Philippa Georgiou (mirror)

Philippa Georgiou was a female who was the Emperor of the Terran Empire in the 23rd century. As Emperor, she was formally titled Her Most Imperial Majesty, Mother of the Fatherland, Overlord of Vulcan, Dominus of Qo'noS, Regina Andor, Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius. ()
After a coup by that failed due to intervention by the , she was brought to the prime universe against her will. After a brief period as captain of the Discovery to end the raging at the time, she was recruited into Section 31. () She later assisted in the efforts of the crews of Discovery and the in taking down the malevolent artificial intelligence known as Control. () She went to the 32nd century with Discovery, but was eventually forced to return to the past because she was too far from both her time and her home universe to maintain cohesion. ()
Transported to the early 24th century, Georgiou ran a disreputable space station. After being found again by Section 31, her services were once again enlisted by the organization. ()
== Early life ==
In 3189, Georgiou began experiencing flashbacks to a period earlier in her life, where she cried out beside a bloodied San. ()
In addition to her tactical skills, Georgiou was described as an engineer. ()
Philippa returned home to her loving family after two years of training with the Imperial Fleet. Over dinner, she recounted a brutal contest in which eighteen children had fought to the death until only she and San remained. Despite friendships being forbidden, they had sworn a secret vow: "We are two, but one. Forever."
Only one could rule. To claim victory, Georgiou poisoned her family, severing all ties to her past. As they died, she wept briefly before steeling herself and leaving her home. An Imperial ship arrived, and Starfleet soldiers beamed down with the contest proctor. San, unable to kill his own family, had lost—his village burned for his failure. Declared Emperor, Georgiou received a ceremonial cape, while San knelt in servitude. She took a red-hot sword and began their old vow: "We are two…" When San completed it, she coldly replied, "Not anymore," and branded his face. As he collapsed, the soldiers hailed their new ruler.()
== Imperial reign ==
Georgiou was responsible for rendering Qo'noS uninhabitable, and, together with , she subjugated the Betazoids and wiped out Mintaka III. () She bombarded the Talosians in retaliation for trying to deceive her with their psychic illusions. ()
In spite of the Empire's xenophobic tendencies, Emperor Georgiou had taken titles native to the Vulcan, Klingon, and Andorian subjects of her Empire, as she was addressed as "Overlord of , Dominus of Qo'noS," and "Regina Andor", among others, symbolic of her success at conquering and oppressing other species.
As Emperor, Georgiou became aware of the prime universe through the logs of the which were classified at the time. ()
The rebellion against her rule appeared to have little information about her except that the emperor was ruthless. Her identity was not made public, being known as the faceless emperor. () Her flagship, the , was commanded by Captain Maddox. ()
Captain became one of Georgiou's closest advisors. However, Lorca thought that Georgiou was unfit to lead, letting aliens come in their borders and attempted a coup against her. Even Burnham, by then a captain of immense prestige, collaborated with Lorca to kill her and take her throne. Unknown to Burnham, The Emperor was aware of her adoptive daughter's collaboration, but nonetheless, in what appeared to be a test of loyalty, Georgiou dispatched her to apprehend Lorca. ()
Lorca's followers destroyed Burnham's shuttle, allowing Lorca to escape; in retaliation, his ship, the , was destroyed. ()
=== Burnham's "return" ===
After Michael Burnham of the prime universe posed as her counterpart returned from the dead, the Emperor was quick to assign her a new mission: destroy the Fire Wolf's base on Harlak. However, when Burnham proved too slow to carry out the order, the Emperor herself traveled halfway across the quadrant to confront Burnham. ()
After Burnham confronted her in front of the Terran Court on board the palace ship Charon, Emperor Georgiou revealed that she was the adoptive mother of the "mirror" Burnham. At dinner with her she was initially amicable. However, she was mistrustful of her long-lost daughter: as Burnham struggled to accept the new role she was to play, the Emperor had her arrested and brought to the Lords of the Terran Empire for her execution. This order was countermanded when Burnham proved herself to be from the same universe as the Defiant. After ruthlessly murdering all of the Lords except for one, she discussed with Burnham the terms of her and her captain's liberation. However, during the discussion, her discomfort when adjusting to sudden bright light caused Burnham to realize that the Gabriel Lorca she had brought, who had claimed his own sensitivity to light was caused by eye damage, was actually his mirror universe counterpart. ()
=== Lorca's coup ===
Lorca then resumed his coup against Georgiou, quickly escaping from his confinement and rallying his comrades who had been condemned to the Charons agony booths. They quickly took the ship with the assistance of the mirror , who had helped them in their first coup attempt, only to sell out to Georgiou. During a confrontation in which most of the crew still loyal to her were killed, she performed an emergency site-to-site transport, hiding in her personal quarters and wearing a special bracelet that made her undetectable to the ship's sensors. Lorca then took control of the Charon and threatened to destroy the .
