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I finally have a reason for this picture I had lying around. Yay me.

I was reading Cracked.com earlier and they had an article telling of horrible universes from fictional shows. They mentioned mirror universes and the horrible implication it leads to: That we have no free will because everything on every planet in both universes must act in concert with each other. Consider: Captain Kirk and his crew, in the original TOS: Mirror, Mirror episode were identical to their counterparts in age. Both were the same age, were the same physically, the crews had the same rosters, everything. In order for that to happen, every parent of every crew member had to conceive at the same time while both were ovulating at the same time with the same sperm. Each sperm, each egg has different genetic information meaning if the wrong sperm comes into contact with the egg, a different person would result.

Given that each episode has identical crews, that means that each is tied at the very least by how the crews' parents became romantically involved. The exact details aren't necessary because as long as each parent conceives, it doesn't matter if in one universe they're married while in the other the mother is a prostitute and the father a simple client. As long as the person is born, the universes remain mirrored. Details such as when someone dies only matters so long as the children are born at the correct time, and someone in one universe could live for a hundred years after their children are born while in the other they die in an accident immediately after.

In case you're wondering, yes. Since Archer died in the Mirror Universe, that means that the Jonathan Archer we see at the end of ENT never, ever had children. Without a counterpart to generate identical children in the mirror universe, he is, effectively, sterile, or will never help conceive a child. There will be a celebration later.

No. We already know of infinite universes that exist. It is just that one that mirrors the regular ST universe more accurately than others (that we know of). For all we know, there is a universe that everything is mirrored exactly as the mainline ST universe except that the genders are switched. Or that one that is the same except everyone speaks Esperanto.

Enigma wrote:No. We already know of infinite universes that exist. It is just that one that mirrors the regular ST universe more accurately than others (that we know of). For all we know, there is a universe that everything is mirrored exactly as the mainline ST universe except that the genders are switched. Or that one that is the same except everyone speaks Esperanto.

Everyone already speaks Esperanto. We just can't tell because of the Universal Translator.

I didn't think the mirror universe canceled out free will, merely continuing trends that were similar in both universes and making it identical.

Also, the part about the Ghostbusters sending all the ghosts of people to the containment unit (a violent Hell) was weird. Damn Ghostbusters, always causing trouble.

Baffalo wrote:I was reading Cracked.com earlier and they had an article telling of horrible universes from fictional shows. They mentioned mirror universes and the horrible implication it leads to: That we have no free will because everything on every planet in both universes must act in concert with each other. Consider: Captain Kirk and his crew, in the original TOS: Mirror, Mirror episode were identical to their counterparts in age. Both were the same age, were the same physically, the crews had the same rosters, everything. In order for that to happen, every parent of every crew member had to conceive at the same time while both were ovulating at the same time with the same sperm. Each sperm, each egg has different genetic information meaning if the wrong sperm comes into contact with the egg, a different person would result.

There was no Jake Sisko in the Mirror Universe.

Short answer. No.

Long answer. There are observed gross differences between the two universes so it is obvious that things have turned out differently. These diferences are often behavioural and therefore the results of different choices made by entities at some point. The fact that similar entiies can make different choices means you cannot eliminate free will based on the freakishly large set of coincidences observed in parallel universes.