Trek 09 Starfleet weapons, organization, etc. [Spoilers]

[Ryan Thunder]

I mean, if Spock had been flying to the Hobus star when Romulus was destroyed, how did Nero catch up with him by the time he threw the red matter out the door?

Or just closer to Nero than it was to wherever Spock started from...

[Stark]

Try reading the rest of my post.

[Patrick Degan]

You kind of have to assume that Spock is getting a bit senile. He mentions once or twice that the Supernova in question threatened the entire galaxy. A statement that makes no sense what so ever.

True; I rolled my eyes at that one in the theatre.

Though I guess one could write enough backstory to kind of explain this. One could create some story about how subspace is very very thin in this region Romulan space due to their use of Singularity based warp drives. We have the TNG episode which states that subspace can get damaged by excessive use of warp.

Then you could have some really bad trek-babble about how a supernova going off this close to the thin regions of subspace will send subspce shockwaves throughout the galaxy. These shockwaves will of course travel at warp speed and destroy Romulus in a matter of hours instead of years.

You could then also explain the shit ton of Red Matter, much more than it appeared Spock needed to stop destroy the supernova, as extra he was going to use to somehow intercept and stop these warp shockwaves by dropping bits od Red Matter in their path.

The problem is that the farther you go down this path, the more you remind people of just why Star Trek needed to be rebooted in the first place.

Just a little thought at the keyboard by the writers could have saved all this trouble. Why posit a bullshit galaxy-threatening-supernova™ endangering Romulus when it could have simply been Romulus' own sun which had "unexpectedly destabilised" and was about to go supernova? Ambassador Spock proposes the red-matter charge to cancel out the destabilisation reaction, flies off to Vulcan to get some of the stuff, returns too late due to a miscalculation caused by a then-unknown factor in operation which triggers the supernova earlier than expected, fries Romulus, and opens the black hole time-gateway through which the Narada and the Jellyfish both fall into the past. Movie unfolds as it does (or hopefully a bit more sensibly in other areas), we get to the climax and discover the unknown factor —the initiation/collapse of the red-matter in the Jellyfish which consumes the Narada: dooming Nero and crew, and, in the future, Romulus, due to the two black hole time-gateways somehow interacting with one another in ways nobody predicted. Ties into established hypotheses about wormhole termini having differing locations in space and time, and makes Nero the victim of a Greek tragedy by unwittingly having been a prime agent in the destruction of his own world as he was fated to be in this construction of the plot.

[Ryan Thunder]

Try reading the rest of my post.

You suggested that it was far away from Romulus, but I don't see how that followed from Nero being able to intercept Spock en route.

[tim31]

*snip alt-plot*

Damn, that I like. I was going to suggest that the RSE was actually dicking around creating subspace weapons and destabilized the sun. It is interesting that the Red Matter could be used/interpreted as a subspace weapon, which at last we heard in the 'classic' canon, was as illegal in the Federation as screwing around with Protomatter.

[Worlds Spanner]

*snip alt-plot*

Damn, that I like. I was going to suggest that the RSE was actually dicking around creating subspace weapons and destabilized the sun. It is interesting that the Red Matter could be used/interpreted as a subspace weapon, which at last we heard in the 'classic' canon, was as illegal in the Federation as screwing around with Protomatter.

I like it too, it's genius.

[Stark]

You suggested that it was far away from Romulus, but I don't see how that followed from Nero being able to intercept Spock en route.

Almost the only way it makes sense is if Hobus as very far away, coincidentally near Nero's position,

Oh really.

It's pretty sad that people think it's 'genius' when someone just reduces the number of stupid entities in a story. The ST movie can EASILY have many of it's terms removed or combined as Patrick does; it's just an indication of how producers know nobody cares.

[Patrick Degan]

For the record, I can see at least one defect in the solution I've proposed to the movie's plot problem: the assumption that the two wormhole gateways will interact with one another as suggested. It's an arbitrary fiat I have no adequate explanation for. But with my solution, there is only one unexplainable term whilst the movie has a boatload of them and the usual Treknobabble efforts to explain them away only complicate matters beyond belief.

It is also less a matter of genius and more the result of having grown up with classical SF and having some knowledge of classical mythology. If modern movie writers were a lot more literate than they evidently are, they'd come up with similarly streamlined plot solutions as I spun up with just a minute or two of thought on the matter. Hell, it occurred to me watching the movie at the time how it could have worked better if, somehow, Nero was the one unwittingly responsible for his own tragedy.

