Literature / Star Trek: Mirror Universe

Star Trek: Mirror Universe is a series of books in the Star Trek Novelverse, filling in the gaps between the episodes taking place in the Mirror Universe (as shown in the various TV series). There were three anthologies:

• Glass Empires:
  • Age of the Empress: The rise of Empress Sato to power.
  • The Sorrows of Empire: Mirror Spock's rising through the ranks to admiral, staging a coup to become emperor and purposely weakening the Terran Empire so that the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance would conquer them - and be destroyed from the inside.
  • The Worst of Both Worlds: The story of Luc Picard, slave to Gul Madred, captain of a small ship called the Stargazer, as he liberates himself from the Alliance while at the same time defending it from the Borg.

• Obsidian Alliances:
  • The Mirror-Scaled Serpent: The Mirror Universe version of the crew of Voyager and their exploits to take down Intendant B'Elanna.
  • Cutting Ties: The Mirror Universe version of the Star Trek: New Frontier crew as they free themselves from the Romulan Empire.
  • Saturn's Children: "Smiley" O'Brien, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, has to deal with unrest in the Terran Rebellion, while at the same time, former Intendant Kira uses her wits to regain her position while dealing with political enemies.

• Shards and Shadows:
  • "Nobunaga" (Trip Tucker)
  • "Ill Winds" (Commodore Robert April and his wife Sarah)
  • "The Greater Good" (How Mirror Kirk seized control of the Enterprise)
  • "The Black Flag" (Mirror versions of the Vanguard Station crew)
  • "The Traitor" (Gilaad Ben Zoma leads a resistance cell)
  • "The Sacred Chalice" (Deanna Troi, the daughter of harem owner Lwaxana Troi, on the ruins of Betazed)
  • "Bitter Fruit" (Kes as a member of Memory Omega)
  • "Family Matters" (Mirror versions of the IKS Gorkon crew)
  • "Homecoming" (Mirror Excalibur returns to Romulus)
  • "A Terrible Beauty'' (How Mirror Keiko joined the resistance)
  • "Empathy" (Mirror versions of the Titan crew on Lru-Irr)
  • "For Want of a Nail" (Mirror K'Ehleyr and Barclay as resistance commandos)

• Hell's Mirror: Mirror Khan.

The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Relaunch novels Fearful Symmetry and The Soul Key are crossovers with the Mirror Universe series.

Finally, we have the concluding novel, Rise Like Lions: The fall of Terok Nor, the destruction of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance, the secession of Bajor, and the establishment of a new government body, the Galactic Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth later features in Star Trek: Section 31 - Disavowed and ultimately concludes in Star Trek: Coda.

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These books contain examples of:

• Abusive Parents:
  • In The Sorrows of Empire, Marlena's father François regularly beat her and her elder siblings when they were children, particularly if he had been drinking.
  • In "Empathy", Riker killed his father, who abused him for the first fifteen years of his life, with a mek'leth stolen from their Klingon master (whom he then killed).
• Actor Allusion:
  • In "The Greater Good", Dr. Simon van Gelder sarcastically tells Kirk that he wants to find the secret of immortality. Van Gelder was played by Morgan Woodward in "Dagger of the Mind". Woodward later played Captain Ronald Tracey in "The Omega Glory", who believes that he has found the secret of eternal life on Omega IV.
  • In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, it is mentioned that Tuvok was once the slave of the Klingon T'Kar. Before being cast as Tuvok, Tim Russ played T'Kar in the Deep Space Nine episode "Invasive Procedures".
• Adaptational Intelligence: Mirror Kirk in “Mirror Mirror” was shouty slimy Dumb Muscle there for both as a joke and a callback to Kirk’s evil side in “The Enemy Within”. Mirror Kirk in the stories still gets by more on brutality than intelligence, but at least gains the ability to fake being cute and innocent (and traumatised, but that one is actually true).
• Adventurer Archaeologist: Mirror Universe Picard is one, though not an independent one as he wants to be.
• Affectionate Nickname: In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, Annika always refers to Chakotay as "Chief," much to his annoyance.
• The Alcoholic:
  • In "The Greater Good", Captain Pike is a severe alcoholic who drinks several martinis and Saurian brandies every night. Dr. Boyce gives him a cocktail of drugs every night which is delicately balanced so Pike can still feel the buzz of the cocktail without displaying any obvious signs of being drunk. In spite of Boyce's efforts, there have been many close calls over the years and Starfleet Command eventually decides to eliminate Pike.
  • In "A Terrible Beauty", the Korvat slave overseer Kozak spends most of his time drinking bloodwine. His drunkenness means that he is often derelict in the performance so his duties, seriously impacting on the mining colony's efficiency. After many years of such behavior, he is killed and replaced by Keiko in 2365.
• The Alliance:
  • The Galactic Commonwealth.
  • The Taurus Pact, this universe's version of the Typhon Pact.
• An Arm and a Leg: In "Family Matters", Klag loses his right arm after he is attacked by Leader Vekma and her followers on Marcan V. He refuses the offer of a prosthetic arm from an Alliance physician. In Rise Like Lions, Klag is sometimes referred to as "One-Arm," even after he becomes Regent.
• Anti-Human Alliance: In the Star Trek: Enterprise era (mid-22nd century), the Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites and Orions are loosely united against the Terran Empire. Given the brutality of the Terrans, it's a matter of necessity.
• Anyone Can Die: Given that it takes place in the mirror universe, this trope is in full effect when it comes to the mirror versions of familiar characters being, for the most part, murdered, executed or killed in battle.
• The Atoner: In Rise Like Lions, Damar, after wiping out pretty much every non-Cardassian servant or slave (Rise Like Lions mostly focuses on the Vulcans, apparently because they're the ones that actually are responsible for the triggering events and because Vulcans are very popular as slaves) in the Cardassian realm. When it became clear their telepathy was behind the anarchy gripping Cardassia, he ordered the genocide, and it shattered his sense of worth. He seeks solace in the Oralian Way.
• Bad Boss: As expected from the Mirror Universe, Kirk in “Hell’s Mirror” punches out any underling with an unwanted opinion, and kills everyone on the bridge just because he can.
• Bait-and-Switch: In Cutting Ties, "Muck" (the Mirror Universe Calhoun) meets Shelby (his wife in the regular universe) who's a slave. There's a connection between them as she aids Muck and seems to indicate they'll end up a couple in this universe as well... and then Shelby is killed without warning.
