Differences Between TOS and Abrams Version (SPOILERS)

[Jon]

Im sure there was a cut between the ship going to warp and the briefing, isn't McCoy wearing his cadet reds when he knocks Kirk out but then in his medical blues when he wakes up?

[Bounty]

Im sure there was a cut between the ship going to warp and the briefing, isn't McCoy wearing his cadet reds when he knocks Kirk out but then in his medical blues when he wakes up?

You're right that he changed, but he could have done that during the briefing scene. Pike orders maximum warp before the fleet leaves and Sulu reports maximum warp in the next shot; I find it hard to believe it takes the Enterprise half an hour to get to maximum warp.

[Ted C]

A couple of observations:

Even the futuristic torpedoes of the Narada apparently couldn't destroy a virtually unshielded starship in a single shot, even though we've seen TNG torpedos and phasers do that a few times.

The Narada's torpedos in the final battle were flying slower than Christmas toward Spock's ship from the future.

You never know what a black hole will do. One minute it's flinging ships into the past, the next it's gobbling up planets and ships to their doom.

[Bounty]

The way the torpedoes launched was also weird; not out of tubes, it almost looked like they were dropped by cranes or dumped out of a bay. Personally I like the idea that they were mining charges.

You never know what a black hole will do. One minute it's flinging ships into the past, the next it's gobbling up planets and ships to their doom.

Looks like it depends on what you launch the red matter at. A star, you get a time hole. A planet, it gets gobbled up. A ship, you get a space vacuum.

[Mad]

You never know what a black hole will do. One minute it's flinging ships into the past, the next it's gobbling up planets and ships to their doom.

Well, for all we know, Vulcan could've been spewed out (rather broken, based on its entry method) in another timeline.

I wonder if anything had spewed out into the new timeline before Nero arrived, like some of the supernova remnants, causing a butterfly effect. (Astronomer gets distracted by a new light in the sky instead of doing whatever it is he did in the original timeline, etc...)

[Androsphinx]

Another differences from the original timeline which I didn't see mentioned-

Kirk knows how to drive

[Gandalf]

A couple of observations:

Even the futuristic torpedoes of the Narada apparently couldn't destroy a virtually unshielded starship in a single shot, even though we've seen TNG torpedos and phasers do that a few times.

The Narada's torpedos in the final battle were flying slower than Christmas toward Spock's ship from the future.

It's possible that a mining ship just doesn't have the best equipment. After twenty years of mucking about in the 23rd century, they could have had to start making their own arms.

[Oskuro]

I wonder if anything had spewed out into the new timeline before Nero arrived, like some of the supernova remnants, causing a butterfly effect.

I was pondering about that too. The Narada and the Spockmobile enter the anomaly within few seconds of each other, yet they arrive 25 years appart, wich makes me wonder about how far back did the anomaly lead before the Narada went through (the time displacement needs not be linear, energy going through a few seconds earlier could have been sent centuries into the past).

All in all, there's plenty of room to point fingers when trying to rationalize the continuity changes.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Even the futuristic torpedoes of the Narada apparently couldn't destroy a virtually unshielded starship in a single shot, even though we've seen TNG torpedos and phasers do that a few times.

This is especially peculiar, considering that Kirk is able to defeat all the ships in the Kobayashi Maru simulation with one torpedo apiece once their shields fail. Either Starfleet intelligence on Klingon and Romulan ship strength is a little generous, or the Enterprise is tougher than a motherfucker.

[Kuja]

Even the futuristic torpedoes of the Narada apparently couldn't destroy a virtually unshielded starship in a single shot, even though we've seen TNG torpedos and phasers do that a few times.

This is especially peculiar, considering that Kirk is able to defeat all the ships in the Kobayashi Maru simulation with one torpedo apiece once their shields fail. Either Starfleet intelligence on Klingon and Romulan ship strength is a little generous, or the Enterprise is tougher than a motherfucker.

Or MAYBE he hacked the simulation...remember?

[TithonusSyndrome]

Even the futuristic torpedoes of the Narada apparently couldn't destroy a virtually unshielded starship in a single shot, even though we've seen TNG torpedos and phasers do that a few times.

This is especially peculiar, considering that Kirk is able to defeat all the ships in the Kobayashi Maru simulation with one torpedo apiece once their shields fail. Either Starfleet intelligence on Klingon and Romulan ship strength is a little generous, or the Enterprise is tougher than a motherfucker.

Or MAYBE he hacked the simulation...remember?

If he hacked the simulation to make the ships that much weaker than they are outside of the simulation, then his cheating would have been immediately obvious to Spock. As is, Spock says he doesn't know how Kirk managed what he did and considers nothing unusual about unshielded Rommie and Klingon ships falling after one torp.