[Stark]

They could have even gone arty with Nero actually having a story of his own, where the destruction of Vulcan and 25 years of hatred left him empty instead of satisfied and he realised the futility of his own mission and life, cut off forever from everything he cares about instead of being a blurry guy on a webcam.

[bilateralrope]

I had actually assumed that the line meant threaten the galaxy on a political balance level, but I am aware that this doesn't excuse the fact that they could have evacuated the planet... Unless we shift the blame from the writers to a negligent Romulan senate that sat on it's hands Katrina/New Orleans style because of whatever.

Yeah, I'm definately a Trektard. I'm making up excuses now.

How much warning would they have needed to evacuate Romulus and Remus ?

I don't have the numbers to answer this question. If we assume that they couldn't get access to anywhere near enough ships, the senate might have stayed silent as long as possible rather than risk a family member of someone who died trying coming after them. Although that would lead to more people seeking revenge.

But even if that does work, it still leaves on problem. According to memory alpha, Romulus was only settled in the 4th century. Which means that if it is a natural phenomena that we currently know about, it also raises questions about why the early Romulans chose to settle near such a dangerous star.

Since the Romulans split from the Vulcans shouldn't the problems with any nearby star of been obvious when they settled on Romulus in the first place ?

This is an English language forum. You are expected to know that "have" and "of" are not the same word.

Sorry. I will try to do better next time.

[seanrobertson]

... that's a huge starbase by Trek standards. If Abrams' Enterprise is indeed some 2500 ft. long*, I'm eyeballing the base at ~8 km wide. The volume of its debris would make those seven ships' flotsam look paltry, but it seemed like most of the larger debris was vaguely identifiable as starship remains (I could be dead wrong on that count.)

Huge by Star Trek standards? Earth Spacedock anyone?

I'm not sure I see your point, Zod. The mushroom starbases are enormous and certainly far more massive.

But how does that affect my statement's accuracy? Earth Station Abrams is still huge by Trek (more specifically, Federation) starbase standards.

[General Zod]

I'm not sure I see your point, Zod. The mushroom starbases are enormous and certainly far more massive.

But how does that affect my statement's accuracy? Earth Station Abrams is still huge by Trek (more specifically, Federation) starbase standards.

DS9 was also fairly large and I seem to recall it being implied that those were pretty much standard Cardassian design. I don't see why it's necessarily unusual for a starbase to be that large just because we don't see them on screen often, is all.

[tim31]

DS9 wasn't anywhere near as big on internal volume though...

[erik_t]

Please; DS-9 would easily fit inside the main sphere of this new station, and DS-9 is virtually an empty frame, volume-wise. I doubt it's more than an order of magnitude more voluminous than a Galaxy.

[Ted C]

... that's a huge starbase by Trek standards. If Abrams' Enterprise is indeed some 2500 ft. long*, I'm eyeballing the base at ~8 km wide. The volume of its debris would make those seven ships' flotsam look paltry, but it seemed like most of the larger debris was vaguely identifiable as starship remains (I could be dead wrong on that count.)

If Vulcan had a station even half this size (keeping in mind that Vulcans have been space-faring much longer than Humans, and Vulcan is at least the second most important planet in the Federation), then the big disc-shaped piece of debris that the Enterprise had to dodge could be one of those outlying "platforms".

[Anguirus]

then the big disc-shaped piece of debris that the Enterprise had to dodge could be one of those outlying "platforms".

It is NOT. For the last time, an NCC registry number is clearly visible when the saucer impacts the port nacelle.

[Akumz Razor]

When I saw the film for a second time I paid specific attention during the "big saucer" sequence. When the camera cuts to a side shot, the saucer disc didn't appear much larger in diameter than the Enterprise's saucer. Of course we'll need to wait for decent screenshots to make any accurate estimates of size, but the looming huge saucer could be an example of the special effects dept. wanting to make the debis-saucer more ominous. I recall a SF documentary about The Phantom Menace where one of the crew described making the TradeFed droid transports appear different sizes in different shots for dramatic effect - specifically the scene where Qui-Gon encounters Jar-Jar for the first time.

[Themightytom]

then the big disc-shaped piece of debris that the Enterprise had to dodge could be one of those outlying "platforms".

It is NOT. For the last time, an NCC registry number is clearly visible when the saucer impacts the port nacelle.

I doubt this will be the last time...