• Balkanize Me:
  • In "The Black Flag", Commodore Reyes has established himself as the ultimate power in the Taurus Reach. By forging an alliance with the Klingons and Orion pirates, he intends to make it official by seceding from the Terran Empire and turning the Reach into his own private fiefdom. However, his plan fails as Vanguard is destroyed by the release of the Shedai Wanderer. This was done through Spock's influence as the secession of the Taurus Reach would have interfered with his rise to power.
  • In Rise Like Lions, this causes major problems for the Alliance:
    • Bajor secedes from the Alliance after Iliana Ghemor becomes the Emissary and the consequent revival of their ancient religion. Supreme Legate Dukat sends the Cardassian Ninth Order to the B'hava'el system in order to reconquer the planet. If necessary, Dukat intends to occupy Bajor for decades. Although Terok Nor and more than half the Terran Rebellion fleet is destroyed in the Battle of Bajor, it proves to be a Pyrrhic Victory for the Cardassians as only four Ninth Order warships and several support ships survived. Gul Domal intends to wait until the Seventh Order arrives to conquer Bajor. However, both fleets are devastated by the madness and chaos resulting from Vulcan sleeper agents forcing billions of Cardassians to turn on each other.
    • After Klag becomes Regent, he announces to the Klingon High Command that he intends to conquer the Cardassia Union as part of his plan to place all of known space under Klingon control. However, Damar realizes what he is planning due to increased ship movements near the Klingon-Cardassian border. Rather than wait to be attacked, the Cardassians launch a preemptive strike on Raknal Station, thereby dissolving the Alliance. Most of the Cardassian fleet is destroyed in the battle. The Klingons, now under the more stable leadership of Regent Duras, and the Cardassians eventually reach an uneasy peace but the Alliance is not restored.
• Be All My Sins Remembered: Just before his death in The Sorrows of Empire, Emperor Spock records a message for the future. In it, he lists out all the people he murdered (including his own mother), all the worlds he destroyed, and all the crimes he committed in the name of his grand plan. He closes by saying he has become that which he opposed - a tyrant and a despot - and that history must not laud him but instead treat him as the villain he is.
• Bedlam House: In "The Greater Good", the inmates of the Tantalus Penal Colony are all enemies of high ranking officials in the Terran Empire who were sent there to be tortured. The colony's assistant director Dr. Simon van Gelder discovers that its director Dr. Tristan Adams has been using its resources to rehabilitate inmates in the hope that they can resume their normal lives. Van Gelder didn't report this serious breach to the Empire as he had no desire to take Adams' place as director.
• Being Human Sucks: In The Worst of Both Worlds, Vash, after her Tellarite and Vulcan companions smell and hear things, respectively, far sooner than she could, reflects that human senses are so often inadequate - and many races live longer as well.
• Boomerang Bigot:
  • In "Bitter Fruit", it is revealed that B'Elanna loves torturing Terrans so much, aside from it arousing her, because she despises her Terran half. She believes that it makes her weak and her mother Miral has always hated her because of it.
  • In "Empathy", Christine Vale hates her fellow Terrans as she regards them as being cruel, craven, deserving of slavery and unfit to rule themselves. She cites the brutality of the Terran Empire to support her claims.
• Boom, Headshot!: In Rise Like Lions, Damar is compelled by T'Lana to shoot Supreme Legate Dukat in the back of the head with his sidearm. When Damar looks at his corpse, he sees that Dukat's entire face is gone.
• The Butcher: In Age of the Empress, the Tellarite Gral (in the Prime Universe a diplomat) is known to the Terran Empire as "The Butcher of Berengaria".
• Captured Super-Entity: In "The Black Flag", the extremely powerful Shedai Wanderer was captured by the Terran Empire prior to 2277. She was kept in confinement aboard Vanguard and subjected to many experiments. After the Wanderer was released by Spock's agent Ming Xiong, she destroyed the station. Soon afterwards, she was herself destroyed by a Tholian fleet.
• Child by Rape: In "For Want of a Nail", it is mentioned that K'Ehleyr's Terran mother, a Memory Omega agent, was captured by the Klingons while on a mission and raped repeatedly. After she escaped, she gave birth to the half-Klingon K'Ehleyr on Regula I.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Spock in “Hell’s Mirror”, pretending to defect from the Terran Empire so Khan can get Kirk like he wants, but in reality betraying Khan so Kirk can kill him.
• Les Collaborateurs: In "The Traitor", the crew of the Lakul consider Picard a collaborator as he works for the Klingons.
• Companion Cube: Kirk and the Enterprise is a constant in any universe, as he calls her the love of his life in “The Greater Good”, and that Pike doesn’t deserve her.
• Compelling Voice: In Rise Like Lions, Memory Omega's Vulcan sleeper agents, spread throughout the Alliance, use their psychic powers to influence their Cardassian and Klingon masters. Their coordinated assault on billions of Cardassians comes to be known as the Red Hour:
  • Taurik excarbates Regent Martok's distrust of the Cardassians so that he refuses to provide the Obsidian Order with the Romulan cloaking device captured by Captain Kurn, in direct contravention of the Articles of the Alliance. Martok threatens the Cardassian ambassador Trekal Darhe'el and tells him that he won't give Supreme Legate Dukat the cloaking device under any circumstances.
  • T'Lana forces Damar to shoot Dukat in the back of the head in the middle of Dukat's public address to the entire Cardassian Union.
  • The Obsidian Order agent Solena launches missiles containing a metagenic pathogen, capable of destroying all life on the target planet, at 48 Cardassian-controlled planets.
  • The crews of dozens of ships mutiny and begin slaughtering each other, resulting in the destruction of the Seventh Order fleet before it can retake Bajor.
  • Several months after the Red Hour, another psychic attack is launched on the Klingons, which also involves incidents of extreme violence and mutinies. However, it doesn't destabilize the Empire in the same way because Regent Klag acts quickly. He follows Damar's example and has all slaves in Klingon space put to death.
• Composite Character: In "The Traitor", Gerda Idun Asmund is the mirror universe counterpart of both Gerda and Idun Asmund, the identical twin sisters who served about the U.S.S. Stargazer.
• The Conspiracy: In "Family Matters", Councillor K'Tal believes that the Alliance has weakened the Klingon Empire and seeks to force its dissolution by provoking a war with the Cardassians, thereby restoring his people's power and prestige. K'Tal's followers have been gathering weapons for this purpose by conducting raids on Alliance bases. However, the conspiracy is uncovered and defeated by Commander Klag and Gul Macet. The entire House of K'Tal is then executed for its leader's treachery.
• Conspicuously Public Assassination: In Rise Like Lions, Dukat gets his head blown off by a Vulcan-influenced Damar as he's giving a speech to the Cardassian people.
