The Great Romulan Evacuation

The plot did desperately need a rationale for Spock to create the timehole even after failing to save Romulus.

Or, more generally, the timehole should have come to being somehow, despite Romulus being destroyed. Perhaps Spock would deploy the Romulus-saving gimmick in time, but it would turn out not to work after all, and all it would accomplish would be to send Spock and Nero to the past? Nero could then blame Spock on empty promises, rather than on being late.

On another dramatic level, though, it is probably a good idea to show and tell that Spock did accomplish at least something, like, save the universe. Nero's persecution of him then sounds more unjust, which is good for the drama.

But the whole matter could definitely have been handled more elegantly, paying greater attention to the mechanism that destroyed Nero's home, family and life, and to the way Spock failed to prevent that - and possibly to the way Nero would put things right again by wreaking suitable havoc, rather than just having him wreak the havoc out of simple grief.

Timo Saloniemi

 

The "timehole" was an unexpected side effect of the red matter blackhole.

 

Perhaps, perhaps not. What is certain is that it absolutely needed to be created or there would have been no movie. And the way the movie is written is one possible answer to the pressing problem of having Romulus be lost and the timehole be created. It's just that the movie could have been written in a couple of other ways to this desired end, too.

Interestingly, Spock Prime never claims the timehole was an accident or even an unintended side effect. For all we know, he used red matter specifically because he knew this would create a timehole which would be the only way to reverse the supernova explosion! And this might be why he had "little time" even after Romulus was lost: because the plan involved time travel, it could still succeed despite the unthinkable already having happened.

Whether it did succeed or not, we don't know. Perhaps Spock indeed saved Romulus, but Nero was too stricken with grief to understand this or accept his say-so?

Timo Saloniemi

 

The early version of the STXI script has Spock open a second black hole with the aim of going back in time and having another chance to save Romulus: http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Trek.html

SPOCK PRIME (V.O.)
I realized: a large black hole could
destroy the supernova. A smaller one...
could be my escape. Could send me back
in time, allowing me to complete my
mission. So I created a black hole...

Buuuuut, since the movie's writers, Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman, co-plotted the Countdown comic with Mike Johnson and his people, I think we can safely say that's more or less how they envisioned the supernova disaster for the "finished product"

 

That script brings up an intriguing tidbit: that this mindmeld scene of Vulcans interacting with Spock Prime was supposed to involve them studying the supernova choreography in graphic form.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/xihd/trekxihd1956.jpg

Doesn't seem likely that this brief scene would have been filmed with the "hologram of supernova" graphics, or even filmed with the intention of adding such graphics. But seeing those would have been illuminating.

Timo Saloniemi

 

It is interesting that Nero wanted to get revenge for the destruction of his planet which has not happened yet, rather than just to save his planet. That was the most difficult part to get across to the audience, because the time travel itself is a means to save Romulus. It would be similar to Picard wanting to get revenge on the Borg in the past for Borgifying Earth in the future. Nero certainly is a demented character. If Nero were to drop red matter on the unexploded star then that would change the future and Nero's motivation for revenge would be erased.

 

Only in the model where the same Romulus would rise from the ashes, so to speak. But tampering with time in 2258 ought to result in a different Romulus, one without Nero's beloved wife. So it makes sort of emotional sense for Nero to direct his rage that way.

In order to have Nero's actions make cold utilitarian sense, the writers could have invented a story where sacrificing Romulus would be necessary for stopping the supernova from doing further harm. Which is what would happen if the supernova came from the star of the Romulan home system: turning that star preemptively into a black hole would not be good news for Romulus!

Timo Saloniemi

 

Then the Romulan Star would be a red supergiant like Betelgeuse. Any chance that it is Betelgeuse?

 

Diane Duane's Rihannsu novels say the Romulan homestar was 128 Trianguli (and Vulcan, of course, is 40 Eridani dating back to James Blish's TOS episode novelizations in the 70's)

 

I would find it hard to believe Betelgeuse would have any native races, since the Romulans are related to Vulcans, it stands to reason they came from somewhere else other than their native system. Betelgeuse is a huge star, it is the only one who's disk we can see other than our Sun, it radius is compared to the orbit of Jupiter, and it could go supernova at anytime, it if did go supernova it would be brighter than the Moon in our skies, but only temporarily so, and it is over 600 light years away.

 

There are Betelgeusians in TMP.

 

...Doesn't mean they would be natives, though.

Since the star going supernova surprised everybody, it's a bit unlikely that it would be of a type that could go supernova by modern reckoning. On the other hand, the star Nero emerged next to, in the teaser, does look like something that could blow up the classic supernova way in the near future. Odds of it being the Romulan homestar are a bit low, though, because Federation vessels supposedly aren't welcome in the Romulan home system in 2233 yet, and because the walla indicates there are Klingons in the system as well, supposedly no more welcome than the Feds. Conspicuous also is the absence of Romulans.

As for 128 Trianguli, it's a fictional star - but Triangulum (Australe) is a real, nice and tight asterism, a constellation that is contained in a small volume of space and not merely in a particular direction from Earth. So odds are that we could locate 128 TriA within that one. Not exactly a neighbor to 40 Eri, but not incredibly far away, either, just over a hundred lightyears or so. FWIW, it's not a red giant in Duane's fiction.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I gots (sic) an idea! Stole parts of it from the computer game Starflight. In that game, ALL of the stars in the known galaxy are suddenly heading to supernova (or at least a massive solar flare) within month or a year, for unknown reasons. I would have made it so while the Hobus (Hypernova?) was busily (slowly) physically destroying the Hobus system, at the same time it was sending out transwarp or faster "pulses" or waves of something, that was causing ALL of the stars in the galaxy to destabilize, pushing all of them to go supernova within months or years. The effect of the pulses was unnatural and cumulative, so sucking up the Hobus Hypernova would cause the pulses and the danger to cease. But, for some reason, the Romulus star went nova faster than expected. There we go, Hobus Hypernova can destroy Romulus without having to physically hit Romulus itself!

 

That reminds me of the Phi Puma supernova
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Phi_Puma

The idea is that there was a "galactic fault line" which caused supernovae

I wonder...
http://www.sciartcenter.org/group-2-mark--lizzy
http://www.sciartcenter.org/uploads/6/0/8/9/6089526/neyrinckpaperatjhu2015_orig.jpg

http://link.rcls.org/portal/The-origami-revolution-a-Nova-production-by-Holt/ek6FhgwTFe8/

 

Wow, way to resurrect a five year old thread.

 

Who said that Spock (Quinto) knew that information? I remember that Old Spock told to Kirk (Pine) only, by mind meld. And, it seems that old Spock died without revealin

 

I assumed Nero transmitted all of that to Romulus anyway, along with anything else about the 24th century that might help them. Technology, etc. I'm not sure what elder Spock would publically reveal or whether he would even do a press conference, let alone comment about future events. I assume it was a relief to Starfleet to have confirmation that the unknown Romulan ship from 2233 turned out not to represent a contemporary Romulan technology. FIve mile ships that can shred the defenses of a ship like the Kelvin were probably a worry for Starfleet in the years after the Kelvin incident.

I assume the Romulans would realize that blaming Spock, the Vulcans and the Federation for this is insane, although they might invest in some technology to deal with the star in question, even if obtaining some Red goo was off the table.