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S01.E11: The Wolf Inside


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Georgiou as the emperor was a pretty safe bet ever since it was mentioned that the emperor 'laid waste' to Mirror Lorca's ship for killing Mirror Burnham - subtext was that the emperor took that pretty personally and had an emotional connection with Burnham.

Edited by MissLucas
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I don't see how Ash Tyler (actually Voq) can be redeemed in any realistic fashion ... emphasis on realistic,  'cause I could see them trying it. 
It sounded as if they took Voq's body, altered it, and put Ash's memories, etc, on top - - otherwise why were bones shortened, etc.? Did they keep Ash's skin for covering? Gross.

The idea of a 'faceless' emperor was silly. How would such a person command any power? It would be like some boogeyman/ghost entity being in charge.
And I wasn't too thrilled to see Georgiou being revealed as the emperor, either.  First, Tilly is a captain. Now Georgiou is the emperor. And mirror-Michael and mirror-Lorca were conveniently missing, allowing them to be impersonated. How very, very convenient that every major character has such a significant role to play in this universe. It just felt like lazy writing - or writing driven to service the actors on hand. 
C'mon show, do better. 

Michael, as a character, is okay. And I don't have problems with the actor. But she is already getting overshadowed by personalities like Lorca and Stamets, even Tilly.
What I don't like is the whole Vulcan thing and how Michael is playing it. Michael reminds me of T'Pol from Enterprise - - who was a Vulcan who seemed to be anything but logical and rational - always in a snit.
Michael is in a constant state of emotional desperation. Where's the Vulcan training? 
Lenard Nimoy created an iconic character by playing Spock as cool, collected and mildly curious .. with the occasional lifted eyebrow.  That was what made the audience want more.
Michael's eyebrows are always furrowed. She doesn't leave any room for mystery because she is leaking angst and flashbacks  like a sieve. 
 I believe the Michael character is a victim of the Abrams nu-Trek generation, where everyone has to come from a tragic childhood that is constantly conjured up by whatever crisis is unfolding. 

Edited by shrewd.buddha
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43 minutes ago, shrewd.buddha said:

And I wasn't too thrilled to see Georgiou being revealed as the emperor, either. 

Georgiou was on the short list of most-decorated captains when Saru asked the computer for traits, so it makes sense to me that she was a top candidate. 

45 minutes ago, shrewd.buddha said:

What I don't like is the whole Vulcan thing and how Michael is playing it.

My take is that she basically hasn't been Vulcan since she was convicted of mutiny. She was super-Vulcan when she first came to the Shenzou. Over a few years with Georgiou, she balanced into a human who benefited greatly from her Vulcan training. Since Georgiou's death/her conviction/she got to Disco, though, I haven't really seen her call on her Vulcan training at all as far as her emotional balance. She may have, as you say, reverted back to the trauma of her early childhood. 

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1 hour ago, paigow said:

Mirror!Talos IV has already been destroyed.......

Too bad. I would like to go way back to see what really happened there.

I'd also like to go back to the planet with the City on the Edge of Forever portal.

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On ‎1‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 2:57 AM, Nanrad said:

I'm not seeing how it's impossible for Tyler to be a trusted crew member. He came off as put together in front of just about everyone else. The times he did have symptoms in front of others, Burnham vouched for him. Considering her background, I'm inclined to believe that she would be believed. Burnham knows that he's dealing with some issues, but she wants to support him and believe that he'll deal with his issues/that it won't intervene. She is also clouded by emotion as well. She wants to believe him because they are close and she has feelings for him. Just like Culber covering for Stamets because of their personal relationship and Culber insisted to stay Stamets' doctor due to their personal relationship. 

I'm always harping on how ST in all its various iterations is unrealistically focused on personal issues. Like DS9: "I, Odo, must know my personal history and origins so I will just take this Starfleet runabout and explore the gamma quadrant. Back in a while." And yeah, in the real world, someone's SO would never be their official doctor, but hey, professional ethics? what ethics?