• Continuity Snarl: The fate of the Constitution-class Defiant follows from that depicted in Star Trek: Enterprise, which was different from what was established in the Starfleet Corps of Engineers stories. Reconciling the accounts is not unworkable, but might require some thought. Then again, if the interspace in which the ship was lost connects two universes it could connect more, so the two Defiant fates aren't necessarily an issue either way.
• The Coup: In The Sorrows of Empire, Spock seizes control of the Terran Empire by assassinating Empress Hoshi Sato III using the Tantalus field.
• Culture Police:
  • In "The Greater Good", Dr. Boyce recalls reading the banned book The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde when he was in med school many years earlier. He only read it because it was banned and considered it to be a silly book "written by a centuries-dead fop during a more permissive age."
  • In The Worst of Both Worlds, it is mentioned that Alliance banned all "decadent" Terran works of art such as Les Misérables after conquering the Terran Republic.
• Dark Magical Girl: Kes ends up as this.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Hell's Mirror shows that not even Mirror Kirk escapes having massive trauma in his youth, as he was raised by secretly Good Parents, who then got their house burned down, and the child was re-educated to be a monster. Kirk pretends the memories were planted to fool Khan, but they turn out to be real at the end.
• Darker and Edgier: Much more so than even the bleakest installments in the Prime Universe.
• Dead Alternate Counterpart: Both played straight and inverted.
  • Played straight given the high casualty rate in the mirror universe.
  • Inverted in that the mirror universe versions of several characters live years or even decades longer than their counterparts. Examples include Deanna's sister Kestra and father Ian, Duras, K'Ehleyr, Tasha Yar, Eddington, Sloan, Seska, Gowron, Dukat and Damar.
• Death by Childbirth: In Cutting Ties, Soleta's mother, a Vulcan slave, died giving birth to her.
• Death Faked for You: In "The Sacred Chalice", Lwaxana told Deanna that her elder sister Kestra was killed by an Alliance patrol only hours after she escaped Betazed by stealing a Romulan transport. As such, Deanna is astonished when Kestra turns up alive and well in 2371, several decades later.
• Defector from Decadence: Mirror Seska is a member of the Terran Rebellion and fervent in her disaproval of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. She believes the Cardassians should rule the quadrant, but they shouldn't have allied with the Klingons to do it.
• Den of Iniquity: In "The Sacred Chalice", Lwaxana runs the titular pleasure palace, which caters to senior Alliance personnel, in the ruins of Betazed. Using her secret telepathic powers, she is able to provide anything that her clients want, no matter how debauched, at a moment's notice.
• Desecrating the Dead: In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, Intendant B'Elanna kills Lewis Zimmerman and mutilates his corpse after learning that he intended to use Kes' telepathic powers to his own advantage.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In Rise Like Lions, Kes is devastated by Neelix's death fighting the Alliance and lays the blame on the entire Alpha Quadrant. She intends to use her psionic powers to wreak chaos and destruction on everyone. Kes tells Tuvok that they will all have to worship her and that those who do so best will be granted a quick and painless death. However, Kes never gets the opportunity to act on her threats as Tuvok activates the tiny explosive that Memory Omega placed in her brain, killing her.
• Divided We Fall: When O'Brien's Terran Rebellion and Calhoun's Xenexian-Romulan forces come together in Rise Like Lions, the two leaders spend more time posturing and insulting one another than they do cooperating. This leads Memory Omega to impose itself on them as, essentially, their joint leader.
• The Dog Bites Back: Finnegan still bullied Kirk in this reality, only this version paid him back with being mind raped to death.
• Dramatic Irony: Scores of cases as people who are allies in one universe are enemies in this one and vice versa.
  • In the New Frontier series, Si Cwan and Zak Kebron are constantly at odds. In this universe, they're good friends.
  • Picard intends to use the Borg against the Alliance.
  • Kira has to become the underling to Ro.
  • Having been exiled from his home world as a slave, Mac returns to forge his people into rebels.
  • B'Elanna kills her treacherous lover/slave... who turns out to be Tom Paris.
  • Betazed is a horrible, blasted out world cited as one of the ugliest in the galaxy.
  • Regent Gorkon is responsible for forming the Alliance and conquering the Terran Republic.
  • Duras saves K'Ehleyr's life.
  • Michael Eddington and Luther Sloan are loyal and stalwart members of the Terran Rebellion.
  • Riker couldn't give a damn about Ian Troi's "tragic sob story" about his long lost daughter Deanna.
  • Kes thinks that Memory Omega's cover story that she turned into energy and ascended to a higher plane of existence is absolutely ridiculous.
  • There are actual therapists (even if they do just poke around your head) in the mirror universe, and Kirk - Starfleet assuming he’s traumatised from Farragut and doesn’t know he killed the crew - gets offered them. Real Kirk wasn’t so lucky, having to settle for booze.
• Doomsday Device:
  • In "Ill Winds", the Penemu, a subject race of the Klingon Empire, have developed a weapon that, when detonated within the atmosphere of a Class M planet, can initiate a fusion reaction that burns away oxygen and other gases to create a "massive global fireball." The test of the prototype weapon on Donatu V was considered only partially successful, though the reaction was still sufficient to eradicate more than 97% of the planet's population. The Constellation eventually tracks the weapon to the Strelluf system. When it becomes apparent that they will be unable to capture the weapon, Commodore April crashes the critically damaged Indomitable into the Strelluf facility, destroying it.
  • In "Homecoming", the Romulans has developed a thalaron bomb for the Alliance. Upon detonation, the bomb will transform all of the natural ambient gamma radiation on the target planet into thalaron radiation. The vast majority of the population will die in minutes while the remainder will be dead within a week. The Romulan Praetor Hiren plans to use the bomb against the Alliance so that his people will no longer be under their thumb. However, the Alliance betrays him before he can betray them and deploy the weapon on Romulus. Only 49,998 Romulans survive the destruction of their planet. After Hiren cedes authority, they fall under the command of Calhoun and the Excalibur.
  • In Rise Like Lions, the Obsidian Order's bioweapons lab has developed a metagenic pathogen which will self-replicate and feed off every bit of DNA and organic matter when released into a planet's atmosphere, exterminating all life within days.
  • Also in Rise Like Lions, the Ferengi recognize the rebellion's captured territorial possessions as a sovereign state and offer them supplies and safe passage. Regent Klag orders the destruction of their sun with a warp capable trilithium warhead launched from the Ya'Vang, wiping out the Ferengi within minutes. Klag threatens to use more warheads to destroy all other planets that have given the rebels safe harbor if they don't surrender within three days. Before the deadline, the Memory Omega ally Duras becomes Regent by killing Klag. He rescinds the order and offers the rebels a ceasefire. However, the Ya'Vang's captain Krona considers Duras' decision weak and cowardly and takes command of a renegade fleet. He intends to destroy Bajor's sun B'hava'el in retaliation for the Bajorans' secession from the Alliance. After a costly battle, the rebels manage to stop his fleet and save Bajor.
