It seems Trek likes to give the villain a super ship. Nero had one. So, will John Harrison have a super ship like the Narada in Into Darkness? It is almost certain that the answer is yes: 1) It would continue the trend. Nero had one. 2) The villain having a super ship is "cool" plus it sets up an epic battle with the hero ship, ie the Enterprise. 3) From the trailer, we know that Cumberbatch causes mass havoc on earth and the Enterprise is in a major battle. So, it would make sense that it is causes by a very powerful ship. Speculation: If Peter Weller's character is some sort of CEO maybe he owns his own starship. Maybe John Harrison acquires one of these starships and upgrades it into a super ship.
I suspect after John Harrison kicks the Klingons' asses as seen in the trailer, he then acquires one of their ships. I doubt it'll be some silly ubership like Narada or Scimitar. Or at least I hope it won't.
John Harrison is a home-grown terrorist, an expert in hand-to-hand combat and psychological warfare. I don't recall many real-life terrorists having technology in advance of the US' best. I suspect he'll steal a Starfleet ship to get from Earth to Qo'nos. We don't know the Enterprise is in a major battle with another starship, just that it's badly damaged at some point.
After beating down the Klingons, JH acquires a catching phrase that befits his 'revenge' mission against starfleet.
If there were to be a formidable villian ship, I personally would like it to be something like the USS Star Empire (3 nacelle dreadnought) - it would make a good symbol of being 'anti-starfleet'.
It's sort of inherent in villains who cry "vengeance!" that they possess superweaponry. After all, if they were wronged once, they were pushovers back then, and must have upgraded somehow to become a credible threat. On the other hand, they also need a bunch of followers if their superweapon is a starship. We already have some powerful imagery of the villain standing alone, and fighting alone... If he can control a ship without cohorts of goons, then it would probably be enjoyable to watch him treat starships as disposable tools, rather than trust his fates on any single one. Timo Saloniemi
The Enterprise is the top ship of the fleet in this period of time. A villian can feasibly be rolling around in superior ship (perhaps a prototype), but not outrageously uber and unstoppable as that would make no sense. And I dont think the ship itself would be the weapon that changes the game. I don't like the idea of non-scientific rogues suddently acquiring special knowledge and the technology to conceive ships or weapons (Shinzon and his Schimitar is very guility of this one) that vastly superior to those made by the actual millitary divisions of the Federation or the Kingon/Romulan empire. This again makes me wonder how Johnny H managed to acquire weapons/abilities of such game-changing power that never existed in the original time line.
I imagine we'll have a ship more evenly matched with The Enterprise this time round - that way we can have a decent space battle. Uberships are unstoppable until circumstance just happens to save the hero ship.
The original timeline of TOS was rife with asymmetric threats - it was actually extremely rare for Kirk to face a threat on his tech level! With so many superior foes of the Federation around, beggars can be choosers. Assuming John Harrison is a beggar, rather than one of the big boys to start with. The trailer would have us believe that Earth or the Federation feels protected in this timeline. Was this ever the case in TOS? There were many threats capable of reaching and hurting Earth; by the time of the movies, they actually did. Is the game really being changed? Timo Saloniemi