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2 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

How very, very convenient that every major character has such a significant role to play in this universe. It just felt like lazy writing - or writing driven to service the actors on hand. 
C'mon show, do better. 

I don't know that we can really call out Discovery when every Mirror Universe episode of Star Trek has been guilty of this.  DS9's first episode was the only one to show a lot of restraint in not showing the counterpart of every single character, but it got worse and worse, with the nadir naturally being the flesh and blood Vic Fontaine.

1 hour ago, LilJen said:

And yeah, in the real world, someone's SO would never be their official doctor, but hey, professional ethics? what ethics?

A (from all appearances) unmarried couple also wouldn't be co-habitating on a military vessel either.

But at the same, one of the impressive things about them was that they were mostly able to be professional while they were on duty.  The mutual "I love you"'s during the marathon jumps stood out for that reason.

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2 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

I don't see how Ash Tyler (actually Voq) can be redeemed in any realistic fashion ... emphasis on realistic,  'cause I could see them trying it.

I guess they'll try since they did such a good job to endear Ash to the audience - and fandom does not look willing to let go of the character. As long as we don't know how the Bene Gesserit Matriarchs managed to transfer Ash's personality into Voq (or onto Voq) it's difficult to come up with good ideas. We know physically the dude currently in a cell on the Discovery is Voq aka the guy who chewed on Georgiou and that's a pretty hard sell. Real Ash is probably dead and his body destroyed so there's no way to transfer his personality signature back - unless they'd find an alternative Ash who's brain-dead *cough* That's assuming the doctor was right and the physical transformation was only done by some impressive surgery. If those two were sliced up and then welded together à la Tuvix things would be easier but from everything we've seen/heard about the transformation I don't think that's the case. Somebody should talk to L'Rell - but I can see why that's not high up on the crew's list of priorities.

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10 minutes ago, MissLucas said:
2 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

I don't see how Ash Tyler (actually Voq) can be redeemed in any realistic fashion ... emphasis on realistic,  'cause I could see them trying it.

I guess they'll try since they did such a good job to endear Ash to the audience

Killing Culber was the point of no return. 

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14 hours ago, starri said:

Tilly's "Wherever you are, I hope he's wish you" just broke my heart.

Combined with her seemingly praying over Ripper, I wonder if, despite the official line of the Federation being an atheist utopia (note:  am an atheist), Tilly might actually be religious.  

TOS had its share of Christian bias... The Roman planet slaves were embracing the Son of God - not the Sun. This seemed to reassure everyone that the planet was evolving "normally"

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2 hours ago, paigow said:

TOS had its share of Christian bias... The Roman planet slaves were embracing the Son of God - not the Sun. This seemed to reassure everyone that the planet was evolving "normally"

Kirk also had his first interaction with Helen Noel while skirt-chasing at a departmental Christmas party (subtle, show).  And I think Phaser Special Martine genuflected to the altar when she was walking up the aisle in "Balance of Terror."

Maybe it's a TNG relic that people think actually started earlier.  Although Data references an observation of Diwali, now that I'm thinking about it.

There was a (terrific) series of books called Star Trek: Vanguard that were set on a space station in the TOS era.  There were mentions of a bunch of chaplains aboard:  a priest, a pan-denominational Protestant minister, a rabbi, an imam, and even a few clerics from non-human religions.  I thought it was the coolest thing.

Edited by starri
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12 hours ago, Emily Thrace said:

Also no way does Stamets stay dead. I'm thinking we're going to see time travel get thrown in to the mix next.

We saw that his brain was working again in the end and he met his mirror universe counterpart. No need for time travel.

9 hours ago, KimberStormer said:

Honestly all you needed was the mention of the "Faceless Emperor", which is a good example of this show not trusting themselves or their audience.  An Empire assumes the existence of an Emperor, even if, like me, you haven't seen any Mirror episodes since the TOS one, and didn't know they had an Emperor in the Enterprise episodes.  Just don't mention it, and when Georgiou shows up, we all go "OMG! Of course, why didn't I think of it!?"  But when you drop this very obvious hint of the FACELESS EMPEROR (which, as mentioned above, was completely discarded as soon as Georgiou shows up, because the Facelessness was phony nonsense for the sake of The Reveal, not something that makes any sense in-universe) then we're all thinking "hmm, who could that be?" and the most obvious answer, as productive of the most drama, is that it would be Georgiou.