• Drunk on the Dark Side: In Rise Like Lions, Kes starts succumbing to the temptations of her incredible psychic powers after Neelix dies, but comes down quickly when she realizes she has seconds left to live.
• Dying Alone: In The Sorrows of Empire, Mirror Spock and his wife, Marlena, have a conversation in which he promises her that they'll be together when they die, but notes that in the end, everyone is alone when they die.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Rise Like Lions, full stop. So, billions of people on all sides are dead, combatants and civilians alike. Yet now, the galaxy appears to have entered an unprecedented era of peace... unless the Dominion finds the wormhole or the Borg return...
• Earth That Used to Be Better: In Rise Like Lions, Earth, once the center of the Terran Empire, is a backwater Alliance planet whose natural resources are all long depleted. Its only value is the export of cheap slaves. Although Earth has no strategic value, its liberation by Calhoun's armada is a major symbolic victory for the combined rebel fleet because of its former importance. It later becomes a major rallying point for the rebellion.
• Electronic Eyes: In "The Black Flag", Commodore Reyes' missing right eye has been replaced with an optical implant. It is made of polished steel and contains an unblinking red light where the eye should be.
• Enemy Civil War: A large part of both Memory Omega and the Terran Rebellion's plan depends on driving a wedge between the two great powers of the Alliance. In Rise Like Lions, the Cardassians and the Klingons indeed end up fighting each other.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In "Ill Winds", Commodore Robert April has a reputation for ruthlessness and is one of the most feared men in the Terran Empire. However, he seldom raises his voice. This has earned him the nickname "the Quiet Tyrant." In spite of this reputation, April is far less brutal than many of his fellow Starfleet officers, including his own wife Sarah. He does not use violence indiscriminately, only when he feels it is absolutely necessary. Sarah comes to view her husband as weak and is able to bend him to her will using an agonizer. The only reason that she does not kill him is that she has built up a great deal of prestige as the wife of Commodore April, which she does not want to squander.
• Eye Beams: In "The Black Flag", Commodore Reyes' optical implant is equipped with a high-intensity laser that can kill someone in seconds. He uses it on the Klingon commander Turag.

• The Fake Cutie: To contrast original Kirk being a Heroic Seductress and how it takes a toll on him, Marlena marvels that mirror Kirk loves to play cute and innocent (like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth) to get people to do what he wants and then destroys them.
• Fake Defector: In "The Traitor", the crew of the Lakul are contacted by the Daa'Vit Morgen, an Alliance official who claims that he wants to defect to the Terran Rebellion, then in its infancy. However, it turns out that Morgen was loyal to the Alliance all along and was merely trying to lure the Lakul to Proteus.
• Faking the Dead:
  • In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, both the Alliance and the Terran Rebellion believe that Tuvok's wife T'Pel and four children are dead, having been killed by the Alliance. In reality, only his son Sek is dead. For their own safety, T'Pel and his other three children live on the Memory Omega asteroid Regula I.
  • In "A Terrible Beauty", after his staged attempt to kill her, Keiko gives Tiron a soporific to make it appear that he is dead. He is then beamed off Terok Nor by their fellow Memory Omega operative Chu'lak and revived.
• False Flag Operation: In "A Terrible Beauty", there is an explosion in Terok Nor's engineering section. As Keiko was working there several days earlier, Tiron accuses her of planting the bomb. He becomes so convinced that she is an Alliance collaborator that he shoots her with his disruptor. Keiko is not badly injured but she suffers a concussion. It turns out that this was part of a carefully orchestrated Memory Omega plot to both restore the Terran Rebellion's resolve after their major defeat at Empok Nor and to dispel any remaining rumors that Keiko was an Alliance spy. In accusing and attacking Keiko, Tiron was simply playing his part in the deception. Smiley determines that Keiko was behind the explosion but eventually forgives her.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • In "Ill Winds", Commodore April describes the Klingon as a "rabid pack of animals." His wife Dr. April later refers to them as "those savages."
  • In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, B'Elanna is despised by other Klingons as they consider her a half-breed due to her Terran father. She would have been killed at birth if not for Miral's influence within the Alliance. Gowron sent a slave to assassinate her because she was a half-breed but the plot was unsuccessful. Cardassians such as Gul Evek look down on her too.
• Fantastic Slurs:
  • Throughout the series, "spoonhead" is a frequently used slur against Cardassians.
  • In "Ill Winds", the Klingon captive refers to Commodore April as "Earther."
  • In "The Black Flag", Commodore Reyes refers to the Klingons as "ridge-heads."
  • In The Worst of the Worlds, Picard, Vash and Bagro all refer to the Cardassians as "Cardies."
  • In "Empathy", Riker calls the amphibious Selkie Aili Lavena a "dumb trout."
• Final Solution:
  • In the 23rd Century, the Terran Empire was so fearful of telepaths undermining it that it wiped out all known telepathic species in the Alpha Quadrant. For instance, in "The Greater Good", the Enterprise destroys the Talosians. As their telepathic powers are a closely guarded secret, the Vulcans survived. As such, telepaths are a highly valued commodity by the following century. In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, the Alliance has a standing order that any evidence of a telepath is to be reported to Alliance Command immediately.
  • In "Homecoming", the Alliance uses the thalaron bomb to wipe out the Romulans in order to eliminate one of the few major threats to their rule over the Alpha Quadrant.
  • In Rise Like Lions, the Alliance wiped out almost all Andorians when they conquered their homeworld.
• Flash Sideways: In Cutting Ties, Soleta has McHenry show Calhoun a vision of his counterpart Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and the senior staff of the U.S.S. Excalibur in the primary universe to prove to him that he can be a better man.
• Foe Romance Subtext: In “Hell’s Mirror”. Even on opposite sides, Khan literally says he wants to seduce Kirk over to his side, and Kirk complains that Khan just wants him as a pet and plaything.
• Foreshadowing: The fate of Vanguard Station in "The Black Flag" is similar to that suffered by the prime universe Vanguard, several (real world) years later.
• Gladiator Games: In "The Sacred Chalice", Andrul Taqut is concerned that his father Gul Taqut will discover that he has lost a great deal of money betting on underground slave fights on Cardassia Prime.
