One hundred years ago, four crewmembers of the U.S.S Enterprise crossed the dimensional barrier and found a mirror image of their own universe, populated by nightmare duplicates of their shipmates.
Barely able to escape with their lives, they returned, thankful that the accident which had brought them there could not be duplicated, or so they thought.
But now the scientists of that empire have found a doorway into our universe. Their plan is to destroy from within, to replace a Federation starships with one of their own.
Their victims are the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D, who now find themselves engaged in combat against the most savage enemies they have ever encountered: themselves.
We’re counting down to the January 2020 return of Jean-Luc Picard by revisiting some of the pivotal stories about the beloved Starfleet captain from across the last three decades of Star Trek: The Next Generation published fiction.
Welcome to the next entry in our retro review series Prelude to Picard!
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While recent comics may put a modern spin on the Terran Empire, author Diane Duane took the TNG cast into the Mirror Universe for the first time in 1993’s excellent Star Trek: The Next Generation — Dark Mirror.
Even though it is totally incompatible with the canon established in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine about the fall of the Terran Empire and the rise of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance, Dark Mirror is a tremendous read and not to be missed.
While conducting scientific research in a remote area of the galaxy, the USS Enterprise is pulled into the Mirror Universe by their own counterparts, the first step in an invasion of our reality. As the Enterprise plays cat and mouse with its counterpart — the ISS Enterprise — Jean-Luc Picard, Deanna Troi, and Geordi La Forge must beam aboard to retrieve valuable data necessary to return home.
The Mirror Universe of Dark Mirror is much the same as the one encountered by Captain Kirk and crew members the classic Trek episode “Mirror, Mirror.” The Terran Empire rules the cosmos, a brutal regime where torture is commonplace and assassination is an accepted means of earning a promotion. Little has changed in the century since Kirk and company visited; his parting conversation with Spock led to only minor changes until Spock himself was executed.
In this Mirror Universe, changing one man was not enough to change a society. Overall, this is a bleak take on the power of one individual to change the world, but unfortunately probably a realistic one. It takes many such people to seed societal change, and though Picard also encourages change in just one man — in this case, Worf’s counterpart who lives as a slave under Terran oversight — he gives that man a mission: find others, be ready.
Though Troi and La Forge get plenty of attention in this story, it is mostly a Captain Picard tale. And of all the Star Trek crews who had the opportunity to interact with the Mirror Universe, The Next Generation crew and Picard in particular are perhaps the most perfect and impactful. After all, these are the idealized versions of humanity that Roddenberry foresaw.
Even more than Kirk, and more perhaps than any of the crews that came thereafter, Picard and his officers represented the ideal state for 24th century humanity. Kind, tolerant, curious, and diplomatic, it is this crew who struggles the most with being presented with their darker selves.
Following Picard as he impersonates his Mirror counterpart and tries to complete his mission, we see him uncover all the layers of just how terrible a man he is in this universe. Appropriately, there is a low level of anxiety and dread that sits over the entire section of the book that takes place on the ISS Enterprise as the characters are put through the wringer.
Duane does not shy away from grappling with some of the serious undertones that sit underneath the comically evil pastiche of the Mirror Universe. The world of the Terran Empire often encourages the use of gross stereotypes, but Dark Mirror largely avoids them and does a pretty decent job for its era, recognizing some of the more problematic elements.
Mirror Picard is an abuser of women, for example, who has coerced Beverly Crusher into becoming his captain’s woman. Rather than play the scenes off as comical or sexual as Picard finds Crusher sleeping in his quarters, our Picard is forced to reckon with the horror of what his counterpart has done.
Dark Mirror also has one of my favorite aliens that I’ve seen in a book in a long time; Hwii ih’iie-uUlak!ha’. Commander Hwii is a Delphine member of Starfleet, a dolphin-like cetacean lifeform who is aided in living in an oxygen-breathing environment with the aid of an envirofield generator and levitator pads. Hwii is a delightful character, and one that I wish we would have seen appear in other Star Trek novels.
The idea that sentient dolphins aid starships in navigation is one that appears in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Blueprints, but is never something that was explored in the series. It is fun that Dark Mirror introduces the character and that he is ultimately so important to the plot.
The appeal of the Mirror Universe is the opportunity to have our characters deal with meeting their darker selves, and Dark Mirror provides that in spades. For Troi particularly, whose mirror counterpart is the probably the biggest villain that our heroes encounter, she is both disgusted and intrigued by the power that her counterpart possesses. Mirror Troi is a genuinely scary character, and it was exciting to see the two face off.
Dark Mirror is a fabulous thriller that grabs hold of you quickly and does not let go until the end. It is both fun and serious at the same time, acknowledging difficult subjects and handling them respectfully, but while remaining an energetic Star Trek tale.