June update: Mirrorverse as a porn fic setting

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Oops, I missed doing an update post in May. Well, not much going on other than I was ridiculously busy. Have this June update instead - a mini-essay with my thoughts about the Star Trek Mirrorverse as a setting useful for telling porn stories.

I suppose it's appropriate for me to talk about this because I'm currently writing a (very long, will-never-be-finished) porn fic set in the Mirrorverse of Star Trek. In this post, I'll just jot down some thoughts I have about the experience of using the Mirrorverse as a setting for porn fanfiction. First off, though:

What is the Mirrorverse?

The Mirrorverse originated in the 1967 episode of the original series of Star Trek "Mirror, Mirror" (S2E04) In this episode, a transporter accident ends up transporting Kirk, Uhura, Scotty, and McCoy to a parallel universe, eerily similar to their own and yet, in this universe, Starfleet is the military wing of an unnamed, vaguely fascist, expansionist Empire that rules through fear and violence. Whereas the main world of Star Trek is meant to display humanity at its best and most idealistic, "Mirror, Mirror" holds a mirror up to that utopia and instead depicts a society governed by humanity's worst instincts. All the characters in the main world have a counterpart in this other world. The four officers listed above ended up swapping worlds with their mirror counterparts, though, so the main people they end up interacting with in the mirror world are Mirror Spock, Mirror Sulu, and Mirror Chekov (plus a Mirror Lady of the Week).

This Mirrorverse has showed up many times throughout the Star Trek franchise, notably in Deep Space Nine and in a 2-part episode in Enterprise; it featured heavily as a subplot in Discovery; mirror versions of The Next Generation characters appear in tie-in novels and comics; etc. However, in this post I'll mostly focus on just this one TOS episode as establishing the principal, canonical features of this alternate universe.

Canonical features of the Mirrorverse

In the original Mirrorverse episode, I would say the below are the main points established about this universe:

(1) Sexy: The Mirrorverse is inexplicably sexier than the main universe. For example, Uhura and Kirk's uniforms are swapped for midriff-baring and bicep-baring variations; Mirror Kirk has a mistress who lives in his quarters who is very openly determined to sleep her way to the top; and Uhura quickly encounters aggressive come-ons from Mirror Sulu, which seem to be commonplace in this world.

(2) Campy: TOS's aesthetic in general is very campy, and the universe depicted in this episode is no different. The Mirror universe features similarly bright, primary-colored uniforms, but in this case they're even sparklier and have more ornamentation. Subsequent shows have generally done a good job retaining this campy aesthetic - see, for example, Enterprise's take that prioritizes over-the-top silliness / Rule of Funny in its depiction of the Empire over grounded worldbuilding, and Discovery's sleek pleather + gold armor designs, heavy on the eyeliner.

(3) Evil: Kirk describes the Mirrorverse world as a place where "behaviour and discipline has become brutal, savage." As far as can be told, all the characters in the mirror universe featured in this episode are evil, foils to the crew of good characters. Mirror Kirk's service record includes assassination of his superior officer, destruction of planets, massacres of civilians, etc. Even Mirror Spock, who shows disinterest in climbing the ranks, is blase about bombarding planets and feels beholden to the mirror universe's twisted, violent rules. The Mirrorverse empire features a salute that is meant to evoke comparison to a Nazi salute, which strongly implies that the empire is a fascist government. When combined with the sexy aspect above, the aesthetics of the Mirrorverse can therefore bleed a bit into Nazi kink but (notably) the Mirrorverse avoids featuring actual Nazis, instead creating a fictionalized fascist organization, thus creating a level of distance that protects the fantasy somewhat from leaving the realm of fun entirely and getting into territory too dark or upsetting for fantasy.

(4) Bisexual: This aspect is not so much in the original episode (although I suppose it is always possible to read it into the subtext of Star Trek TOS), but I would say that one of DS9's significant contributions to the Star Trek Mirrorverse was to cement this problematic "evil bi" aesthetic by merging the three features above. The Intendant version of Kira is just unabashedly horny, flirting with both men and women; lesbian/wlw characters like Mirror Ezri Tigan and Mirror Leeta seem commonplace and unnoteworthy; the sexual tension between Mirror Worf and Mirror Garak... The list goes on. All these things contribute to a world where everybody is casually everybody-sexual (the shipping possibilities!) and very willing to use sex and seduction to get what they want, which is another thing that greases the wheels of pornfic. And future Star Trek installments build on this bi-as-default feature to the Mirrorverse. (And yes, the evil bisexual aesthetic is most definitely problematic and a product of more homophobic times. It is also, however, very fun.)

Other established worldbuilding features of this universe:

(5) Constant status-jockeying: "Mirror, Mirror" establishes that "assassination of superiors is a common means of advancing in rank," as illustrated by the power play that Mirror Chekov makes, where he, sensing Kirk's weakness, orchestrates an ambush and attempt on Kirk's life. Kirk is saved by one of Chekov's own underlings who decides to hitch his wagon to Kirk's star and betray Chekov. Said underling has ambitions to become captain, so Kirk (behaving in line with how he is expected to/must behave in this universe) punches him to reassert his dominance and impose discipline amongst his underlings. In short, interactions in this world are all strongly tinged with domination and submission dynamics, with people trying to read the shifting winds and advance themselves, making power grabs that result in punishment. Even people who seem like loyal underlings all seem to have ambitions to rise up and be in charge, and those currently in charge have to be wary and constantly keep their underlings in line.

