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From: barnett@ut-sally.UUCP (Lewis Barnett)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: Mirror, Mirror -- Comments and speculation
Message-ID: <3206@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 25-Aug-84 22:11:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.3206
Posted: Sat Aug 25 22:11:18 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 30-Aug-84 06:36:27 EDT
References: <1640@pegasus.UUCP> <2970@alice.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 26

[ He's Jim, dead ]
My explanation as to why the Halkans were peaceful in both the "real"
universe and the mirror universe goes like this:

When authors talk about parallel universes, they talk about a "tree"
of possible parallel universes, each branch of which is created by
each possible outcome of some crucial situation in history.  Like,
Hitler's father was impotent, so World War II never happened in one
branch.  So, the universe that our Kirk, Scott, Uhura, and McCoy
wind up in is one where some cruel despot seized control of the 
Federation when it was in some formative stage in the parallel universe,
and before contact had been made with the Halkans.  The change in the
federation need not have had any effect at all on them.

If you look at it this way, it makes it highly unlikely that a true
"mirror" universe could exist, where things were recognizable, but
good and evil somehow had done a flip-flop in all peoples.  The changes
necessary to cause that would have had to happen much farther up the
tree, and would produce a universe with very little superficial resemblance
to the "real" one.


Lewis Barnett,CS Dept, Painter Hall 3.28, Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX 78712

-- barnett@ut-sally.ARPA, barnett@ut-sally.UUCP,
      {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!barnett