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TOS era IIRC didn't have civilians aboard ship unless the situation called for it.

We never get an explanation as to the presence of George Kirk's pregnant wife aboard the Kelvin but it does not seem as if this Starfleet sticks large contingents of civvies on their ships. Perhaps the Kirks (possibly both Starfleet officers?) were simply being transferred back to Earth from whichever post they were serving on at the time of her pregnancy and George Kirk was seconded to the Kelvin for the duration of the transit. Or she was taken on as a passenger, having been picked up from whichever outpost or world she was on at the time, as the wife of a serving officer on that ship. Or perhaps both the Kirks were officers on the Kelvin and the wife was going to be transferred off the ship due to her advanced pregnancy but the appearance of the Narada diverted the ship before it could be effected.

Precisely. For all we know, Winona Kirk was a member of the Kelvin medical staff as their specialist immunologist.

The little tidbit in the beginning with presumably Kirk's stepfather stating that his mom was off world may indicate that she was indeed an officer in Starfleet.

Yes, my thoughts too. So she returned to Iowa on maternity leave, married a wealthy someone or another in a vain attempt to have a father figure of young James, and then returned to duty. Maybe?

Havok wrote:The little tidbit in the beginning with presumably Kirk's stepfather stating that his mom was off world may indicate that she was indeed an officer in Starfleet.

I think she might be some type of civilian scientist attached to the Kelvin. After all, main-universe's Kirk's inspiration for joining Starfleet was his father, nothing about his mother. If her field was something with space, that could be why she was off-planet later in the film.

This is of course, all pure speculation.

The whole civilians in space thing is more to do with putting children onboard the Enterprise-D. That's where people go WTF. I didn't really wonder what Mama Kirk was doing on Kelvin. She could have been a Starfleet officer or a civilian specialist. Maybe the Kelvin was on a deep space assignment, the kind where the ship would be out of touch for months at a time, and during this time she and Papa Kirk got busy and before you know it, she's preggers. Only Kelvin was on assignment, and you don't just drop everything because one crewman gets knocked up.

Everything will be pure speculation at this point.

The Captain of the Kelvin did say "There is no help for us out here." Possibly meaning that they were indeed on a deep space assignment and that at that period Starfleet was very thin and spread out.

Skylon wrote:

Havok wrote:The little tidbit in the beginning with presumably Kirk's stepfather stating that his mom was off world may indicate that she was indeed an officer in Starfleet.

I think she might be some type of civilian scientist attached to the Kelvin. After all, main-universe's Kirk's inspiration for joining Starfleet was his father, nothing about his mother. If her field was something with space, that could be why she was off-planet later in the film.

This is of course, all pure speculation.

though in the main-verse George Kirk was alive to see his son become captain of the Enterprise (IIRC), because of this actually not mentioning Jim Kirk's mother doesn't mean she wasn't starfleet (she could have been a science or medical officer), granted it doesn't prove she was starfleet either.

bilateralrope wrote:

RedImperator wrote:They are capable of transporting multiple AUs and possibly multiple light years (onto a ship moving at warp, no less), yet they still frequently use shuttles for personnel transportation--even in an emergency situation when they need to scramble ships as quickly as possible. I'm not sure what that means yet--possibly that transporters are huge energy hogs, or it's impractical to transport more than half a dozen people at a time.

Weren't they only able to beam long distance because Spock brought back the equation needed to complete Scotty's transwarp beaming ?

I thought that prior to Scotty's equation, they couldn't beam to a ship traveling at warp (hence, "transwarp" beaming). Maybe you're right. That would explain why Nero wasn't expecting it.

At any rate, now they can beam across solar systems and onto a ship moving at warp (possibly light-years away). I wonder if the writers know what kind of can of worms they opened.

About Kirk's mother, it was stated here and there that some of the novels were used as inspiration for the movie, including Best Destiny, where Kirk's parents names are mentioned.

In that book, she was a exobotanist or biologist (don't have it handy), and stayed home while her husband went to space.

If that indeed was the inspiration for her, then it makes sense for her to be back out there since she has that 'father figure' for Kirk back on Earth, and why she may have been assigned to the Kelvin

RedImperator wrote:

bilateralrope wrote:

RedImperator wrote:They are capable of transporting multiple AUs and possibly multiple light years (onto a ship moving at warp, no less), yet they still frequently use shuttles for personnel transportation--even in an emergency situation when they need to scramble ships as quickly as possible. I'm not sure what that means yet--possibly that transporters are huge energy hogs, or it's impractical to transport more than half a dozen people at a time.

Weren't they only able to beam long distance because Spock brought back the equation needed to complete Scotty's transwarp beaming ?