[JGregory32]

The Star going Supernova was just stupid but I could see why the destruction of Romulus would threaten the stability of the Galaxy. The Romulan government would have lost TONS of legitimacy, not to mention the problems of choosing a new capital planet for the Romulan empire. The situation could have developed into a civil war which would destabilize the rest of the Alpha Quadrant.

As for the Spock savior of the universe thing going on. Well here I think Spock was mistaken, I think the government did have evacuations going on, and did have their own team of scientists working round the clock on this. Spock's role is important because here he is acting as the Ambassador for the Federation and the Vulcan Science council. I think the Romulans knew his approach wouldn't work and were setting the stage to blame the destruction of the planet on the Federation to give the Romulan people an external enemy to focus on and save their own skin.

There are a few other problems however, first the timing of the events doesn't work at all. From what the movie inferred the Star went Super Nova, the hamster ball ship was built and launched, then the Planet was destroyed, Spock launched the red matter and then the mining ship from hell showed up. The movie tried to make it look like this sequence of events happened quickly but it couldn't have. Nero would have needed time to learn of his wife's death, time to focus his rage and grief on Spock, time to find Spock and then attack. Don't forget that we learn all of this from the mind meld Spock performs with Kirk, but we seem to be experiencing the meld from Kirk's perspective so there might be some slight editing by Spock while doing the meld.

As for the chain.... well I can't speak as to the design of the chain itself but if the emitter does create that much interference then it would make sense to put it on the end of a long boom.

[erik_t]

then the big disc-shaped piece of debris that the Enterprise had to dodge could be one of those outlying "platforms".

It is NOT. For the last time, an NCC registry number is clearly visible when the saucer impacts the port nacelle.

I assume you refer to this image posted in the Size thread.

This has a number "clearly visible" in the same sense that RSA's Alderaan-destruction-rings were "clearly visible". Please tell me where you see letters and numbers, and what they say. Draw them in, if possible.

[seanrobertson]

When I saw the film for a second time I paid specific attention during the "big saucer" sequence. When the camera cuts to a side shot, the saucer disc didn't appear much larger in diameter than the Enterprise's saucer.

Interesting.

Given the [admittedly rough] scaling I did, it's fair to say that saucer is bigger than Enterprise's.

But much bigger? Probably not. I definitely don't think it's big enough to be the remnants of a starbase "disc."

[Bounty]

then the big disc-shaped piece of debris that the Enterprise had to dodge could be one of those outlying "platforms".

It is NOT. For the last time, an NCC registry number is clearly visible when the saucer impacts the port nacelle.

I assume you refer to this image posted in the Size thread.

This has a number "clearly visible" in the same sense that RSA's Alderaan-destruction-rings were "clearly visible". Please tell me where you see letters and numbers, and what they say. Draw them in, if possible.

He's talking about the scene just after that one, when the saucer scrapes the nacelle.

[erik_t]

Is there a screenshot of that available?

[Darth Wong]

As for the Spock savior of the universe thing going on. Well here I think Spock was mistaken, I think the government did have evacuations going on, and did have their own team of scientists working round the clock on this. Spock's role is important because here he is acting as the Ambassador for the Federation and the Vulcan Science council. I think the Romulans knew his approach wouldn't work and were setting the stage to blame the destruction of the planet on the Federation to give the Romulan people an external enemy to focus on and save their own skin.

"Convoluted and implausible" would be a pretty charitable way to describe this.

There are a few other problems however, first the timing of the events doesn't work at all. From what the movie inferred the Star went Super Nova, the hamster ball ship was built and launched, then the Planet was destroyed, Spock launched the red matter and then the mining ship from hell showed up. The movie tried to make it look like this sequence of events happened quickly but it couldn't have. Nero would have needed time to learn of his wife's death, time to focus his rage and grief on Spock, time to find Spock and then attack. Don't forget that we learn all of this from the mind meld Spock performs with Kirk, but we seem to be experiencing the meld from Kirk's perspective so there might be some slight editing by Spock while doing the meld.

The movie's description of events was a muddled mess. At least it had the benefit of ascribing a comprehensible motive to Nero if you could just ignore the rampant stupidity (which most audiences won't perceive anyway). The movie does pander to a lowest common denominator, but hey, that's smart marketing.

As for the chain.... well I can't speak as to the design of the chain itself but if the emitter does create that much interference then it would make sense to put it on the end of a long boom.

This has already been discussed. It's a worthless excuse that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

[Oskuro]

Jellyfish, Gyroship, Spockmobile, Hamster-Ball Ship... How many names have we come up with for that ship? And I'm sure I'm missing some.