Terran Empire
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| Terran Empire | |
|---|---|
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| Founded: | Circa mid 20th century |
| Homeworld: | Earth |
| Currency: | credit |
| Affiliation: | None |
The Terran Empire is, in the fictional universe of Star Trek, the Mirror Universe counterpart of the United Federation of Planets and differs from the Federation in aspects of philosophy and ethics. Where the Federation has strict rules protecting less-advanced societies, the Prime Order of the Empire is to allow no resistance to its wishes to go unpunished. Punishment on Imperial Starfleet vessels is administered by the use of hand-held agonizers or, for serious offenses such as an unsuccessful assassination of a superior, the agony booth. Both of these work by direct stimulus of the brain's pain centers. Aliens are experimented on in painful ways as a matter of routine.
The uniforms and heraldry of the Empire reflect its very violent nature; uniforms are more flamboyant and always incorporate weapons — daggers and phasers. The symbol of the Empire is a stylized Earth with a sword behind it, the hilt appearing to protrude from the North Pole and the point coming out behind the South Pole. Assassination of disobedient officers by their subordinates is encouraged as a means of maintaining discipline and as a means of career advancement for those who are successful. As such, high ranking officers are often shown with bodyguards to counter such attempts. Starship commanders are seen keeping one, or even several, consorts from among the crew, although these relationships have tended to be brief. However, life in the Empire is not wholly corrupt, as characters from the Empire have been occasionally depicted with redeeming qualities, such as loyalty (for example, as the ISS Enterprise is being bombarded by Tholians, Captain Maximilian Forrest heroically stays behind in order to get his crew into lifeboats and safely off the ship).
Vulcans are depicted as transitioning from a second-class race of the Empire (as seen in "In a Mirror, Darkly") to becoming one of the more influential member-races — nearly as ruthless as their human counterparts — as typified by the mirror Spock.
The Empire is stated to be unstable in the first episode in which it appears ("Mirror Mirror") and the mirror-universe Spock estimates that it will be violently overthrown in the next few centuries. In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Crossover" it is shown that the Empire fell to an alliance of Klingons and Cardassians, and Humans and Vulcans became enslaved. What happened to Earth or Vulcan in this universe was left unexplored.
[edit] Collapse
Crossover (DS9 episode) depicts the Terran Empire as having fallen to the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance with Humans and Vulcans enslaved. It is the stated belief of some of the Mirror-Universe characters that this was due to reforms in the Terran Empire promoted by the Mirror-Spock. However it is has never been established in official canon when and how the Empire met its end, or what happened to the counterpart Enterprise crew.
[edit] Government
Star Trek: Enterprise established that the Empire is an absolute monarchy headed by an Emperor. In the episode In a Mirror, Darkly, Hoshi Sato overthrows Jonathan Archer (who had been attempting to declare himself Emperor) and, using the firepower of the captured USS Defiant, installs herself as Empress. A sequel to this episode was planned, but the cancellation of the show prevented it from being made, thus the fate of Sato remains a mystery.
Subject states were required to pay a tribute called the imperial tithe.
[edit] External link
- Terran Empire article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki.