I thought that prior to Scotty's equation, they couldn't beam to a ship traveling at warp (hence, "transwarp" beaming). Maybe you're right. That would explain why Nero wasn't expecting it.

At any rate, now they can beam across solar systems and onto a ship moving at warp (possibly light-years away). I wonder if the writers know what kind of can of worms they opened.

Didn't we have beaming across lightyears in DS9 during the Dominion War?

RedImperator wrote:

bilateralrope wrote:

RedImperator wrote:They are capable of transporting multiple AUs and possibly multiple light years (onto a ship moving at warp, no less), yet they still frequently use shuttles for personnel transportation--even in an emergency situation when they need to scramble ships as quickly as possible. I'm not sure what that means yet--possibly that transporters are huge energy hogs, or it's impractical to transport more than half a dozen people at a time.

Weren't they only able to beam long distance because Spock brought back the equation needed to complete Scotty's transwarp beaming ?

I thought that prior to Scotty's equation, they couldn't beam to a ship traveling at warp (hence, "transwarp" beaming). Maybe you're right. That would explain why Nero wasn't expecting it.

At any rate, now they can beam across solar systems and onto a ship moving at warp (possibly light-years away). I wonder if the writers know what kind of can of worms they opened.

Hopefully Starfleet will develop more sophisticated shielding and use it more frequently.

RedImperator wrote:

bilateralrope wrote:

RedImperator wrote:They are capable of transporting multiple AUs and possibly multiple light years (onto a ship moving at warp, no less), yet they still frequently use shuttles for personnel transportation--even in an emergency situation when they need to scramble ships as quickly as possible. I'm not sure what that means yet--possibly that transporters are huge energy hogs, or it's impractical to transport more than half a dozen people at a time.

Weren't they only able to beam long distance because Spock brought back the equation needed to complete Scotty's transwarp beaming ?

I thought that prior to Scotty's equation, they couldn't beam to a ship traveling at warp (hence, "transwarp" beaming). Maybe you're right. That would explain why Nero wasn't expecting it.

At any rate, now they can beam across solar systems and onto a ship moving at warp (possibly light-years away). I wonder if the writers know what kind of can of worms they opened.

I wasn't exactly there with a notepad, but this is my recollection:

1. Grapefruit over a hundred miles is considered tough.
2. Scotty has some bright idea that should improve capability; tests on dog. This test is a failure, although these improvements might or might not be made by others in the meantime.
3. Can transport folks from the surface of a planet to, oh... medium orbit, at least. Not less than a thousand miles. Look at pictures from the Shuttle or ISS or whatever; they're at two hundred miles and the Earth can easily fill one's view. All of Vulcan could easily be seen at once from the Enterprise's vantage point.
4. Future equation of magic makes long-distance (warp) transport possible.

Ubiquitous wrote: Didn't we have beaming across lightyears in DS9 during the Dominion War?

I think it was some sort of experimental dangerous thing that only those wacky fanatical Jem'Hadar would use or something like that. Or was that the episode that was all the big Section 31 holodeck simulation? I can't remember.

Uraniun235 wrote:

Ubiquitous wrote: Didn't we have beaming across lightyears in DS9 during the Dominion War?

I think it was some sort of experimental dangerous thing that only those wacky fanatical Jem'Hadar would use or something like that. Or was that the episode that was all the big Section 31 holodeck simulation? I can't remember.

I thought it was when we first got introduced to the Vorta, and one of them was on the DS9 bridge and (she? I think it was a she) got beamed away even though there were no ships or anything as far as their scanners could detect. It's been years though, so I might be remembering it wrong.

Am I the only one who got the sneaking suspicion that "red matter" was an obscure joke about "red mercury?"

Nyrath wrote:Am I the only one who got the sneaking suspicion that "red matter" was an obscure joke about "red mercury?"

All red matter is, is an opportunity for Abrams to insert a recurring motif from throughout his various works - a red sphere.

Bingo. I mean, the guy worked Slusho into the movie, for christ's sake.

Couple thoughts that come to mine:

1. According to the Kobyash Maru test photon torps are useless when a ship still has shields up. When Kirk ordered their use before the "Klingons" shields went down the reply was one that implied it was useless.

2. Phasers now seem to have intelligent auto-targeting systems which are far more accurate than anything we have seen in previous Startrek. Those nasty little Romulan missles were shot down in large numbers on numerous occasions. Previous ships in Startrek have a hard time hitting other ships their own size much less targets that small.

3. Vulcans are still arrogant insufferable emotional pricks with major superiority complexes as seen in the comments made by the elder to Spock. As a side point, Young Spock has an excellent way of clearing "fuck you asshole" while sounding like he is saying "live long and prosper".