Well, I'm looking forward to the adventures of Captain Proton VS Ming the Merciless, and seeing what Mirror Stamets is like, and I really did enjoy the "put the floppy disk on the body of the condemned prisoner" ploy, which even if it is a bit implausible in terms of how it was planned and how close is the Discovery anyway, was an actually clever idea and actually successfully not telegraphed. 

You saw emperor Georgiou coming but not that Burnham planted the Data on Tyler? The "punch him as a cover to actually plant something on him"-move is one of the oldest in TV and movies.

The faceless emperor is kinda dumb. My fanwank is that she just doesn't allow recordings of her face, but that she does regular broadcasts. So everybody knows her face but it isn't in any of the databses. Because of... reasons, okay?!

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53 minutes ago, Miles said:

The faceless emperor is kinda dumb. My fanwank is that she just doesn't allow recordings of her face, but that she does regular broadcasts. So everybody knows her face but it isn't in any of the databses. Because of... reasons, okay?!

Lorca: Computer, save Emperor Broadcast to personal archive folder....

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16 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

With Mirror Verse Spock being a member of the Terran Empire, I assume one of two thing happened: 

1. At some point, the Vulcan's decided it was illogical to keep fighting such a powerful enemy, and proposed an alliance instead. The Terran's decided that they were better off partnering with another race of very intelligent humanoids (maybe they looked human enough for them?) and they started working together, or the Vulcan's were absorbed into their empire and given more privileges than the other races. 

2. Spock, being half human, grew up with his human mother instead of Sarek, and fully embraced his human heritage over his Vulcan side, and the Terran's figured he was too competent to get rid of, so they overlooked his Vulcan half. Mirror Spock was the only Mirror duplicate who wasn't a total asshole after all. 

I don't think Vulcans, as a whole, are slaves.    Mirror!Archer called Mirror!T'Pol a slave in "In a Mirror, Darkly", and she angrily retorted that "[She's] no slave".   There were also quite a few Vulcans in Starfleet in that episode.   I think the gist of it is that Vulcans, like other races, are just subservient to Terrans in every aspect.

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45 minutes ago, paigow said:

Lorca: Computer, save Emperor Broadcast to personal archive folder....

The rebels probably have her image. But if you are a loyal soldier of the empire, why would you risk that? It's probably punished with the death penalty and what would that gain you?

Also all terran vessels probably have a computer block installed that prevents the emperors broadcast from being saved.

(Note that I'm only half-serious. I try my best to fanwank it, even though we all know it doesn't make sense)

Edited by Miles
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7 hours ago, shrewd.buddha said:

And I wasn't too thrilled to see Georgiou being revealed as the emperor, either.  First, Tilly is a captain. Now Georgiou is the emperor. And mirror-Michael and mirror-Lorca were conveniently missing, allowing them to be impersonated. How very, very convenient that every major character has such a significant role to play in this universe. It just felt like lazy writing - or writing driven to service the actors on hand.

Of course, it might not just be coincidence. If Lorca is MirrorLorca, that explains why MirrorLorca is missing. And Lorca is the one who recruited Burnham and probably Tilly, presumably because he knew of their roles in the mirror universe and wanted to use them. Georgiou was a chess piece that was not under Lorca's control -- hence his look of satisfaction at the end when she just showed up.

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I'm REALLY hoping there's a brilliant plan for Ash/Voq. The reveal wasn't a surprise, but I am surprised that the transformation was basically achieved with a chainsaw. Please. 

Sure, it's canon that Klingons know how to impersonate humans. But that was established with beings of roughly the same size. Voq's skull is the size of a watermelon. What, exactly, is left of him at this point?