Burnham found Georgiou and proposed a plan, to exploit Lorca's desire to put her by his side once more. They pretended to surrender in exchange for letting Discovery go. When the Discovery came out of warp, Lorca was distracted by Saru and Burnham's conversation, giving her time to subdue the guards around her and Georgiou. The fight turned in their favor quickly, and when Burnham released Lorca from gunpoint, citing the Starfleet ethos, Georgiou executed him with a sword through the chest for his treason. He was then unceremoniously kicked through the "sunroof" into the super-mycelial reactor and his end. Georgiou finally warmed up to Burnham, saying that for one second, she was her daughter again, and volunteered to stay behind and give her enough time to escape as Lorca's forces surrounded them. Instead, as the transporter beam energized, Burnham unexpectedly lunged at her and took Georgiou with her to Discovery before the Charon was destroyed, along with all of Lorca's men. ()
== In the prime universe ==
With Georgiou and Burnham aboard, the Discovery engaged its spore drive and crossed back into the prime universe, having overshot their arrival time by nine months.
Saru was initially shocked at seeing Georgiou alive, believing her to be his former captain. She quickly corrected him and immediately demanded that he kneel as a slave. Burnham revealed that indeed this Kelpien was her captain. However, Georgiou was quick to remind Burnham that they had previously dined on entrails of his brethren.
Over nine months, the Federation war with the Klingons had taken its toll, with Starfleet losing one third of its fleet and over twenty percent of its territory occupied. Losses were so great, Admiral Katrina Cornwell and Ambassador Sarek wished all knowledge of Discoverys journey to the alternate universe be buried and locked down.
On meeting with Georgiou, Cornwell and Sarek found her resemblance to Captain Phillipa Georgiou to be remarkable. With Burnham's assurance that Georgiou's appearance in their universe was without motive, Cornwell admitted it remained complicated. Georgiou wished to return to the mirror universe. Burnham stated that she had escaped a violent revolution and should be granted political asylum within the Federation. Georgiou was to be held at Starbase I, until Starfleet Command determined a proper course of action, this changed when the Discovery learned that the starbase had been occupied by Klingons. ()
=== Assisting Starfleet in the Klingon war ===
Georgiou's rule of the Terran Empire extended throughout every system in their galaxy, conquering places Starfleet hasn't dared to explore. Burnham wanted to know how Georgiou had defeated the Klingon Empire. Georgiou explained that the Klingons were like cancer cells, constantly dividing and the way to root them out was to destroy them at the source, Qo'noS.
As the Klingons were preparing to strike Sol system, the core system of the Federation, the response was to take the fight to Qo'noS. A coordinated attack against their planetary defense batteries, followed by the destruction of all military targets planet-wide. A single offensive so destructive, it would cause the Klingons to retreat back to their homeworld.
Georgiou provided Burnham with intelligence that Qo'noS is essentially a planet of caves, some large enough to house a starship. The Discovery could use its spore drive to enter one of these caves and map the terrain from the inside-out, reducing the risk of detection.
Meeting with Sarek in private, Georgiou offered her help in winning the war. While she had provided Burnham with the intelligence she could handle, the Qo'noS of her universe was little more than a blackened mass of dust. Burnham's plan would prove effective, but only temporarily. Georgiou offered to bring the Klingons to their knees once and for all. If she got her freedom, she would assure victory for the Federation.
Sarek negotiated with the Federation Council and received approval of Georgiou's plan and that they had no choice but to proceed.
