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I note that the Ellison script had in the changed timeline the name of the ship being the SS Condor: https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Harlan_Ellison%27s_The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever,_Issue_2.

This ship's personnel were not dissimilar to the Mirror universe's ship's (is it still called Enterprise?) and I wonder if it is possible that Ellison's idea of a brutal timeline caused by actions in the past managed to, for example, be brought up in a brain-storming session and this resulted in Mirror, Mirror. Now, I do not find anything about Ellison complaining about this which I would think he would have had he noticed it or not signed away the rights to the ideas in his script.

I think other have noticed some relationship twixt the two stories whether intentional or not: https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/79cm1j/mirror_universe_theory_and_city_on_the_edge_of/.

One can say, this is just fiction, but so was Shakespeare. Star Trek has become certainly the biggest thing of its kind in history, no other show has inspired so many further ideas by such a diverse group of contributors over such a long period of time. And who knows what the next half century will bring us?

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Bixby wrote two stories in the early fifties. One titled "Mirror, Mirror", the other called "One Way Street". While I've never read the former, the latter had an individual hit by a beam from some kind of experimental device. Eventually he becomes aware that he is not in his native universe, connects with the science people and is again subjected to the device in an attempt to send him home. He ends up in yet a third universe. It's pretty clear that the genesis of the Trek episode is there in this story. Now, there's no evil Starfleet in the story or anything like that but that could have grown out of anything. One thing is clear, you're not going to get an answer from any of the principals.

Coming back to add that I've now read "Mirror, Mirror" having found it here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/101py1jFaKA_d6f2Id0dBmmDaD4AhfsL9/view

There's no "alternate universe" aspect to it but the setting includes an expansionist human empire oppressing intelligent natives so it's no real leap to conclude that this may have been the seen for the Trek episode's Terran Empire.

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  • It could be that Ellison was inspired by the same brainstorming or in fact by Bixby's much earlier stories. But you have to admit that had Harlan's script made it to screen, people would have seen the similarities in Mirror, Mirror and indeed, perhaps as someone suggested on Reddit I think, the Terran Empire was what resulted from events in CATEOF -- parallel universes are caused by events like time travel -- or something. BTW, I think u meant "principals?"
    – releseabe
    Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 17:08
  • I think you're right. The important thing is that both major elements of the Trek episode (interdimensional transfer and the Terran empire) had their roots in earlier bixby stories.
    – Emsley Wyatt
    Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 17:39
  • Bixby was something. Even in his It's a Good Life the theme is somewhat explored -- the townsfolk don't know what the kid did to the existing world (which may be the entire universe, not just Earth iirc) -- he lets us wonder along with the characters about the true nature of their existence. Hey, what if Anthony becomes the Guardian when he grows up?
    – releseabe
    Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 17:52
  • Interesting also in Ellison's script is how mean the Guardians are -- maybe Anthony is indeed a young one.
    – releseabe
    Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 18:15
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    In his original 1964 pitch document Roddenberry included a number of story ideas, one on p. 15 is called "The Mirror" and involves the ship (then called the Yorktown) encountering a duplicate ship and duplicate crew, though there is no indication they are "evil twins". This article says the "Mirror, Mirror" script came about when Roddenberry, Gene Coon and D.C. Fontana combined this idea with Bixby's story about an evil alt-universe.
    – Hypnosifl
    Commented Jun 22, 2022 at 23:02
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No, the Other Way Around

Gene Roddenberry’s original pitch for Star Trek, “star Trek is”, dated Msrch 11, 1964, has a list of ideas for episodes. One is “The Mirror.” where the starship runs into another starship exactly like it, but on the opposite course, and with exactly the same crew. Other episode ideas (such as “President Capone”, which became “A Piece of the Action”) use the concept of running into a world that honors some famous outlaw as its hero.

This was three years before Ellison wrote “The City on the Edge of Forever.” The short story “One Way Street” by Jerome Bixby is even earlier.

Harlan Ellison Said it was Roddenberry’s Idea

Although there was some dispute between Ellison and Roddenberry about what really happened behind the scenes, with all the drafts of the scripts and the principals’ recollections of what happened being compiled into a book, Ellison maintains that it was Roddenberry who ordered him to add the scene where the away team returns to their starship, only to discover that the crew in this timeline are evil.

Ellison said that Roddenberry told him he was passing on an instruction from some unnamed network executive, but that Ellison thought Roddenberry was just passing the buck. (I personally think Ellison is probably right: Roddenberry, in his other productions, stuck closely to the formula that there must be a threat to the away team and, simultaneously, a threat to the ship, in every episode.)

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