If the show runners wanted to do this twist, why change Klingons so much? Worf to Riker is believable. This strained my suspension of disbelief too much.

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1 hour ago, huahaha said:

Voq's skull is the size of a watermelon.

More fanwanking: It's mostly bone, so you can shave that off without actually damaging the brain.

But I was really disappointed last episode when it was revealed that the doctor could have seen all the scars the surgery left all along, and he just wasn't looking close enough. I was hoping Tyler had some kind of device implanted that sent out false readings to the scanners. Similar to the devices the discovery used to simulate klingon life signs, when they infiltrated the klingon ship. I mean if he doesn't have such a device in him, shouldn't he still send out klingon life signs?

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36 minutes ago, Miles said:

I was hoping Tyler had some kind of device implanted that sent out false readings to the scanners. Similar to the devices the discovery used to simulate klingon life signs, when they infiltrated the klingon ship. I mean if he doesn't have such a device in him, shouldn't he still send out klingon life signs?

Yeah, they need to fill in the blanks on this. I had been assuming that Voq's consciousness had just been implanted in the real Ash. And then the prayer would've activated it, so to speak. I don't even know what to do with the idea that Klingons are so good at impersonation that they can rebuild an entire body through plastic surgery and ALSO copy the personality and memories. This is some Scooby Doo shit.

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But we know Klingon anatomy is very different than human.  Even if they could make over Voq's skin on the outside to look human, what did they do with his redundant liver, extra lung, and the other four chambers of his heart?

That last one doesn't even really make sense from an evolutionary perspective.

Still, given the comments from Shazad Latif over in the media thread, it's encouraging that he seems to say that there is a "real" Ash Tyler.

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51 minutes ago, starri said:

Still, given the comments from Shazad Latif over in the media thread, it's encouraging that he seems to say that there is a "real" Ash Tyler.

But how did Lorca do a background check on 'Ash Tyler' if he never existed ? He wasn't from Seattle, he was from outside Seattle. Did the Klingons hack Starfleet HR computer systems and plant false data ?

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17 hours ago, starri said:

But we know Klingon anatomy is very different than human.

In the TOS era, the Klingons looked more human than in subsequent version of the franchise. In Enterprise there was some incredibly convoluted retconning on why Klingons looked this way, rather than just accepting that a show from the1960’s is going to have less advanced prosthetics. So it was more possible for Klingons to pass as Human. 

There was also an episode where Kirk went undercover as a Romulan, which was about as convincing as Sean Connery passing for Japanese in You Only Live Twice. *Shudders*

None of this explains the transformation of Voq/Ash

Edited by marinw
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On 1/17/2018 at 0:36 AM, LittleIggy said:

A bit confused here. Was Voq sliced and diced to turn him into a replica of Tyler? The gory flashbacks are confusing.

Well take his flashbacks plus what the good doctor said before AshVoq murdered him and yes, the Klingons did mutilate Voq to make him look "human".

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I can't begin to tell you how disapointed I am in the last two episodes. First of all, killing Culber? Really? I hope they have a plan to make him alive again, otherwise I'm gone. Culber and Stemats are half of the reason I'm watching. Don't you dare touch them!

The other half? Great, well-written, consistent stories. Something that's been  completely absent lately. There are so many inconsistencies and plot holes, you could send Discovery back to normal space through them.

Just a few.

-The other Discovery may be creating hell in normal space, but no one cares?

- Lorca is being tortured 24/7 why Michael an Tyler are making love, but thats ok 

- Speaking of which, what was the point of that mission again?

- Tyler is being completely inefficient and volatile on Discovery, but Lorca is nor all over his ass?

- Stamets is the key to solving all the mysteries, but NO ONE is trying to mske sense of what he says, of what he did? Bridge to Commander Data! Hell, even Liteunnant Crusher would do.

- There are no other crew members on the ship? Other doctors? Away team members? The notion thay Tilly is the best person to take care of Stamets is absurd. And unstable Tyler being the only option for missions is ridiculous.

