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Lt. Commander
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 120
# 53
01-30-2010, 11:14 AM
Originally Posted by Pattypuppet
The mirror universe is an parallel dimension, not an alternate timeline. There is a distinct difference. Otherwise in Mirror, Mirror, Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Uhura wouldn't have changed places with their counterparts because it would have been a different time. Kirk even says that it is a parallel universe. They never mention it being an alternate timeline.
You say that like it's a scientific term with a precise meaning. Neither turns out to be the case. However, if you want to try that route; how come all the folks in the JJverse end up in the same roles, despite histories diverging so much that they've got different relative ages?

Answer: because these universes are linked in some way. Just like the Mirror Universe.

My theory is it becomes such a "strong" quantum signature because of the observers from the other timeline remaining in it. Thus, most alternate timelines don't reach a state where they can travel to the Prime Universe, because the damage is undone and the observers leave them. The Mirror Universe, however, must have had those who caused its formation remain in it, strengthening its ties to the Prime Universe. The same, therefore, would hold for the JJverse, since Spock remains in it instead of "fixing it" and thereby leaving.

This actually holds some distant, not-really-science-but-science-ish relation to some real cosmological theories, regarding the formation of universes from the pre-big-bang "quantum foam" that came and went due to no observers ever coming into being within them, with ones like ours becoming full-fledged universes due to the fact we someday were to exist in them.