• Good Costume Switch: In “Hell’s Mirror”, when Kirk is tricking Khan into thinking he’s turned good, his clothes go from showing off his arms to a similar yellow command shirt his normal counterpart wears.
• Good Is Dumb: “Hell’s Mirror” has Kirk pretending that he’s loyal to Khan by playing the dumb innocent Farm Boy from Iowa, thinking that’s how his mirror counterpart actually is.
• Good Old Ways: The Oralian Way on Cardassia, just like in the Prime Universe.
• Grey-and-Grey Morality: “Hell’s Mirror” reverses Kirk and Khan, Kirk being the bad guy and Khan being the good guy, but Khan’s Fatal Flaw is still overwhelming pride, and Kirk as a small child was trained to be a monster after his home was burned down.
• Half-Human Hybrid: In Age of the Empress, Empress Sato tries to have an offspring with Shran. Given the very different genetic structures of the parents, the baby is artificially engineered and it's not even certain if the experiment ultimately succeeds.
• Happiness in Slavery: Mirror Janeway and Mirror Christine Vale are both loyal to the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. Vale even gets a speech about how the savagery of the Terran Empire is evidence her people shouldn't be allowed freedom.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • In "A Terrible Beauty", Tasha realizes that her stolen transport, containing about 100 other slaves, is leaking plasma so it stays behind in order to buy Keiko's transport enough time to escape from Korvat and make its way to Terok Nor.
  • In Rise Like Lions, Calhoun has McHenry set the Excalibur on a collision course with the trilithium warhead which is about to destroy B'hava'el. However, the entire crew survives as McHenry manages to relocate them to the Enterprise by folding space. They initially believe that McHenry was killed but they later learn that he transferred his consciousness to an abandoned Galor-class vessel at the last second.
• Honey Trap: In "A Terrible Beauty", Keiko uses sex to gain influence over the overseer Glinn Broca within a few months of her arrival on Korvat in 2358. Three years later, she has him arrange a meeting with the mining colony commander Gul Zarale, where she informs him that she has uncovered a plot to assassinate Overseer Kozak. Zarale is impressed by Keiko and soon takes her as a concubine. Keiko uses her new position to influence Zarale in the same way and becomes an overseer herself in 2365.
• Hope Springs Eternal: The ending of The Sorrows of Empire is both one of the bleakest and simultaneously most uplifting there is.
• Illegal Religion: After the Terran Empire conquered the Bajorans, their religion was banned. All Bajoran religion leaders were executed and many icons and scriptures were destroyed.
• Immediate Sequel:
  • The beginning of Age of the Empress recreates the final scene of "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II" and carries on directly from there.
  • The first scene of The Sorrows of Empire takes place several days after "Mirror, Mirror".
  • Rise Like Lions begins several weeks after the events of The Soul Key.
• In Harmony with Nature: The Shards and Shadows story "Empathy" is set on Lru-Irr, the planet of the Irriol race introduced in Star Trek: Titan. The entire biosphere, Irriol included, is telepathically interconnected to the point where prey will lay down and be eaten if the ecological balance requires it.
• Insistent Terminology: Khan in “Hell’s Mirror”, still vain even when a Well-Intentioned Extremist, didn’t flee a war-decimated planet, he abandoned it to do his sleep thing.
• In Spite of a Nail: While there are scores of differences of people and their relationships, in Saturn's Children, Miles and Keiko fall in love. In Rise Like Lions, they have a daughter named Molly, though she is not the direct counterpart of the prime universe Molly as she is 12 years younger. In Fearful Symmetry, Julian describes them as "soul mates in any universe."
• Insult Backfire: Marlena calls Kirk the most evil man she’s ever known. He replies with a cute smile and a thank you.
• Invisibility Cloak: In "For Want of a Nail", K'Ehleyr uses a stealth suit, created by Memory Omega scientists, to infiltrate the Alliance base on Gamma Pavonis III.
• Ironic Echo:
  • Like in "Amok Time", Spock strangles Kirk to death in a homoerotic way (right in his quarters). Unlike "Amok Time", it's for real and he finishes the man off with a Neck Snap.
  • In “Hell’s Mirror”, while refusing to admit that his tragic past was real, Mirror Kirk tells Spock to “get the hell out of here” with the same stricken expression as Kirk had in “The City On The Edge Of Forever”.
  • Also in “Hell’s Mirror”, Kirk blows up the Enterprise in a nod to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, but with no regret and just because There's No Kill like Overkill.
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople): In Age of the Empress, Volgograd is still known as Stalingrad in 2155.
• Klingon Promotion:
  • In "The Greater Good", Kirk kills Pike using the Tantalus field in 2264 and becomes captain of the I.S.S. Enterprise, as referenced in "Mirror, Mirror".
  • In "The Black Flag", Zhao Sheng seized command of the Endeavour after assassinating the previous captain because he was disgusted by his sadism.
  • In The Sorrows of Empire, Gorkon becomes the Regent of the Klingon Empire after killing Sturka in 2288.
  • In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, it is mentioned that Tuvok became the captain of the I.S.S. Excelsior after killing Styles, who was plotting to overthrow Emperor Spock.
  • In Rise Like Lions, Damar becomes Supreme Legate of the Cardassian Union after T'Lana forces him to kill Dukat.
  • Also in Rise Like Lions, Klag slays Martok in honorable combat in 2377 and takes his place as Regent. The following year, Klag is himself killed by Duras, who becomes the new Regent.
• Last of His Kind: The Dax Symbiont, following the genocide of the other symbionts on Trill in The Sorrows of Empire.
• Literary Allusion Title:
  • "A Terrible Beauty" is a reference to the line "A terrible beauty is born" from the poem "Easter, 1916" by William Butler Yeats.
  • Rise Like Lions is a reference to the line "Rise, like lions after slumber in unvanquishable number!" from the 1819 poem The Masque of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
• Love-Interest Traitor:
  • There are two examples in The Mirror-Scaled Serpent.
    • Gul Evek was betrayed by Seska, his first officer and secret lover, when she defected to the Terran Rebellion.
    • Chakotay's lover Kate Janeway, who is also the chief engineer of his ship Geronimo, is secretly working for Intendant B'Elanna. She kills her fellow engineer Annika and turns the rest of the crew over to B'Elanna when they reach Monor Base.
  • In "Empathy", Christine Vale uses her position as the slave of the Alliance doctor Jaza Najem to provide the Terran Rebellion with key intel about the Alliance's activities on Lru-Irr. When they are reunited, she tells her lover Aili Lavena that she hates having Jaza touch her when they have sex and that he actually believes that she loves him. However, when the rebels are ambushed by the Alliance, Christine reveals the truth: that she has been working for the Alliance all along and that it was all a plot to lure them to Lru-Irr. She then tells Aili that she does truly love Jaza because he has given her the best possible for a Terran.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, there are two examples:
  • B'Elanna loves torturing her Sex Slave Thomas with branding irons as she finds his screams to be "joyously erotic."
