at low resources and went to war for them becoming increasingly imperialist and somewhat evil in their actions.
Possibly this happened in some form in the mirror universe, some crisis caused nations to be forced to fight for survival and change to accomodate it.
Like this analysis. Ever since Enterprise, I have generally looked at the Terran Empire this way. I felt that the shot of the Terran Empire flag over the US Army marching was a pretty clear sign of American world domination paving the way for the rise of the empire. I do wonder what the Eugenics Wars looked like in the mirror universe, however.
Oh well, it is said that this year, 2022, is an important year about whether we follow darkness and evil, or light and good.
The United States engaging in Imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is an established fact--there is a reason we have so many island territories in the Pacific (dating back well _before_ WW2) and have such close ties with the Philippines and many Caribbean nations. Whether what happened later in the 20th century is Imperialism is up for debate however; I tend to think it's similar but a subtly different idea.
Prior to the arrival of TNG, DS9 and all the later Star Trek series the only information given about the Mirror Universe was from a Star Trek graphic novel released in the early eighties. It postulated that the Terran Empire rose as a result of Earth LOSING the war with the Romulans and the subsequent occupation of Earth by them. After a couple of decades of occupation Earth managed to regain its freedom and in order to avoid being defeated again started its expansion and occupation of other worlds resulting in the founding of the Terran Empire.
Its the golden rule: those who have most of the gold (money buys power, influence and resources) make all the rules. Thats always been the case, even though these days such a notion is considered a delusional conspiracy theory completely detached from all logic, reason and possibility. Most warfare has always been primarily psychological. When you've got the minds of the people, you've got the nation. Thats why people running for office make campaign speeches. The hearts and minds of the people, matter when it comes to how much power and control is able to be gained.
While I love to speculate about the mirror universe, I hope it never gets a canon history and whenever we see it in an episode again, it's just the evil counterpart to the current trek show's setting.
Awesome video. I would like to be around in 100 years to see if you are right. I believe you are.
As I see this question today:
West Empire domination in XXI century -> Mirror Universe -> Terran Empire
BRICS hegemony in XXI century -> Prime Universe -> Federation
Thanks very much for the video.
Good video. Thanks for your efforts. Only one point, France never had a colony in what is now the state of West Australia. 4:25
It's also perhaps worth noting that the American Republic had a lot of neo-classical revivalism in its founding. The Roman salute was used during the pledge of allegiance in schools up until WW2. The public buildings of Washington DC were built to mimic ancient Rome. Its mirror counterpart not getting squeamish about the symbolism because of fascism the way it did in reality (or prime universe if you will) could have seen that Roman fetishisation ramped up over time for propaganda purposes.
It's also possible that a US that had a more overt Roman ideal from its beginnings could have disrupted the formation of the Axis powers by making America more favourable towards supporting Mussolini (and possibly Franco in Spain and Peron in Argentina). Hitler may have found himself without European allies (not that that would have altered the outset of the war all that much as Germany conquered the low countries and France on its own.
The big question is Russia. If the Terrans were always temperamentally different to prime timeline humans then what would the ideology of the mirror Soviet Union be? Likely their Stalin would be an even bigger tyrant than ours was but would he be leading a nominally communist regime or something else? Would the USSR exist in the mirror universe at all or would tsarist Russia have been overthrown by a different set of revolutionary ideals?
Interesting video, I always assumed it was a victorious combination of Germany/Italy/Japan in WW2, but it could just as easily be a result of the fascistic and racist tendencies of the US at different times, and simply the victory of those tendencies. You could also imagine combinations of this where the US simply didn't get involved in WW2, and then later sided with the winners and began amassing it's own similar fascist empire.
And the use of the transporter to go to the mirror universe wouldn't be seen again til Star Trek Deep Space Nine where Smiley and the mirror universe Jennifer and Ezri Dax used it.
The mirror universe would be the wet dream of our current political hierarchy.
Based on this, we are living in the terran empire timeline
Actually, the Roman/Fascist style salute was done as part of the Pledge of Allegiance before World War 2.
as far as anything STD does - I dont care about that show not even a little. I dont consider it to be Trek.
Im with Rex on this one.
@@MKRex you cared enough to comment. its a sub par show.
Based
Great presentation. Keep up the good work.
Excellent analysis!! Fantastic video!
Great theory, with some strong guessing based on observation. Well done!!
Since the date of divergence is hovering around the 50’s, what if the Nazis employed under “paper clip” and the Roswell incident, that could have triggered severe xenophobia to non-humans.
As opposed to prime verse where they just infiltrated US government ..
I like it
Another stimulating video, thanks! 🖖
I was working 2nd shift during the Discovery days and only saw 3 episodes of the entire series. No opinions to share there. But I liked what you had to say, it has a certain logic to it, without going into any current political discussion.
Very well done! great video!!
I always wondered if the mirror universe is what happened if the protestant reformation never happened (or was thoroughly snuffed out) and Roman Catholicism ruled on. Said religion does tend to favor authoritarianism and facism. The holdover of Romanlike traditions could be the result of the line of popes continuing to pretend that they were still a part of the Roman Empire. Ae science evolved (fueled by warfare) eventually a secular leader would have come along to snuff out the religious aspect of things while keeping many of the traits fostered by the church.
I like the idea that it was because the flip of a coin to tell or not tell the Vulcans about the Borg.
Considering the salute that Spock 2 gives Kirk, I would say that the foundation of the Terran Empire is a combination of the ancient Roman Empire and Nazi Germany.
my thoughts exactly. If it WAS the USA, why would they copy the salutes of their fallen enemies?
Maybe because they were never fallen and were just biding their time?
@@jaysonraphaelmurdock8812 perhaps, great point!
@@livinglifeinanrv5473 thanks. You never know with fiction. Maybe the Nazis were hiding out in Antarctica or something?
In the mirror universe, maybe Edith Keeler didn't die. Consider what was foretold in City on the Edge of Forever. In the prime universe, Spock discovered the alternative future from his tricorder recordings of the images shown by the Guardian of Forever. Keeler had to die, otherwise her well-meant pacifism would delay or prevent the US entry into WW2, allowing the Axis powers to win the war and create very different history on Earth. That could have been the turning point, the beginnings of the Terran empire.