In Star Trek: Mirror War, a TNG fan-favorite finally serves alongside the heroes of Deep Space Nine in a role they were destined to have.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: The Mirror War #2, available now from IDW Publishing.
Star Trek’s Ro Laren was almost a bridge between two generations. After debuting early in Star Trek: The Next Generation Season Five, the Bajoran Starfleet Ensign, portrayed by Michelle Forbes, became a recurring character on the series and seemed destined for greater things. The follow-up series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine centered on the complex relationship between the Bajorans, their outgoing Cardassian occupiers and the Federation’s Starfleet, and it was initially developed with Ensign Ro as a central character in mind. But after Forbes passed on the role, Ro never appeared on DS9, and her character was reenvisioned as Bajoran Major Kira Nerys.
And now in Star Trek: The Mirror War #2, Scott and David Tipton, Gavin Smith, Charlie Kirchoff and Neil Uyetake have given Ro a new place alongside Deep Space Nine’s crew in the warped reflection of the Mirror Universe.
In the alternate reality of the Mirror Universe, humanity’s reach expanded through the cosmos through the Terran Empire’s vicious conquest instead of the Federation’s diplomacy. Although the Mirror Universe was never featured in The Next Generation, the classic Star Trek timeline was a moderately big part of Deep Space Nine, where a ruthless Kira was part of the Cardassians’ empire, and many of the show’s Starfleet characters were enslaved workers or privateers.
After the Terran Empire’s early success, its reach and power fell dramatically when the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance took advantage of a moment of perceived weakness. Like the comic book miniseries that preceded it, The Mirror War follows the Mirror Universe’s amoral, opportunistic Captain Picard as he and his Enterprise crew try to protect and salvage the Terran Empire’s waning reach.
When the Mirror Universe Enterprise and a Klingon-Cardassian vessel get into a scuffle, the Mirror Universe Ro Laren watches the battle from afar. She serves with the Mirror Universe’s Jadzia Dax aboard The Denorios, a pirate ship commanded by Captain Benjamin Sisko and Intendant Kira.
Like her mainline counterpart, this Ro openly rebels against authority at all levels. Despite Sisko’s orders to leave, Ro openly advocates for getting involved in the fight to gain favor with the Klingon-Cardassian Empire’s leaders before steering the ship away. Later on, Kira backs up Sisko’s orders while Ro laments the opportunity lost by not intervening. The comic even makes a sly nod to Ro’s real-world history, as Kira and Sisko both note how similar the two Bajorans are.
Since this scene ends with Kira ordering Sisko to keep an eye on the Enterprise and Ro, it’s likely only a matter of time until this Laren finds herself fighting the Mirror Universe’s TNG crew. This would echo Ro’s final appearances in TNG, where she ultimately left Starfleet and clashed with the Enterprise as a member of the renegade Maquis.
While a version of the mainline Ro ultimately served on Deep Space Nine in numerous ancillary Trek tie-in novels and video games, TV viewers have still never seen Ro stand alongside the DS9 crew that she could’ve led. Even though this comic only puts Ro alongside Sisko and Dax in the Mirror Universe, it still offers a glimpse of a story that was never told in a live-action series and likely never will be. Despite the many differences between this timeline and Star Trek canon, this comic ultimately reinforced what defines Ro in any universe.
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