  • As Harry's parents were tortured to death in front of him by Klingons when he was a child, he has made it his mission in life to kill every last Klingon in existence. He loves the sound of their screams as he tortures them and always tries to get them to recreate the pitch of his parents' screams.
• Mad Doctor:
  • In "Ill Winds", Dr. Sarah April created the agonizer, which is used to inflict terrible pain on a person by stimulating their nerve clusters. She later takes great pleasure in torturing a Klingon prisoner by stabbing him in the knee with a dagger. Her husband Commodore April is often disturbed by her uncontrollable vicious streak.
  • In "The Black Flag", Surgeon-Commandant Ezekiel Fisher takes sadistic pleasure from performing experiments on and torturing the Shedai Wanderer. He has also killed many humanoids in the course of other experiments.
  • In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, Lewis Zimmerman uses his own version of the Klingon mind sifter to experiment on Kes in order to determine the limits of her telepathic powers. A psi-inhibitor keeps her from using those powers on him. Although Intendant B'Elanna thinks that he is working for her, Zimmerman intends to sell Kes to the highest bidder.
• Made a Slave:
  • In The Sorrows of Empire, almost all Terrans and Vulcans who survive the conquest of the Terran Republic by the Alliance in 2295 are made into slaves.
  • In Cutting Ties, Praetor Hiren has the 14-year-old Calhoun sent to the slave mines on Remus after he refuses to kill his father Gr'zy.
• Magic Plastic Surgery: In "Homecoming", Selar, Calhoun and Soleta are surgically altered to look like Romulans so that they can infiltrate Praetor Hiren's ship and gain access to the thalaron bomb.
• The Man Behind the Man: Memory Omega is pulling a lot of strings with regard to the rebellion, and K'Ehleyr in turn is (at first) propping up Picard as their leader because she knows no Terran or Romulan would ever take orders from a Klingon, half-human or not.
• Meaningful Rename:
  • In Cutting Ties, Calhoun tells Soleta to call him "Mac" instead of "Muck" after he learns that Mac is the name that his primary universe counterpart goes by. In so doing, he has come to accept that he can be a better man.
  • In "Homecoming", the name of the Stinger is changed to the Excalibur at the suggestion of Robin Lefler. She named it after a famous weapon wielded by a mighty ruler. Calhoun thinks that it is an apt name as he intends to use the ship to defeat the Alliance.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: In "Bitter Fruit", B'Elanna is unable to control her new telepathic powers. She is overwhelmed by the frantic thoughts of a Terran slave, who is mentally begging her to stop as she tortures him for pleasure.
• Mind over Matter: In Rise Like Lions, Kes uses her telekinetic powers to break most of Gorta's bones and turn his head 180 degrees when he tries to attack her. She then kills his two accomplices by telekinetically stabbing them through their heads.
• Mind Rape:
  • In "Nobunaga", T'Pol subjects Tucker to a Vulcan mind meld in order to learn the location of the Nobunaga, Empress Sato's new ship which he helped Archer's rebels to steal.
  • In Rise Like Lions, Kes takes control of Neelix's mind when he refuses to leave Terok Nor before the Battle of Bajor. After he regains control of his senses, he is disgusted and horrified at what Kes has done. He later tells her that she violated him and that it was the worst thing that has ever happened to him.
• Mirror Self: Pretty obvious with unique turns on characters:
  • Mac is not a warrior from the beginning but a downright cowardly wimp who has to learn to fight to survive.
  • Janeway is first just an engineer on Voyager, not the Captain. It then turns out she's loyal to the Alliance.
  • Harry Kim is a brutal, near psychopath who just wants to kill Klingons.
  • Seska is allied with Chakotay while still a Cardassian.
  • And scores more with almost every major Trek character warped in some way.
• Mirror Universe: Duh.
• Moe Greene Special:
  • In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, B'Elanna kills Thomas by throwing a d'k tahg knife at his eye after she discovers that he has betrayed her.
  • In "Bitter Fruit", B'Elanna kills another Terran slave by driving her pick into his left eye, having been forced to relive the memory of killing Thomas as Kes tried to force her to kill herself.
• The Mole: In "For Want of a Nail", K'Ehleyr discovers that General Duras is a secret ally of Memory Omega when he helps her to escape from Gamma Pavonis III. He explains to her that his family has been opposed to the Alliance for decades and that his father Ja'rod tried to forge an alliance with the Romulans at Khitomer. However, he was killed by Mogh before he could do so. Even so, the incident drew the House of Duras to Memory Omega's attention. Duras did what he could to prevent Intendant Kira and Captain Kurn from learning of the Terran Rebellion shipyard at Empok Nor (as depicted in Saturn's Children) but his efforts were unsuccessful. In Rise Like Lions, Duras becomes Regent after killing Klag and uses his position to forge a peace treaty with the Rebellion.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Kirk’s brother Sam is a doctor who specialises in lobotomies to make patients docile and slow-witted.
• The Mourning After: In Rise Like Lions, Ezri is devastated when her wife Leeta is killed in the attack on the SoHcha shipyards. She falls into a state of deep depression for several weeks, rarely leaving her quarters or seeing anyone. She begins to come out of it when Smiley offers to make her second-in-command of the Defiant. Over the course of the next year, Ezri throws herself into her work as a way of dealing with her pain. Although initially reluctant to join with the Dax symbiont, she agrees when she is told that she will never be alone again once she is joined.
• Necessarily Evil: In The Sorrows of Empire, the actions Spock takes to ensure that the the spirit of the Terran Republic and freedom lives on are quite ruthless, and he knows it. He even calls himself a villain.
• Never Learned to Read: In Cutting Ties, the 13-year-old Calhoun doesn't know how to read as his father Gr'zy considered it a waste of time. He eventually learns after being taken as a political hostage by the Romulans.
• Orbital Bombardment:
  • In Age of the Empress, the rebel fleet bombards Earth from space, devastating many cities including Beijing, Chicago, Kyoto, Mumbai, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Stalingrad. In retaliation, the Defiant and a taskforce of Starfleet ships launch an orbital attack on the rebel stronghold Aldus Prime.
  • In "The Greater Good", the Talosians are destroyed on the orders of Captain Kirk when the Enterprise fires its phasers at Talos IV, stripping away its atmosphere.