4. Spock is still an idiot. The stop one supernova they create a substance "red matter" that in tiny drops can destroy entire planets. Then they make enough of this stuff to destroy at a rough guess thousands of planets. This whole part of the plot was the weakest. The saving Romulus from a supernova seemed very plated on with little thought.

5. Assuming that Kirk did graduate in 3 years then Enterprise Nc-1701 took 3 years from a point we see where most of the structure is in tact.

6. I missed the Admirals name. Scotty didnt vape Porthos did he?

Bilbo wrote:Couple thoughts that come to mine:

1. According to the Kobyash Maru test photon torps are useless when a ship still has shields up. When Kirk ordered their use before the "Klingons" shields went down the reply was one that implied it was useless.

This really doesn't prove anything, and the 'torps useless vs shields/better vs hull' thing is decades old.

Bilbo wrote:2. Phasers now seem to have intelligent auto-targeting systems which are far more accurate than anything we have seen in previous Startrek. Those nasty little Romulan missles were shot down in large numbers on numerous occasions. Previous ships in Startrek have a hard time hitting other ships their own size much less targets that small.

They really don't. They're actually shown being used in the point defence role now, but while ST never had 'perfect accuracy' they didn't 'have a hard time hitting other ships their own size' in general.

Bilbo wrote:3. Vulcans are still arrogant insufferable emotional pricks with major superiority complexes as seen in the comments made by the elder to Spock. As a side point, Young Spock has an excellent way of clearing "fuck you asshole" while sounding like he is saying "live long and prosper".

Enterprise baggage, lol.

Bilbo wrote:4. Spock is still an idiot. The stop one supernova they create a substance "red matter" that in tiny drops can destroy entire planets. Then they make enough of this stuff to destroy at a rough guess thousands of planets. This whole part of the plot was the weakest. The saving Romulus from a supernova seemed very plated on with little thought.

JJ Abrams is an idiot, news at 11.

Bilbo wrote:5. Assuming that Kirk did graduate in 3 years then Enterprise Nc-1701 took 3 years from a point we see where most of the structure is in tact.

Faster than E-D was supposed to be built.

Bilbo wrote:6. I missed the Admirals name. Scotty didnt vape Porthos did he?

Nobody cares about Enterprise.

Well people have hit up a lot of educated speculation here already, i'll do some ruminations on grand strategy I guess.

The fleet that was deployed to rescue Vulcan consisted of only 7 ships. Considering Vulcan is one of the Federation's major worlds, i'm surprised that the Federation's responce consisted of only 7 ships not all of which may even have been combat vessels. (They were unaware at the time of the sortie that Vulcan was being attacked.)

Vulcan reported "siesmic activity" and it was apparently off average enough to warrant a naval responce from Starfleet. Apparently, Starfleet assumed that Vulcan had suffered from an extensive natural disaster on the likes of New Orleans vs Hurricane Katrina. Thus the fleet was deployed for humanitarian relief efforts. Not expecting a fight of any kind. Even Enterprise became aware of a potential threat only minutes before entering the system.

By the way, it took a couple of minutes for Enterprise to travel between Earth and Vulcan. Interesting sidenote, implying Warp in AbramsTrek may be faster than Warp in Regular Trek.

Refereances were made to a "deployed" fleet on the Klingon-Federation border. I can't remember but I think someone may even have said "fighting" the Klingons. This may mean their is an active war going on between the Federation and Klingon Empire, but only maybe. If anyone said "fighting" the Klingons said person may just have been misinterpriting the result of a couple of border skirmishes.

Regardless, tension between the Federation and Klingon's is high as ever. So it's likely a majority of Starfleet is deployed along the neutral zone for now. This might help to explain why Starfleet only featured a handful of forces to police the home front. This isn't out of historical trend. During World War 1 most of the British Grand Fleet was stored up in Scapa Flow and Cromarty. What did London get? The pissy, obsolete pre-dreadnoughts of the 3rd Battle Squadron. Hardly a token force.

The reason for the small force going to Vulcan is mentioned - the other nearby ships are tied up in an unidentified "operation" in the Laurentian System.

Was the Laurentian System described as a combat area? I recall guys talking about a lot about the Klingon Empire being a threat. It's possible the Laurentian System is the Starfleet equivalent Scapa Flow. An isolated, distant base designed to keep Starfleet from harm at the cost of rapid responce times.

It seemed like the Laurentian System was the site of some sort of mission and not a base. I don't know if they said it was the site of a battle, but since Spock suggests a rendez-vous there I'd say that's unlikely.