Circumstantial Evidence?/Why did spock end up in alt. universe?[Merge]

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

So why should it not have powerful weapons or powerful shields? It's going to be carrying precious cargo.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

Because it's not a warship and it has a cloak. It's not built for fighting, it's built for mining and transporting.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

How many ships today that carry precious cargo carry torpedoes and heavy machine guns? Most of the time all they have are water cannons. Terrorists in tiny boats can easily capture them.
The Narada should actually be just the space equivalent of a moving oil rig. How many oil rigs are there that can sink an aircraft carrier?

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

One could easily argue Nerada's missiles were designed to smash large asteroids. Why the infinite supply? Replicators. Nerada's from the 24th century, where DS9 had a dodgy-science "self-replicating minefield" and Federation ships never run out of torpedoes (not even Voyager which fired far more than the thirtysomething they claimed were left on board a few episodes in)

The Countdown comic is the only place the Nerada has a cloaking device.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

You're comparing a 21st century Earth oil rig with a late 24th century Romulan mining spacecraft. Because we know nothing about how a fictitious totalitarian alien race from almost 400 years in the future decides to arm their mining vessels, there's really no comparison between the two. The Narada is what it is.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

I'm just looking at the last 400 to 600 years of naval history and there never were heavily armed cargo ships that could take on war ships because it simply makes no sense to build those.
An oil rig of today can't sink a battleship of the 19th century.

What dangers are there for a mining ship deep inside Romulan territory? I guess the Empire is under strict control, and such a thing as pirates is easily dealt with. A Warbird that can take on a Galaxy class ship, paired with the Romulan mentality, that leaves no room for pirates capturing ships with precious cargo.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

That may be true of our real naval history, but so what? As I just said, that's just pushing our mores onto a fictitious alien race that has been warlike for the last 2,000 years. Why would the Romulans think anything like the last 400 to 600 years of Earth history?

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

You can go back even further than that. The Romulan Empire is modelled after the Roman Empire. You won't find heavily armed cargo ships there either.

It makes no sense realistically (because you simply divide between civilian cargo transports and military ships), and no sense for the fictional model of a Roman Empire in space.

Look to the airforce. Military transport planes. Do they have missiles and machine guns? No, they have a decoy system for heat seeking and radar missiles, but use ALL the available place they have for cargo transport.

It's ALWAYS the same principle. If you carry precious cargo, you carry precious cargo, because space is money. You don't build an oil tanker that wastes precious space for ammunition. Even a weapons transport won't be able to fight back.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

Uh... because they're not stupid?

Well, of course, you think that the Romulans who have artificial black holes powering their ships, need Spock to create an artificial black hole to protect their planets from a super nova, so those Romulans are stupid, so in that would work out.

You see, the rest of us, work under the assumption they are not stupid, and thus would not need Spock to create that black hole, or create the Narada, arm it with whatever, nor would they fail to notice a super nova building over the centuries and millennia right on their doorstep, they wouldn't fail to prepare accordingly, they wouldn't try to stop a super nova with a black hole to begin with, because black holes would only make the super nova worse, etc. etc.

It's where our reasoning "this isn't the Prime universe we know" comes from.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

The Roman Empire was not a spacefaring civilization with warp drive, photon torpedoes, disruptors, and artificial singularities. And the Romulan Empire is an alien species which just happens to be patterned after the former by names and ranking systems, but there the resemblance ends. So it's not a viable comparison.

It all comes down to anthropomorphizing an alien race based on your own beliefs. As far as I'm concerned, that justifies the existence of the Narada, because it's builders weren't thinking like human beings would think.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

Who says the supernova was natural? If Dr. Soran can build a missile that suddenly kills a star, who says some weapon can't make a star suddenly nova? In Voyager the Q civil war was fought by (or caused the byproduct of) sending stars supernova without warning.

There's a precedent for everything in Star Trek, no matter how retarded. Trying to prove one stupid thing is somehow of less worth than "Spock's Brain", "Threshold" and the rest is utterly pointless.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

All those artificial supernova's have one thing in common: they just went boom without warning.

Spock and Romulans could see it coming and thought of a (idiotic making things worse but still) plan to deal with it.

But ultimately it doesn't matter. Nobody can deal with the problem of Spock and a Vulcan science ship being needed to generate an artificial black hole when the Romulans have artificial black holes powering their ships.