(6) S&M elements: The original episode quite early shows that people in the Mirrorverse carry handheld devices called "agonizers" that cause (bloodless) pain when applied, and there are punishment chambers called "agony booths" that similarly inflict pain on the inhabitant.

The result

The result of the above features established about this "Mirror Universe" is a dystopian "everything (human nature AND society) is bad" dark sandbox that allows you to tell stories where familiar characters are casually cruel to each other.

However, while darkness can be conducive to telling a lot of iddy kinky smut stories, as I mentioned earlier, it's also important to get the light/dark balance right or then a world can get too depressing, which undermines the sexual fantasy element. Luckily, however, the Mirrorverse also comes bundled with a couple of mechanisms that can be deployed to take the edge off the darkness if needed: one is camp and silliness and the second is sci-fi/fictional world distance. The latter gives a triple distance or layer of fictionality to stories: not only is it a work of fiction, but takes place in an imagined far future, and in an *alternate reality* of said future; it is therefore easy to tell dark stories because there is a strong feeling of non-realism to it all. The camp aesthetic also helps with this by adding an element of unseriousness to stories that can be played up if necessary. Not only that, but I think the prioritization of exaggeration and silliness over realism also makes this setting strongly compatible with a kind of porn logic, where plots and worldbuilding don't *really* have to make sense or hang together as long as it's sexy or entertaining, which I feel is also conducive to telling smut stories.

Also, meshing well with porn logic, in this universe (as mentioned above) everyone is horny and potentially attracted to everyone, which also greases the wheels for writing porn.

Finally, the power struggles and "brutal, savage" discipline leads to a lot of scenarios where people frequently have reason to assert dominance or engage in behavior that results in a pain-inflicting punishment of some kind (i.e. the logic of the universe leads to frequent D/s and S&M scenarios). The result of all of the above is an AU setting that easily sets up D/s- and S&M-inflected, cruelty-heavy porn scenarios and rewards the audience for not thinking TOO much about the internal logic of the world.

Comparison with omegaverse and BDSM AUs

So last post I talked about omegaverse and how it offers some convenient benefits over BDSM AUs. So here, I'll give a basic overview of the ways in which Mirrorverse settings differ from both omegaverse and BDSM AUs.

Like omegaverse, Mirrorverse also allows BDSM elements to be incorporated into a story without being too tied to either modern BDSM subculture or its aesthetic. However, compared to omegaverse, which is primarily focused on D/s dynamics, Mirrorverse gives you convenient ways to add S&M elements to stories, if desired. Also, in the Mirrorverse, as outlined above, everyone is essentially a switch along the D/s axis, with many people aspiring to become dominant even when normally toeing the line and biding their time playing the submissive role of a loyal subordinate until the right opportunity presents itself, which is very different from both omegaverse and BDSM AUs that normally feature fixed biological roles. This makes the Mirrorverse less dystopian-feeling than omegaverse and BDSM AUs, at least along this particular dimension, as biology dictating your role in life is rarely an element in Mirrorverse, at least not in a way heavily challenged. Society is still heavily stratified but largely through longer chains of rank rather than a fairly small number of types/castes. (Caste also can/does play a role in Mirrorverse, but caste does not feature in the original TOS episode, and, in subsequent Mirrorverse depictions, is something that is depicted as changing/challenged over time. So it is something you can definitely play with if you wish, but you can also choose to leave it out.)

However, on the flipside, the Mirrorverse is also just generally much darker, necessarily more dystopian on many other dimensions because of its pervasive bad politics, which do not improve over the years despite hints at the possibility of change and reform, because the world is meant to be an evil reflection of the main world and so there are limits to how much it can improve and still provide that important contrast. In other words, this is not a world that you can choose to depict as a kind of mundane civil society with BDSM elements added on top - there is something deeply wrong with the regimes in the Mirrorverse.

While the Mirrorverse is not tied to a modern BDSM aesthetic, it nevertheless does have its own canonical aesthetic. While there is wiggle room to establish a different aesthetic, especially in non-Star Trek canons that don't have a canonical Mirrorverse, you probably still need to incorporate or transpose at least some of the Star Trek Mirrorverse's canonical elements for it to feel vaguely like a *Mirrorverse* AU, so there is still a sort of aesthetic Mirrorverse AUs are beholden to, even if it's a slightly different from the modern BDSM aesthetic. That said, if applying a Mirrorverse setting to another canon, the essential element is probably the contrast between the main and mirror worlds, and so aesthetics and elements can be chosen and adjusted on a per-canon basis to create that contrast. Also, the fact that Star Trek is science fiction and not grounded in reality does make it easier to just make stuff up and change things as you like.

The campy elements also allow featuring certain exaggerated character types, like the vampy evil overlord types of Emperor Georgiou and Intendant Kira, or scheming untrustworthy lieutenants and such. The mirror universe also gives the opportunity for essentially extreme out-of-character, with characters' personalities changed dramatically in ways meant to contrast with and give ironic echoes to a character's canonical personality. This can allow you to tell stories that wouldn't otherwise be possible in the original canon.


So yeah, those are my thoughts on the utility of the Mirrorverse as a porn AU. What do you think? Have you used the mirrorverse to tell a story, and what elements have been helpful for telling the story you want to tell, and what elements have you had to remove or fight against in order to write your story?