A guest blog Siblings and Mindless-Droid

“Mirror, Mirror” is this week’s episode, in which Star Trek introduces us to what is usually referred to as the Mirror Universe, the second “parallel universe” to appear in the show, though perhaps “alternate universe” would be the more accurate title. It can by legally viewed here. http://www.startrek.com/watch_episode/_nZxesyGu_Iu

If however you only feel up to watching the preview, the three of us are handily providing those too! Here is the trailer from the official Star Trek website, http://www.startrek.com/watch_video/episode-preview-mirror-mirror and here is the shorter trailer for the remastered version, however, if you haven’t already seen the episode you may find them to be ridiculously confusing.

Finally, if you don’t feel up to actually watching anything, here is the episode summary. http://www.startrek.com/database_article/mirror-mirror

The Siblings’ biggest complaint is that the episode doesn’t designate enough time to the Enterprise crew in the normal universe. Of course, there is an inherent time limit on a television show, but that doesn’t answer the obvious questions raised while watching this episode. Our second complaint is that apparently in an episode of Deep Space Nine, some of the characters again visited the Mirror Universe, where it is discovered that Spock successfully changed the Terran Empire for the better, but in its gentler state it was conquered by a coalition of alien forces, and the people of Earth and Vulcan have been enslaved. Huh, what kind of moral is that?

Mindless-Droid: I would agree that seeing more of the evil counterparts in the normal universe would have been interesting especially through Spock’s point of view, but as you say the time allotted probably prohibited that. One other thing is how come the Halkans are the same in both universes shouldn’t they be even more evil than the empire being they are total pacifists in the normal universe? Other than that this is one of my favorite episodes and one of the best alternate universe ones. There is also an arc in Star Trek: Enterprise, I believe two episodes that take place in the mirror universe (I didn’t follow the show). In the episodes the USS Defiant that vanished from the normal universe in the OS episode The Tholian Web has been found in the mirror universe one hundred years in the past (This is where my head begins to hurt. lol) and its advanced technology is fought over and used by the victor to become emperor. The episode synopsis is here http://www.startrek.com/database_article/in-a-mirror-darkly I guess I should look into the series as in the episode we get a full look at a Tholian I was always intrigued by them, but I digress.

As for the rest of the review, there’s a long story behind it. You see, the three of us accidentally swapped places with our own counterparts in the Mirror Universe. Fortunately, the “evil” versions of ourselves still wrote reviews so we have something to post, but it’s nothing like what we would normally say. So without further ado, (or further disclaimers,) here it is.

*automatic audio transcript begins*
Sister: *hums* Boring. *hums some more* Uninteresting. *sighs* What’s this? *pause* Oh great, Brother, look at this.
Brother: Are you still going through all the computer files of your pitiful counterpart?
Sister: Look, if we blow our cover then we might never figure out a way home.
Brother: Hmh, that’s a good point, so what did you learn about us? Surely we aren’t assassins of the same caliber here?
Sister: So far I’ve found no evidence of us being assassins at all, we must be more secretive about it. Apparently we weekly contribute to something called a “blog” by watching a video and commenting on it on the data-stream.
Brother: Why? That sounds supremely dumb.
Sister: For the people’s entertainment and edification it would seem.
Brother: You’ve got to be kidding me…
Sister: Here, this is what we need to watch, we’ll write a, um, eh… “blog” wasn’t it? Yeah, we’ll write a blog to remember!
Brother: This is an advertisement.
Sister: Hmm… Maybe if I—
*recording ends*

Sister: Hello people reading this! Siblings here to talk about this video thing. It’s starting now.

Brother: What is with these Halkans? They totally deserve what’s gonna happen to ‘em.
Sister: Forget the Halkans, what about those ludicrous Starfleet uniforms? They don’t even carry knives.

Sister: You’d think these people had never seen an Agonizer used before.
Brother: Maybe they’re just being reminded of unpleasant memories. I know from personal experience–
Sister: Yes, yes, I know, but sometimes it’s very nearly unavoidable when working on a Starfleet vessel.
Brother: We’re not even in Starfleet. Oh, I know, I know, order must be maintained, but when we were on the—
Sister: Stay focused on this “blog” thing.

Sister: Shoot, Chekov, Shoot! Oh, you idiot, less talking, more killing!
Brother: There now, you see? This is what happens when you leave assassinations to amateurs.
Sister: Speaking of which, if you need someone removed, our prices are very reasonable.
Brother: And we have a great resume. Just look up The Siblings: Independent Assassins.
Sister: Which means that we are not affiliated with any side, so we’ll kill anyone other than each other if the price is right, be it Caesar, councilman, superior officer, or annoying relative.

Brother: Oooo, listen carefully to these instructions on how to get home.

Sister: We are so getting a machine like the captains has.

Brother: Why does Uhura have two daggers?
Sister: Did you seriously just mistake her stylus for a knife? Oh my gosh, you did, you so did!

Brother: Marlena, why do you want to go with these bozos from another galaxy? You would have no place among them.
Sister: Aww, she’s going to stay and help Spock take over the Empire.

Brother: Hey look! It’s over! It’s over, we don’t have to keep randomly commenting on this stupid video! Woop woop!
Sister: Uh, bye!

Mindless-Droid: Space the final conquest. These are the voyages of the ISS Enterprise its five year mission to conquer strange new worlds to seek out new life and new civilizations to join the emperor to boldly spread the empire to where the empire has not gone before.

Greetings from The Empire (pounds chest extends hand in empire salute). Here at the official state run blog of our glorious Emperor we take a look at the exploits of the emperor’s flagship the ISS Enterprise. The Enterprise Captained by the great and powerful James T Kirk the savior of Vega 9 is on a mission to acquire mining rights from the Halkans for their Dilithium crystals. It seems the Halkans are resistant to share their wealth for the greater good of the Empire and the galaxy so it may be necessary to “persuade” them to see the error of their selfishness.

After a meeting on the planet and during an intense ion storm our valiant heroes are transported to a mirror universe due to the error of the mirror universe’s transporter chief. In this backwards universe our glorious empire is replaced by a weak federation of planets something like the Klingon federation in our own universe, also it seems that the great and powerful Vulcans are more like our own annoyingly logical and pacifist Romulans. Being the great leader he is Captain Kirk quickly takes control of this Enterprise and demands that all ships systems and personal work on devising a method to return our heroes to their rightful place.

Meanwhile our loyal comrade Mr. Spock immediately recognizes the changed personalities of the mirror universe crew members and quickly imprisons them. At the same time even being in different universes our heroes the great Captain Kirk, with the disadvantage of working with the inferior crew of the mirror Enterprise and the wise Mr. Spock quickly discover how to return the crews to their rightful places. It becomes obvious that the knowledge and experience of the emperor’s star fleet is superior to that of the mirror universe.

With the process complete, all is as it was and our great and glorious crew are once again where they belong and any rumor of the gallant Mr. Spock adapting some of the ways of the mirror universe are just that, rumors spread by those rebel scum who want to bring down this glorious warrior, the empire and cause chaos and disorder. Now that they are home our valiant crew can complete their mission against the selfish and uncaring Halkans, hopefully they will not have to be exterminated.

That’s all for this week and the great and glorious exploits of our brave ship’s crew next week we’ll follow our heroes as they travel to Gamma Trianguli VI and show Val the error of his ways. May the emperor live long and may the empire prosper.