I mean seriously, Romulans waiting for the end to come and trusting Spock and some Federation / Vulcan science generating a black hole to deal with a supernova, and then got blown to bits? Even if they didn't power their ships with black holes?

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

Still false. Constantly resorting to hyperbole removes your credibility. Absolutely is a word with an established meaning. The only absolute you've demonstrated is that you absolutely refuse to accept the film.

So what? "Lazy writing" does not equate to "not the same continuity". And if the use of alternate timelines constitutes "lazy writing", then the charge applies to TOS and TNG as well, making it a particularly toothless allegation against STXI as a valid continuation of Trek continuity.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

If it's possible to instantly kill or explode a star, then it's possible that some event destabilized the star enough that everyone realized it was going to go supernova in the near future.

The Romulans use microscopic black holes to power their drives. Since we know nothing of how they are generated, captured or harnessed it's entirely possible that creating a large enough black hole to absorb the supernova was beyond their technology.

That is, of course, unless you're a closed-minded, only-one-right-answer canon nazi.

I'd hate to think anyone here thought like that.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

In fact, if the Romulans always had the ability to do such a thing, you'd think it would have come up before - yet it didn't. In this sense, the film's portrayal of the Romulans is consistent with how they have always been portrayed: as having ships powered by microscopic black holes, while not apparently having the ability to use said technology on a larger scale to absorb planets or stars.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

Meh, the people who made TOS even did that. I should know I've been watching TOS seasons 1 and 2 on Blu Ray.

 

Re: Why did spock end up in the alternate universe??

And? That wouldn't change my opinion in the least. I'd argue the points with him too.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

It's a "Copy and Paste" comment that the critics are using because they someone else using it once and felt they could use it is a slam against the film. However, ask them what it means or how it equates to "lazy writing" and you won't get a straight answer because there seemingly is no straight answer. Simply put, it is a remark against the film that is flawed and never had much thought behind it to begin with.

 

Re: Circumstantial Evidence?

Actually, my statement is pretty much true. Lets look at some TOS canon "facts" just off the top of my head.

In TOS, Spock said that he served under Captain Pike on the Enterprise for 11 years, 4 months, 5 days. He made that statement in 2266. If Kirk took command of the Enterprise in 2265, then the Big E was launched sometime in 2255 (although it's not "canon", it is universally accepted that the E was actually launched in 2245 under Capt. Robert April). In the Abramsverse, the Abramsprise was launched in 2258, 3 years after the approximate date in TOS. NuSpock had apparently never served under Pike on the Abramsprise since it was the maiden voyage. It was also stated that he had programmed the Kobayashi Maru for the past 4 years at Starfleet Academy. If he did serve on a starship for that 4 year timespan, it wasn't the Abramsprise.

According to TOS, Chekov was about 12 years younger than Kirk. In the Abramsverse, he's only about 8 years younger. In order to get Chekov into the movie, they made him older.

In TOS, Dr. Boyce was the Chief Medical Officer under Pike on the Enterprise. In the Abramsverse, some guy named Purri was the CMO on the Abramsprise.

In TOS, James T. Kirk had an older brother named Sam, went through the Academy, taught, classes, lived on Tarsus during the Kodos massacre, served on several starships including the Farragut, progressed through the ranks and gained command experience, and finally took command of the Enterprise in 2265 when Pike was promoted to Fleet Captain. In the Abramsverse, Kirk is a jerk, apparently didn't have a brother, never actually finished the academy, never lived on Tarsus (that we know of), didn't progress through the ranks or gained any command experience, never served on any other starships, and was "given" command of the Abramsprise.

In TOS, Pike was promoted to Fleet Captain prior to Kirk taking command of the Enterprise. In the Abramsverse, Pike gets promoted to Admiral...I don't get it either.

And I could go on and on. Abrams didn't adhere to any type of TOS canon except for the character names and uniform colors. And no, I don't accept this movie as part of the Star Trek continuity. Because it's not. It is off in left field somewhere in its own continuity completely separate from the Star Trek that I know.

Yes. It was lazy writing. Inventive and creative writing would have been writing a story that took place within the existing continuity and using a bit of creativity and imagination to come up with an exciting story. Lazy writing is using a BS alternative universe plot device so that they would not have to overexert their imaginations to come up with a good story set within the existing TOS universe.