Chakotay, Janeway, and moral choice
Emotionally, the heart of “Cracked Mirror” lies in Prime Chakotay’s encounter with Mirror Janeway. Captured alongside the others, Chakotay impersonates his goateed counterpart to escape, but the real turning point comes when he drops the disguise and appeals directly to the shard of pragmatism still buried under Mirror Janeway’s cruelty.
As the Loom swarm threatens both universes, Chakotay convinces her that survival, not conquest, has to come first, pushing a character defined by domination into a reluctant “enemy mine” alliance. Gwyn, protected from the Loom’s temporal effects by her stabilizer, races to reconfigure Voyager’s deflector, buying just enough time to seal the tear and snap the crew back to their home reality.
It’s a classic Star Trek beat: a desperate plea to someone’s better nature turns the tide when brute force never could.