[Kuja]

If he hacked the simulation to make the ships that much weaker than they are outside of the simulation, then his cheating would have been immediately obvious to Spock. As is, Spock says he doesn't know how Kirk managed what he did and considers nothing unusual about unshielded Rommie and Klingon ships falling after one torp.

Are you a dumbass? He didn't know how he did it because he didn't know how or when Kick managed ot get access to the program's code to splice his shit into it. He knew damn well that Kirk cheated the living hell out of the KM scenario, but what he didn't know was how he did it. His cheating was immediately obvious, or did you somehow miss all the WTF looks going around the instructor's room when it happened?

[TithonusSyndrome]

If he hacked the simulation to make the ships that much weaker than they are outside of the simulation, then his cheating would have been immediately obvious to Spock. As is, Spock says he doesn't know how Kirk managed what he did and considers nothing unusual about unshielded Rommie and Klingon ships falling after one torp.

Are you a dumbass? He didn't know how he did it because he didn't know how or when Kick managed ot get access to the program's code to splice his shit into it. He knew damn well that Kirk cheated the living hell out of the KM scenario, but what he didn't know was how he did it. His cheating was immediately obvious, or did you somehow miss all the WTF looks going around the instructor's room when it happened?

Spare me the sniveling outrage - all that can be inferred for certain from the dialogue is that they don't know how he did what he did. In fact, the first supervisor even asks Spock how Kirk managed to beat the exam, not cheat it. I wouldn't venture to assume intent that specific from dialogue that vague, but if you want to then hey, live it up.

[Kuja]

Spare me the sniveling outrage - all that can be inferred for certain from the dialogue is that they don't know how he did what he did. In fact, the first supervisor even asks Spock how Kirk managed to beat the exam, not cheat it. I wouldn't venture to assume intent that specific from dialogue that vague, but if you want to then hey, live it up.

So, you are a fucking moron. Are you seriously contending that Klingon ships can be blown up with one shot? Only a complete fucking idiot would take that interpretation of events. "Vague" dialogue? It's only vague if you're a complete moron who can't make a simple inference.

In fact, the first supervisor even asks Spock how Kirk managed to beat the exam, not cheat it.

How is that at all an invalid question? After all, he DID just beat it: he rescued the Maru, something that the scenario is supposed to render impossible. Your wrangling over one word is childish and frankly idiotic.

Oh yes, and by the way:

Spare me the sniveling outrage

Fuck you, cuntrag. Can't take a few goddamn vulgar words? Welcome to SDN where if you say something completely fucking moronic, like you did, someone is allowed to call you on it. You're obviously unfamiliar with something called Occam's Razor, or else you wouldn't be spouting this shithead theory of Klingon cruisers being blown up with one torp. Let me spell it out for you.

Either Kirk's cheat dropped the simulated ship's shields and made them absurdly easy to destroy, thus his easy sucess.

OR

Klingon battlecruisers are somehow massively inferior to their Federation counterparts - so much so that they can be destroyed with a SINGLE torpedo strike.


Here's a hint, dumbass, the simpler solution is NOT the second one. Now put up some evidence other than whining about "vague" dialogue, or get the fuck off your goddamned high horse and concede.

[McC]

Either Kirk's cheat dropped the simulated ship's shields and made them absurdly easy to destroy, thus his easy sucess.

OR

Klingon battlecruisers are somehow massively inferior to their Federation counterparts - so much so that they can be destroyed with a SINGLE torpedo strike.


Here's a hint, dumbass, the simpler solution is NOT the second one. Now put up some evidence other than whining about "vague" dialogue, or get the fuck off your goddamned high horse and concede.

Actually, I rather favor the second one, with some caveats. It's already been discussed in this thread that the shield effect itself was never visible. In fact, we often see the hull taking a beating, but then hear reports of shield status. This suggests to me that shields in this movie aren't meant to be barriers so much as impediments. They serve to reduce the impact a weapon has, rather than shutting it out completely. The net result is a beat-up exterior hull when the "shields" are struck. This matches what we see in ST6, too. Once the shields go down, however, we see the actual devastation we've always expected from photon torpedoes, but have never seen.

The idea that, once your shields go down, you're fucked, makes a lot of sense, I think. So, one-shot-kills for the Klingon ships once they simulation glitches and their shields are down is perfectly reasonable.

[Bounty]

The simulated Klingons also stopped shooting and moving. One-shot-killing a stationary target with no damage control crews should be easier than doing the same to an unshielded-but-evading target too.