  • In "The Black Flag", Commodore Reyes destroyed the colony governed by his ex-wife from space in retaliation for their divorce. As a result, thousands of innocent people were killed and the planet's surface turned to glass.
  • In Cutting Ties, Muck has McHenry fire the Stinger's weapons on Danter with the intention of wiping out the entire population. However, McHenry only destroys their military might, factories and largely uninhabitated landmasses so the casualties are relatively light. This attack leads the Danteri to withdraw from Xenex, ending centuries of occupation.
  • In Saturn's Children, it is revealed that the Terran Rebellion stronghold Terok Nor is able to remain in orbit of the Alliance planet Bajor as it has threatened to fire its complete arsenal at Bajor in the event of an Alliance attack. Doing so would render the planet uninhabitable for generations. In The Soul Key, Iliana Ghemor (while posing as Intendant Kira) calls the Rebellion's bluff and has the Klingon fleet under her command destroy the Bajoran capital Ashalla, killing two million people in the process. She forces the Rebellion to surrender Terok Nor to her control by threatening to destroy more cities.
• Out-Gambitted: In Age of the Empress, Sato tricks Shran into an alliance by claiming the records of the future aboard the Defiant showed they would be married with a son. She smugly thinks she can use her "future knowledge" to defend her various actions and win others to her side. She's stunned when, following the marriage, Shran pulls a coup on her. Shran reveals he never believed Sato's talk in the first place and managed to decode the records to discover Defiant isn't from this universe at all. However, he does plan to use their marriage and a lab-created "son" to break Andoria away and forge its own Empire with Shran as ruler.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Kes.
• Pet the Dog: When he sees that Pike just wants his death to be over with, Mirror Kirk shows an ounce of compassion, promising he’ll take good care of the Enterprise.
• Power Nullifier:
  • In "The Sacred Chalice", Lwaxana implanted her daughters Deanna and Kestra with a neural suppressor as soon as they started to display the first signs of empathic powers. They both grew up believing that they had not inherited any of their mother's gifts. However, Kestra eventually learned the truth and told Deanna when she returned to the ruined Betazed after many years. Kestra is unsure whether Lwaxana did what she did to protect her daughters or to control them.
  • In Rise Like Lions, Kes discovers that Memory Omega placed a neural damper in her mind which allows them to block her powers at the push of a button. Tuvok uses it on her when she attempts to escape Terok Nor with Neelix, who is under her mental control.
• Prequel: "The Greater Good" takes place in 2264, three years before the events of "Mirror, Mirror". Lt. Commander Kirk acquires the Tantalus field at the Tantalus Penal Colony and uses it to assassinate Captain Pike, making him the captain of the Enterprise. In exchange for Spock's support, he also assassinated Number One and made Spock the first officer. In the final scene, the Enterprise is ordered to Gorlan to suppress an uprising.
• Pride: In “Hell’s Mirror”, it’s still Khan’s Fatal Flaw even as a good guy. He’s a Well-Intentioned Extremist, but also wants to lord it over everyone.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide:
  • In "Bitter Fruit", using her extensive psychic powers, Kes attempts to force B'Elanna to kill herself with a pick but B'Elanna is able to resist and instead uses the pick to kill the Terran slave whom she had been torturing for sexual gratification.
  • In Rise Like Lions, a Vulcan sleeper agent forces Gul Domal to shoot himself in the mouth with his blaster.
• Psycho for Hire: In "Empathy", Will Riker is a bloodthirsty mercenary with no morals and no loyalty except to himself. He is hired by the Terran Rebellion ship Deanna to help them steal Alliance files from Lru-Irr. However, Riker couldn't care less about their cause, having previously worked for the Alliance for the right amount of money. He spends much of his time sharpening his mek'leth and is always looking for an opportunity to use it. Shortly after arriving on Lru-Irr, the rebels come under attack from Alliance troops. After the fighting is over, Riker manages to capture the traitor Christine Vale, whom he brutally rapes and murders. He then abandons the rebels and steals the Deanna but it is destroyed by an Alliance vessel as it attempts to leave Lru-Irr.
• Public Secret Message: In "A Terrible Beauty", Tasha, who is seemingly just another Terran slave, is a Memory Omega operative who is sent to Korvat to communicate with Keiko. She has a tattoo on her leg written in Japanese calligraphy by Keiko's mother:
  "Our efforts proceed apace. Rebellion growing in Bajor sector. Proceed with training and liberation. Destination: Terok Nor."
• Pulling the Thread: In Saturn's Children, Eddington does a beautiful job of this as he line by line exposes how Sito Jaxa's journal on being pregnant was actually a complex code showing she's an Alliance spy.
• Puppeteer Parasite: In The Sorrows of Empire, Emperor Spock discovers that the Kurlans have succeeded in infesting Trill, hijacking the elder egg-laying symbionts as a means of creating more of their body-stealing parasites. He orders every joined Trill to be put to death except for Curzon Dax, who serves as a reminder of what he has become.
• The Purge: In Rise Like Lions, Supreme Legate Damar noticed that no non-Cardassians were killed or injured during the Red Hour in which millions of Cardassians killed each other. He correctly determines that the slaves were responsible for the madness that gripped his people. As such, Damar orders that every slave and non-Cardassian servant in the Union be executed, resulting in over 31 million deaths. When similar incidents of madness occur in Klingon space, Regent Klag does the same thing.
• Rejected By The Call: Poor Pike is not only killed by Kirk and kept a barely functioning alcoholic by Boyce, but his whole career has been a sham, made the wholesome Pretty Boy Captain by the Empire who wanted to counter their corrupted image.
• Revenge Before Reason: In Rise Like Lions, Dukat, when asked by Damar what Cardassia has to gain from conquering Bajor in the wake of its secession from the Alliance, answers "Revenge!" He also throws his glass at the wall – hey, it's the mirror universe, it's supposed to be over-the-top.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: In "Family Matters", Councillor K'Tal and the other members of his House have their throats slashed by Regent Worf and the High Council after their plot to break up the Alliance is exposed.
• Rugged Scar: In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, Harry has a prominent scar on the left side of his face, seemingly from a fight with a Klingon.
• Running Gag: The Mirror Universe episodes of Deep Space Nine had a running gag concerning Ferengi characters being killed off. The joke climaxes in Rise Like Lions with the destruction of Ferenginar itself.
• Scrapbook Story: "Family Matters" is told through a series of transcripts of official records, communications logs, private subspace messages and conversations recorded by the Obsidian Order.
• Sequel Hook: In the final scene of Rise Like Lions, the Dominion finds the wormhole opening in the Gamma Quadrant.
