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this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2023
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The 2026 date didn't come from the Mirror Universe, although it was in the MU episode of ENT. It was from the USS Defiant's database - the Constitution-class ship from the Prime Universe that fell through the interphase in TOS: "The Tholian Web" and somehow ended up in the Mirror Universe and over a century in the past.
But as we saw with the Discovery transiting back and forth to the MU (albeit via a radically different mechanism), the calendar was not aligned when they returned - days became 9 months.
So we have no reassuring whatsoever that the Defiant was in sync, or that their database was still in sync with the Prime Universe that carried on without them.
Addendum: Calendars are dependent on where they function and the speed of travel (as we are aware from relativity) unless insulated in a warp bubble or equivalent. Not sure why we expect the computer databases on starships to compensate accurately for unknown phenomena like falling through a vortex.)
All I’m saying is that until we get an explicit mention that the dates for the start of WWIII in 2026 have indeed slipped, I’m not going to assume they have.
As I’ve pointed out, I accept that they will probably slip, and that the 2026 date is shaky because other dates in the same art have already been retconned, but I’m not going to depart from on screen evidence until there’s another bit of on screen evidence that directly contradicts it.
Otherwise you can have any date you want and nobody can say otherwise because temporal wars - and that’s the very thing I was warning against.
I understand your position.
One of the things I’ve been considering in relation to the Defiant’s database is whether we should consider the dates in there artifacts or translations.
When I was younger, I thought the reason for the existence of stardates was to account for relativistic effects when ships were travelling at sublight. Not exactly what they are supposed to be but the point is that Starfleet is aware that relativistic effects occur and adjusts for them in recording times and dates.
An artifact date in the Defiant’s historical database would be a record that has a fixed date that wouldn’t be adjusted by the computer or the universal translator. I think that’s what most of us assume it would have been when we see the graphics onscreen.
However, there’s a possibility that it was something else, a date that may have been translated or adjusted for some reason, either in relation to the war or in relation to the Defiant’s own continuity. That’s to say the ship may in itself not be a reliable narrator in its own continuity.
I agree however that we shouldn’t assume a shift in specific dates until and unless we get it onscreen - just that we should equally avoid going so far as to break the sequence of causality in order to respect a given date.