One more thing I noticed on a repeat viewing... it was said in one of the threads that there is a major plothole in the muddy relationship between the timehole, the Narada and the lightning storm effect that clued Kirk in to Nero's reappearance. In fact, there isn't; Chekov never says there's a lightning storm over Vulcan, he says there's a storm in the Neutral Zone followed by seismic disturbances on Vulcan. Which fits with Spock coming out of the timehole mere hours before the events of the film.

[Ted C]

This is especially peculiar, considering that Kirk is able to defeat all the ships in the Kobayashi Maru simulation with one torpedo apiece once their shields fail. Either Starfleet intelligence on Klingon and Romulan ship strength is a little generous, or the Enterprise is tougher than a motherfucker.

Knowing that Kirk reprogrammed the simulation, I see no reason to assume that the effect of torpedos on the simulated Klingon battlecruisers has any bearing on their true toughness.

[Anguirus]

One more thing I noticed on a repeat viewing... it was said in one of the threads that there is a major plothole in the muddy relationship between the timehole, the Narada and the lightning storm effect that clued Kirk in to Nero's reappearance. In fact, there isn't; Chekov never says there's a lightning storm over Vulcan, he says there's a storm in the Neutral Zone followed by seismic disturbances on Vulcan. Which fits with Spock coming out of the timehole mere hours before the events of the film.

I must have missed that. Thanks!

[erik_t]

Warp, of course, has much more resemblance to SW hyperspace than it does traditional Trek warp.

- Based on visuals, there seems to be minimal interaction between a warping object and the surroundings. Certainly sensors are impaired to some degree; the Enterprise could not see the Vulcan orbital graveyard before dropping out of warp. However I think I remember them monitoring communications in the Vulcan system before dropping out, and of course transporters can be made to work, so there is some ability to interact with surroundings.
- There is substantial commonality between sublight and warp engine systems. The backs of the nacelles flashed as ships went to warp; this same flash was seen in a distinctly sublight context when elder Kirk crashed the Kelvin into the Romulan ship.
- There is no indication that warped ships can interact with each other; I think I remember something to the effect that the Romulan ship would have to drop out of warp before it could be dealt with.
- There's a big handle you physically move to go to warp/hyperspace

I think there's more, but that's all that comes to mind right now.

[Bounty]

- There is substantial commonality between sublight and warp engine systems. The backs of the nacelles flashed as ships went to warp; this same flash was seen in a distinctly sublight context when elder Kirk crashed the Kelvin into the Romulan ship.

I think this once again harkens back to TOS, where there wasn't as substantial a divide between sublight and FTL systems as there was in TNG+, and TMP, where warp speeds <1 were possible.

Interestingly, the red impulse engine exhausts go dark just before the Enterprise jumps to warp...

[McC]

Anecdotally, I think they recalibrated the warp scale for this. Warp four seemed mind-bendingly fast compared to what one would expect warp four to be, based on the original continuity's canon. I've only seen the movie once, so my recollection is a bit fuzzy. It seemed as though the trip from Earth to Vulcan was very fast, and the return trip wasn't exactly sluggish, either, despite having sustained some damage.

[erik_t]

- There is substantial commonality between sublight and warp engine systems. The backs of the nacelles flashed as ships went to warp; this same flash was seen in a distinctly sublight context when elder Kirk crashed the Kelvin into the Romulan ship.

I think this once again harkens back to TOS, where there wasn't as substantial a divide between sublight and FTL systems as there was in TNG+, and TMP, where warp speeds <1 were possible.

Interestingly, the red impulse engine exhausts go dark just before the Enterprise jumps to warp...

That's true in some senses; they definitely showed a Warp 0.3323243798 on the viewscreen at some point. On the other hand, how do we reconcile that with the distinctly non-interactive nature of new-warp?

[erik_t]

20-odd years before TOS, a ship had the ability to engage an enemy autonomously with the autopilot (which failed and doomed elder Kirk). This seems to contradict TOS's The Ultimate Computer, where a computer that can autonomously run (if not maintain) the ship is revolutionary.

[Bounty]

20-odd years before TOS, a ship had the ability to engage an enemy autonomously with the autopilot (which failed and doomed elder Kirk). This seems to contradict TOS's The Ultimate Computer, where a computer that can autonomously run (if not maintain) the ship is revolutionary.

There's a difference between telling a computer to shoot down missiles and crash into a target, and having a ship run itself for months on end.

[erik_t]

Certainly. However, if there was such a capable autopilot previously, then there wouldn't have been so much amazement at M5's performance in combat simulations.

Of course, I can't imagine that M5 would have been able to maintain a ship by itself anyway.