• Sex Slave:
  • In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, Thomas is B'Elanna's sex slave. The half-Terran B'Elanna was herself fathered by her mother Miral's slave.
  • In "Family Matters", Klag tells Gul Macet that his father M'Raq had a female Vulcan slave with impressive stamina when he was growing up.
  • In Saturn's Children, the Alliance used Intendant Kira as a scapegoat after Regent Worf was captured by the Terran Rebellion and she became the sex slave of his successor Martok on Q'onoS.
  • In Rise Like Lions, there are several examples:
    • T'Lana serves as both Damar's masseuse and sex slave.
    • T'Nara's official role was as Damek's household slave but he took her as his concubine, violating her on a regular basis.
    • Miral regarded being appointed Intendant of Earth, which was meant as a punishment, as being exiled in paradise because she could have as many Terran sex slaves as she wanted. When Calhoun's armada arrives to liberate Earth, her slaves turn on her and repeatedly stab her in an orgy of violence.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Implied at the end of Rise Like Lions. The Mirror Dominion finds the Bajoran wormhole before anyone on the Alpha Quadrant side does. Uh-oh. Except as it turns out in Section 31: Disavowed, maybe not.
• Shout-Out:
  • In Age of the Empress, Mayweather recalls a line from an old 2-D film that his father used to show him on cargo runs:
    "Keep your friends close but your enemies closer."
  • Also in Age of the Empress, Empress Sato orders the Defiant crew to eradicate the "rebel scum" from Aldus Prime. In The Worst of Both Worlds, the same phrase is used by a Cardassian in reference to Vash.
  • In "Homecoming", Soleta complains that her primary job aboard the ''Excalibur'' seems to be repeating what the ship says for the benefit of the crewmembers who can't hear McHenry's voice in their minds.
• Slave Liberation:
  • In "A Terrible Beauty", Keiko and 94 other slaves, including Tiron and Sam Bowers, escape from Korvat on a stolen Cardassian transport and make their way to Terok Nor, where they join the Terran Rebellion.
  • In Rise Like Lions, millions of slaves (Terrans, Vulcans, Bolians and others) across the Alpha Quadrant are freed when Memory Omega signs a peace treaty with the Klingons and the Cardassians.
• Space Pirates: In The Worst of Both Worlds, Picard knew the space pirate Black Jack Crusher, the commander of the Bonny Beverly, before his death.
• Spanner in the Works: Kira and Bashir's accidental trip to the Mirror Universe during DS9's "Crossover" is revealed to have been one for Memory Omega. When Emperor Spock developed his Long Game, he correctly predicted the political and social events within the Alliance over the next century after his death and how to take advantage of them. However, much like Hari Seldon and the Mule in Foundation, there were x-factors Spock didn't and couldn't anticipate...such as renewed contact between the Mirror Universe and the Prime Universe. After all, as far as he (and our Kirk knew), "Mirror, Mirror" was a one-in-a-million cosmic fluke. So while a Rebellion was always part of The Plan, Kira and Bashir unwittingly ended triggering it much earlier than intended and it throws Memory Omega's entire timetable into chaos.
• Star Killing: In Rise Like Lions, a trilithium warhead is used to destroy the Ferenginar system.
• Superpowerful Genetics: In The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, Crell Moset tells B'Elanna that he has samples of Kes' DNA and that he may be able to splice it into B'Elanna's genetic structure, making her a telepath. In "Bitter Fruit", several months later, B'Elanna has developed telepathic abilities. She intends to offer the ability to create telepathic warriors to Regent Worf in exchange for a higher position in the Alliance.
• Thanatos Gambit: Spock's death is just one step in a huge, century-long gambit of his own design.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: In "The Black Flag", Captain Zhao Sheng throws the smuggler Griffin out the airlock of the Eighth Happiness when he refuses to give him the unlock codes for the freighter's cargo bay. After several seconds, Zhao beams the half-frozen Griffin back aboard and demands the codes once again. Griffin still refuses so Zhao repeats the procedure. This convinces Griffin to tell him what he wants to know.
• Tuckerization: In The Sorrows of Empire, Lt. Kyle, who was played by John Winston, is given the first name Winston.
• Underground Railroad: In Saturn's Children, Ezri's mother Yanas Tigan and elder brother Janel used the resources of the Tigan Mining Consortium to help more than 300 Terran slaves escape from Sappora VII. They created a vast network of subterranean passageways all over New Sydney using their pergium mining operations as a cover. Ezri's younger brother Norvo realized what was going on and turned Yanas and Janel over to the Alliance. When Alliance personnel tried to arrest Yanas and Janel, they allegedly resisted and were killed while trying to escape.
• Unexplained Recovery: In The Worst of Both Worlds, Selar is said to have committed suicide after being captured by the Cardassians on Celtris III in 2371. However, she turns up alive and well with no explanation two years later in "Homecoming".
• Vestigial Empire: It seems the Romulan Star Empire splinters and collapses no matter which universe we're in; the mainstream Star Trek Novel 'Verse, Star Trek Online, and now here. After the destruction of Romulus occurs early thanks to a thalaron weapon in "Homecoming", the colonies are left to be conquered by Klingons or join Calhoun's resistance. In Rise Like Lions, the Star Empire gets re-established after the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance collapses, and forms an alliance with the new Galactic Commonwealth.
• Voluntary Shape Shifting: In "The Traitor", an Iyaaran named Sestro impersonates Picard as part of an elaborate plot to undermine the Alliance. His people have become concerned about the Alliance possibly encroaching on their territory. It turns out that Guinan has also been temporarily replaced by a shapeshifter: a Daled IV native named Werreth, whose people likewise seek to destabilize the Alliance.
• Whole-Plot Reference: David Mack has admitted that the Novel Verse Mirror Universe storyline is essentially him doing a riff on Isaac Asimov's Foundation.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: “Hell’s Mirror” gives Mirror Kirk a Dark and Troubled Past, with his parents secretly trying to raise him to be good, and the Terran Empire burning his home down, killing them and taking him to be “re-trained”. The flashback shows a small crying child being dragged along by soldiers.
• Would Hurt a Child: In "The Traitor", a Cardassian officer killed a young Terran girl who threw a rock at him.
• You Are Number 6: Terran slaves are forbidden to use their names and are instead referred to using designations. For instance, Tasha's designation is given as 707-Delta in "A Terrible Beauty".
• You Can Leave Your Hat On: In Saturn's Children, Smiley reviews Enrique Muniz's subspace messages in order to determine if he is a spy. He finds a video message from Muniz's girlfriend Lisa Neeley in which she performs a striptease for his birthday. This turns out to be one of many such messages that the couple have sent each other over several months.

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