Georgiou took the role of Captain Phillipa Georgiou to chart the Discovery's course to Qo'noS. To cover up her alternate universe origin, Cornwell claimed that although presumed long-dead, she was rescued in a highly classified raid of a Klingon prison vessel. The mission was perilous expedition and Starfleet was confident she was uniquely qualified to get the Discovery there and do what needs to be done. ()
The war concluded when Georgiou planted a hydro bomb within a volcano on Qo'noS. Preventing Georgiou from detonating the device, Burnham gave the detonator to L'Rell, who used the threat of detonating the device to force the leaders of the Great Houses to accept her leadership and ordered Klingon forces to halt their advance on the Federation. ()
=== Agent of Section 31 ===
Some months later, Georgiou paid a visit to Qo'noS, where she rescued L'Rell and Tyler from a coup orchestrated by Kol-Sha. Upon being addressed by her former title, Georgiou maintained her cover that she was a retired Starfleet Captain now serving as a security consultant and that she was there to ensure that L'Rell remained in power. To that end, she advised L'Rell in private to send Tyler and the baby away, as the fiercely patriarchal Klingons would continue to think her orders were actually Tyler's and would try to exploit the child. L'Rell took her advice and, after arranging to fake Tyler's execution by L'Rell, Georgiou brought Tyler and the baby to Boreth.
As the child was sent to the planet to become a monk, Georgiou mockingly invited Tyler to join Section 31; although Leland chided her for her tone and choice of words, Georgiou maintained that she was successful and Tyler was "in". ()
=== Traveling to the 32nd century ===
Georgiou traveled to 3189 alongside the crew of the Discovery. After the Discovery crash-landed near the Colony, Georgiou went there without authorization and saved Captain Saru and Ensign Sylvia Tilly from Zareh's band. After Discovery was rescued by Commander Burnham and her fellow courier Cleveland Booker, Georgiou welcomed Booker aboard and listened as Burnham explained The Burn. When Discovery returned to Earth and encountered the United Earth Defense Force under Captain Diatta Ndoye, Georgiou posed as a Admiral. She then helped Saru negotiate between Ndoye and Titan raiders under Wen after he revealed that he was a Human colonist from Titan. ()
At Federation Headquarters, Georgiou was debriefed by Kovich and a couple of Starfleet holograms. After dismissing their claims of a biological explanation for Terran malevolence, she disabled the holograms by blinking at their harmonic rate. She then questioned Kovich about the Burn, and he informed her that the Terran Empire had fallen and that she was now alone, as no crossings from the mirror universe had been recorded since the 27th century. ()
Georgiou subsequently began experiencing increasingly debilitating flashbacks to her earlier life in the Terran Empire. These hampered her during an unsanctioned mission she undertook with Burnham to recover a black box from the salvage yard on Hunhau. Pretending to be a buyer of pre-2400 technology, Georgiou distracted Tolor and assisted in the mass escape of the yard's slave laborers. Afterwards, she destroyed the yard by sending several derelict starships crashing into it. ()
Georgiou's deteriorating condition was revealed to be the result of having traveled across both time and dimensions, in which her molecules were straining both to return to their time and the alternate universe. With the assistance of the 's data, a potential cure was located on Dannus V. Michael Burnham and Georgiou traveled to Dannus V, where they met an entity named Carl guarding a wooden door. Georgiou walked through the door and transported back to the mirror universe in 2255. () Over a period of three months, Georgiou attempted to reform the Terran Empire and bring back into her fold, though it ended with Georgiou and mirror Burnham killing each other. As Georgiou lay dying in the mirror universe, she found herself waking up back on Dannus V in the prime universe's 3189, less than a minute after she passed through the door. Carl revealed his true nature as the Guardian of Forever, and that Georgiou was sent back to the mirror universe to be "weighted", to test that whether she would affect another universe/timeline negatively or otherwise. Having passed the test, Georgiou entered the Guardian's portal to be transported to a time in which the prime universe and the mirror universe were still aligned. ()
=== The 24th century ===
==== The Baraam ====
Georgiou arrived in the early 24th century and took over the disreputable space station Baraam located far outside of Federation space. The previous owner of the station vanished and all of him was never found, although Georgiou would later claim not to have been responsible. Georgiou started using the alias "Madame ". ()
==== Rejoining Section 31 ====
== Alternate timelines and realities ==
In an alternate timeline shown to Commander Michael Burnham by the time crystal, the was destroyed by an unexploded photon torpedo that breached the hull and eventually detonated while Control, in the body of Leland, stormed the bridge of the and slaughtered the bridge crew. Georgiou was one of the first to fall, taking a phaser blast to the face that instantly killed her. Burnham prevented this with her plan to take Discovery into the future with Control instead only having a brief skirmish with the bridge crew before moving on rather than slaughtering them and the Enterprise being saved by the sacrifice of Admiral Katrina Cornwell. Burnham and Spock surmised that the time crystal had shown Burnham this possible future so that she could avoid it. ()
== Personal life ==
Georgiou indicated that she felt she had lost her mother too soon, in an incident that was too blurred in her mind to be sure if she killed her. () While attempting to seem intimidating to Burnham and Dr. Hugh Culber, Georgiou said that she had killed her mother, though Burnham retorted back that she had not. ()
Describing children as ungrateful inconvenient "parasites," Georgiou indicated that she had offspring of her own that she had someone else care for while she kept busy. () After the death of the latter's parents, Georgiou adopted . She provided her the best education and training. ()
Sexually, Georgiou took an interest in both male and female partners, even at the same time. According to a male-female Orion duo that serviced her after coming to the prime universe, she had taught them many new things. ()
== Legacy ==
Georgiou's presence on the Discovery left a significant impression among most of the crew. While she was often scolded for her Terran approach to certain problems, she was looked upon with respect, and admiration. Upon her departure of the 32nd century, the crew held a memorial for her in her honor. Sylvia Tilly said that Georgiou redefined the word "badass", and Saru admired her for her "punishingly" honest opinions.