- How long can this post be? I could go on forever...

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I'm pretty sure Culber will be restored. If not, yeah, I would be upset too. With regard to the other points . . .

17 hours ago, maddie965 said:

Just a few.

-The other Discovery may be creating hell in normal space, but no one cares?

- Lorca is being tortured 24/7 why Michael an Tyler are making love, but thats ok 

- Speaking of which, what was the point of that mission again?

- Tyler is being completely inefficient and volatile on Discovery, but Lorca is nor all over his ass?

- Stamets is the key to solving all the mysteries, but NO ONE is trying to mske sense of what he says, of what he did? Bridge to Commander Data! Hell, even Liteunnant Crusher would do.

- There are no other crew members on the ship? Other doctors? Away team members? The notion thay Tilly is the best person to take care of Stamets is absurd. And unstable Tyler being the only option for missions is ridiculous.

  • With the possible exception of Lorca, whose agenda remains a mystery, the crew seems eager to get back to the prime universe. While the main reason behind their urgency is to deliver the cloak-penetration key to Starfleet, I wouldn't take the fact that they are not also wringing their hands over the possible actions of their counterparts to mean that nobody cares about this.
  • Lorca is a pragmatic guy. Burnham and Tyler abstaining from sex wouldn't help him, and if their finding comfort in each other helps them cope with their mission, I think they would have his blessing if he knew. Though he might scowl at them first ;-)
  • The mission was to get intel on the Defiant, to learn how it traveled between the prime and mirror universes without spore drive, in the hope that Discovery can use this information to get back home. As Saru observes, it is a crap plan. But they couldn't come up with anything better, and Lorca, who proposed the plan, clearly has some ulterior motives.
  • Lorca noticed Tyler's lateness for duty and called him on it twice. But I guess he wants Tyler with them due to Tyler's overwhelming loyalty to Burnham and (to a lesser extent) Lorca. Whoever goes on this mission will likely have to do terrible things to maintain their cover. Lorca has reason to believe Tyler will do whatever it takes to protect Burnham. Of course, he probably believes that Tyler's recent issues are due to PTSD, not a Klingon lurking inside!
  • Culber and Tilly appear to be listening to Stamets, but apparently haven't come up with much beyond Tilly's observation that his calling her "Captain" indicated that he could see other universes.
  • Yeah, I go nothin' here. I love Tilly, but when the cadet is the expert, clearly something has gone wrong with one's staffing plan!
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Thanks for the response, tpel. I wish you were writing this. It would probably make more sense. I get what  you're saying, but it doesn't make the inconsistencies go away. Lorca having ulterior motives is the only thing that could explain that mission, but the fact that Michael just accepts it and stays on thay ship forever makes no sense to me. 

I have no problem with Michael and Tyler making love. I was just pointing out to the fact that she could - and should - stop the torture in many different ways. Like saying she wanted to do interrogations daily. Or altering the torture equipment. Or... anything. Can you imagine Riker just fooling around while Picard is being tortured in the other room? Me neither.

Anyway I'll keep watching for now. But they better give us some logical developments soon. And Culber. He's a deal braker to me.

Edited by maddie965
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On 1/14/2018 at 9:20 PM, Frozendiva said:

This is a better series than Enterprise, even though the show did have the cute beagle.

EVERY Star Trek was a better series than Enterprise, IMO. That is the only ST series/movie/cartoon that this lifelong ST fan stopped watching, long before its run ended.

On 1/15/2018 at 6:07 AM, marinw said:

It's nice that Sarak is a good guy in both universes. Some people are more influenced by their circumstances than others.

That is a fantastic observation! And one the show should explore more. Just because you are in a different universe doesn't mean you become a different person. It would be interesting to see who remained "true" vs. those who flipped.

On 1/15/2018 at 6:36 PM, tennisgurl said:

Its still Trek, but a different kind of Trek, closer to DS9 then Enterprise.

