Welcome to Ten Forward Fridays, where a new playable species is presented for the Star Trek Adventures roleplaying game, filling in some gaps until official material can be released.
Welcome to Mirror Universe May. For this month, my articles are focusing on the dark, twisted counterpart of the regular Prime Reality.
This week details the Terrans and their vassals, the Vulcans.
The Mirror Universe is generally thought of as the evil reflection. It’s the evil alternate reality. Really, it’s more of the Nietzschean reality, with the strong taking power. The residents of that reality were not inherently evil, but raised in a totalitarian state where they had to betray and scheme to survive, and where they were taught compassion and diversity are weaknesses.
Terrans define this change in attitudes, rejecting the spirit of cooperation found in the Federation and embracing a philosophy of human superiority. In contrast, Vulcans seem rather similar to their Prime Reality counterparts (as do Klingons, Cardassians, and even Bajorans). Arguably, it is the behavior of Terrans that makes this the darkest timeline.
Canonically, the Terran Empire fell to the Klingons and Cardassians sometime between the mid-23rd and mid-24th Centuries. Which is a shame as it makes it harder to play a Mirror Universe game (such as a one-shot or the classic crossover story), as there won’t be any Federation ships in the era of Star Trek Adventures.
However, with the revision of Discovery, we know that Qo’noS was destroyed by the Empire and the Klingons were members of a ragtag resistance, so the Cardassians were initially the power behind that alliance. It’s hard to manage that one faction defeating the entire Empire, even when it was disarming. So, perhaps, the Alliance didn’t completely destroy the Terran Empire so much as capture its central worlds, dividing the Empire into halves. There might still be large regions of Imperial space divided by the territory of the Cardassian-Klingon alliance, and lacking the resources to take back their territory.
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Okay, now this is creative. I don’t think it would have occurred to me to do separate species writeups for the Mirror Universe, but I can see the point right away.
I think it was Mephit James that had the idea of redoing the core species in some way (and Mirror Universe Month in general).
“Canonically, the Terran Empire fell to the Klingons and Cardassians sometime between the mid-23rd and mid-24th Centuries. Which is a shame as it makes it harder to play a Mirror Universe game (such as a one-shot or the classic crossover story), as there won’t be any Federation ships in the era of Star Trek Adventures.”
…unless there are parallel Mirror Universe timelines, just as there are parallels of the ‘prime’ universe…
I had considered that as well, and it was in my notes and then I completely forgot to add that to the introduction.
I might have to revise…
The TNG Mirror Mirror comics just released by IDW also sets up a good RPG scenario. The Terran Empire was beaten back by the Alliance, but they only hold a small amount of territory. Primarily the Sol System and a small area around it. There is still a mirror Starfleet, but it is a ragtag fleet.
If you have a chance (if you haven’t already), check out the IDW prelude TNG Mirror Broken. SOOO GOOD and is a perfect intro to a dip into the newer Mirror Universe in your campaign. I’ve just gotten into STA, but between this, and a whole lot of inspiration from Sean Tourangeau’s Dark Mirror universe ideas on Deviantart, I have some major plans… (tugs beard and grins evilly) MWAHAHAHAHAH!
Ah, the Mirror Universe. This is definitely a fun setting to delve into – and the STO timeframe would be perfect for this, because in 2409, the Terrans have an Empire again. 😀
Awesome ! I gave a shot of making my own “Terran” species a while back : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EVr1zgUSapIB-9YJorxwPSuSlSHRBTE7
I even created a scenario for my players, set in the mirror universe. In it, they played the mirror counterpart of their characters. To “convert” them, I just took away one of their original characters’ talent, and put one of the Terran profile instead. It worked pretty well 🙂
Oh, and, by the way, I just found out that you can easily find .png pictures for almost every Star Trek character on the “Star Trek Timeline” wikia. Useful to create this kind of species profile !
Look there : https://stt.wiki/w/images/thumb/b/b4/Mirror_Kirk_Full.png/376px-Mirror_Kirk_Full.png