Michael Burnham said that while she was a pain in the ass, Georgiou was a mirror that she never knew she needed, and that she both loved and hated her, calling her the most unexpected of gifts. Michael also said that what she felt for her was only for her, rather than her prime counterpart. ()
== Appendices ==
=== Appearances ===
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=== Background information ===
The title "Dominus of Qo'noS" was deliberately mispronounced as "Dominus of Kronos", though the subtitles retain the spelling as Qo'noS. 
On his Twitter account, Jordon Nardino, who wrote the episode "Vaulting Ambition", explain the meaning behind the titles and name of the emperor.
"All Hail her most Imperial Majesty, Mother of the Fatherland, Overlord of Vulcan, Dominus of Kronos, Regina Andor, All Hail Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius. But what's it mean??!?
When we began digging into the Terrans last year, I had just read a newer history of Rome and was excited to use it as inspiration. (SPQR by Mary Beard, check it out.) Here's some of the titles Roman Emperors used: 
So into her titles:
* Father of the Fatherland is easy, we turned that into Mother of the Fatherland (even tho we de-gendered Emperor, it felt right)
* Overlord of Vulcan: an early conquest of the Terrans, they see themselves as their protectors. It's paternalistic / delusional.
* Dominus of Kronos: Terrans are very proud of conquering Qo'noS. Dominus is a harsher title the Emperor at the time took as a result (and Georgiou kept for herself). "We OWN them." Qo'noS mispronounced out of cultural chauvinism.
* Regina Andor: Andoria is a jewel in the Terran crown. Subjugated warrior race. Early Terran conquest, pre-Sato. The title was created to celebrate this achievement.
Now as for Georgiou's many names...
"Philippa Georgiou Augustus Iaponius Centarius"
* Philipa Georgiou: her given name and her family name, just like Prime.
* Augustus: the Terrans see themselves as inheritors of the Roman Empire so their Emperors take the title of its first Emperor.
* Iaponius is Latin for Japanese. This (in my fever dream) is a title Hoshi Sato adopted when she named herself Empress, to honor her homeland. So is Georgiou descended from Hoshi!?
Well... Hoshi was Empress. 100 years later, Georgiou is Emperor. Georgiou took one of Hoshi's titles as her own to connect them. So Hoshi's legacy as Empress must be good and Georgiou must either be connected to her in a chain of succession or might want to create that connection... But they have different ethnic backgrounds. Hoshi is Japanese, Philipa is Chinese-Malaysian. So I don't think it's likely Philipa is a direct descendant like a great-grandchild. Cousins is possible. More likely tho......whoever inherited Hoshi's throne was someone she adopted as a child & heir, the way most Roman emperors did. And that Emperor adopted his/her heir, and so on, until we get to Georgiou. And she is proud of the connection and flaunts it with the title Iaponius.
But... it's not canon until it's on screen so that's just one writer's opinion.
As for Centaurius, I figured it was the first system colonized by the Terrans since it's closest to Sol so it was a title the Emperor at the time took in tribute.
Hope someone found this informative!" 
Georgiou is the first character to use the terms "mirror universe" and "prime timeline" in dialogue.
=== External link ===
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es:Philippa Georgiou (espejo)
de:Philippa Georgiou (Spiegeluniversum)
Category:Terrans
Category:Section 31 personnel
Category:Monarchs