Thank god. DS9 was my favorite ST. I didn't realize it right away, but with the passage of time  it became obvious. Followed very closely by TOS, because it's TOS!

On 1/15/2018 at 10:39 AM, paigow said:

If Mirror!Burnham was a badass warrior, she should have scars and other damage. Mirror!Saru must know that this version of Burnham is too pristine and compassionate

SOMEONE must realize this Burnham isn't quite right. As viewers, we see our universe's character changing to try to be seen as their universe's character, and so we think it is working. But to the characters of the mirror universe, our Burnham, even while she shows flashes of being "normal," must seem different in 100 ways ... how she walks, how she gives orders, how she recognizes loyal performance, how she punishes small transgressions, who she sleeps with, where she spends her off duty time, what she eats, etc.  It had to be clear to someone. Even what she does while Saru preps her each morning is likely different, and he must notice it.

On 1/16/2018 at 1:13 AM, KimberStormer said:

Honestly all you needed was the mention of the "Faceless Emperor", which is a good example of this show not trusting themselves or their audience.  An Empire assumes the existence of an Emperor, even if, like me, you haven't seen any Mirror episodes since the TOS one, and didn't know they had an Emperor in the Enterprise episodes. 

Also, up until that reveal, we had seen a variety of past characters appear in the mirror universe. Some we knew, some we didn't. But there was an obvious "restocking." What was the single most familiar character left to appear? It had to be her. I was actually disappointed. It would have been way more fun if it were someone out of left field, from another ST series.

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Having carefully changed the Registry of the Discovery - it was a shame that the opening shot of the (Mirror)-Shenzhou clearly said "USS" not "ISS"!

So they are just suspecting Stamets of the Doctor's murder? Gil Grissom would solve it in seconds!

I guess Voq/Ash lost a few IQ points during his transformation when he turned up to the rebel base - were you expecting a signpost to say "Rebel Base Here!" Mind you, I'm not quite sure how Michael thought that would work (and thanks to the Emperor's arrival - with style! - it didn't): it's very lucky the rebels didn't simply shoot Michael & Ash on sight.

Goatee Sarek! I hope he made it out alive

Who would have thought that taking a mentally unstable guy down to the planet might cause problems!?

How exactly did "Captain Burnham" communicate with the Saru?

Once more we see somebody pronounced dead - only to come back to life. You'd think they'd learn (OK, since this is chronologically the second series, there's only Enterprise to learn from at this point, but from a viewer's POV, we've had 5 serieses of Doctors saying "He's dead, Jim!" - only for it to turn out that he actually wasn't).

Lorca is one tough mofo. He was telling MICHAEL to get a grip when HE'S the one hanging out in the Agony Booth!

On ‎15‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 8:30 AM, Charlesman said:

we know the human body can survive at least 30 seconds in the pure vacuum of space.

Or just listened/read/watched The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

On ‎17‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 5:36 AM, LittleIggy said:

Was Voq sliced and diced to turn him into a replica of Tyler?

From the what the Doctor Culber said (before he was killed), exactly that. Plus (presumably) some implanted memories from the "real" Ash Tyler.

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On 4/5/2018 at 8:30 AM, Ottis said:

SOMEONE must realize this Burnham isn't quite right. As viewers, we see our universe's character changing to try to be seen as their universe's character, and so we think it is working. But to the characters of the mirror universe, our Burnham, even while she shows flashes of being "normal," must seem different in 100 ways ... how she walks, how she gives orders, how she recognizes loyal performance, how she punishes small transgressions, who she sleeps with, where she spends her off duty time, what she eats, etc.  It had to be clear to someone. Even what she does while Saru preps her each morning is likely different, and he must notice it.

On 1/16/2018 at 2:13 AM, KimberStormer said:

I’m sure they do, but they don’t seem to be aware of mirror universes. So they would  1) attribute changes to her almost being killed by Lorca, and then chasing him wherever for however long and 2) be too afraid to say anything out loud about the changes given that malicious thoughts against people in power result in instant  death by space walk.  

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