So why doesn't Spock save Vulcan?

[YARN]

BillJ wrote:

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I just think its hypocritical to apply a standard to one Trek story that you're not willing to apply to all Trek stories.

But I am willing to apply it to all Trek stories. In situations where the stakes were at least as high as the destruction of a central UFP planet, this should have been a strategy on the table.

[BillJ]

YARN wrote:

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But I am willing to apply it to all Trek stories. In situations where the stakes were at least as high as the destruction of a central UFP planet, this should have been a strategy on the table.

I don't think it should ever be on the table. You could never, in good conscious, move forward after any and all tragedies. What makes the Vulcans more special than the crew of the Kelvin or those aboard the forty-seven Klingon ships that were destroyed? Pure numbers?

[Nerys Myk]

YARN wrote:

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But I am willing to apply it to all Trek stories. In situations where the stakes were at least as high as the destruction of a central UFP planet, this should have been a strategy on the table.

Nah, easy out. No drama. Reset button.

[Dale Sams]

BillJ wrote:

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I don't think it should ever be on the table. You could never, in good conscious, move forward after any and all tragedies. What makes the Vulcans more special than the crew of the Kelvin or those aboard the forty-seven Klingon ships that were destroyed? Pure numbers?

Losing 5 billion intellectual puppets should be fairly crippling to the Feds, especially at that point in history.

(Heh. Now's the part where we argue about Vulcan's contribution to The Federation for two pages)

[BillJ]

Dale Sams wrote:

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Losing 5 billion intellectual puppets should be fairly crippling to the Feds, especially at that point in history.

(Heh. Now's the part where we argue about Vulcan's contribution to The Federation for two pages)

But there's still, at least, ten thousand Vulcans out there and likely many, many more on colonies and ships.

[YARN]

BillJ wrote:

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I don't think it should ever be on the table. You could never, in good conscious, move forward after any and all tragedies. What makes the Vulcans more special than the crew of the Kelvin or those aboard the forty-seven Klingon ships that were destroyed? Pure numbers?

In that case, how could Kirk and Spock risk going back in time to save the Earth in Star Trek IV? What makes Earthlings so special? Maybe it has something to do with losing an entire planet? Your own planet?

Shouldn't the crew have been punished even more? Instead they gave Kirk his command back and the crew a new Enterprise.

[DonIago]

Kirk & Co. got lucky in TVH and I'm sure that if there'd been a DTI around at the time they might have faced some serious questions.

[Skywalker]

DonIago wrote:

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Kirk & Co. got lucky in TVH and I'm sure that if there'd been a DTI around at the time they might have faced some serious questions.

Kirk was the ringleader, of course. The man was a menace.

[Rarewolf]

Nerys Myk wrote:

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What age is Sulu supposed to be? (Not John Cho, Sulu)

Roughly the same age as Chekhov, I'd say.

YARN wrote:

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In that case, how could Kirk and Spock risk going back in time to save the Earth in Star Trek IV? What makes Earthlings so special? Maybe it has something to do with losing an entire planet? Your own planet?.

The Earth hadn't been destroyed in The Voyage Home, it was in the process of being attacked. Nothing was undone by the Time Travel. Its cheating, but its not rewriting events that have already taken place.


That's Generations - the destruction of Veridian III.

However First Contact is probably a better example of the rules being off with time travel involved - The Borg change history, Picard vows to 'repair what ever damage they've done' Fortunatly they do it right under his nose and he arrives before they've caused too much damage.

He doesn't have to undo anything, just steer events back on track.

Or play his part in the proceedings - that were always supposed to happen - depending on how you think about it.

[BillJ]

Rarewolf wrote:

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Roughly the same age as Chekhov, I'd say.

Since Sulu was already a botanist in Where No Man..., I'd say he's a bit older than Chekov.

[King Daniel]

YARN wrote:

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That's the only good reason I have heard from the opposition so far (i.e., 130 to 1).

1. Spock is from the future too. There are no secrets that a mining ship from his time would make it undefeatable.

2. He has time to plan and can appear at the time of his choosing.

3. There is the mere possibility of 130 vs. the certainty of the loss of Vulcan.

4. Does Nero state in the film that he will destroy ALL UFP planets?

1. That depends. In the Countdown prequel comic, Narada underwent massive upgrades between the destruction of Romulus and Nero intercepting Spock. But even if you reject that, Nero's vessel was powerful enough to capture Spock's 24th century ship, which he described as "our fastest"

2. Not necessarily. I don't recall any method of time travel that Spock would know about being precise.

4. "...and that is why I will destroy all the remaining Federation planets, starting with yours." (Nero to Pike)

So what? Inconsistencies in one story do not cover inconsistencies in another.

The fact issling-shot time-travel is canonical Trek, where warp speeds vary.

We have positive instances of this method.

It is a major plot device (i.e., the story is predicated on sling-shot time travel working).

There are no in-universe defeaters of sling-shot time-travel (we never hear a Trek character in DS9 announce that slingshot time travel does not work anymore).

We never had conclusive proof that Trek's other lost technologies ceased to function, either. They just... vanished.

It's always possible that the technology for slingshot time travel does not exist yet in the alternate reality. We saw it done on the Enterprise (of different and much smaller design than the one in the movie) in the 2260's and a Klingon ship in the 2280's. We don't know that it can be done on any ship type.

But again, there's the Guardian and other time travel methods besides slingshotting. And the huge moral implications of pressing a big undo button whenever something goes wrong - we have seen a future where time travel is used to fix problems, where Starfleet's Temporal Integrity Commission arrests people for crimes that alternate future versions of them committed, and in at least one instance forced the (innocent) current version of Captain Braxton merged with his brain damaged alt-future self to be tried. Fast forward another century and a war rages throughout time. Where does it end?

[King Daniel]

BillJ wrote:

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Since Sulu was already a botanist in Where No Man..., I'd say he's a bit older than Chekov.

I always assumed Kirk, Uhura and Sulu were about the same age. Scotty and McCoy older, Chekov and Rand younger.

[BillJ]

YARN wrote:

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In that case, how could Kirk and Spock risk going back in time to save the Earth in Star Trek IV? What makes Earthlings so special? Maybe it has something to do with losing an entire planet? Your own planet?

Shouldn't the crew have been punished even more? Instead they gave Kirk his command back and the crew a new Enterprise.

But they didn't erase the damage that the Whale Probe did. Doing their best to maintain the integrity of the timeline.

[Ovation]

YARN wrote:

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Our responses are now down to

"It's just a movie!" (genre pleading)

"The same question applies to other Trek stories!" (Tu Quoque)

"Only weirdos who like old Trek would care" (Ad Hominem).

Strange that one is shamed for getting one's geek on at a geek board.

You asked a question in the original post. Respondents are under no obligation to furnish answers that support your point of view.

[Sindatur]

I think it's funny, one of the biggest complaints about Voyager was the watering down of drama with the Reset button Janeway had built into her Captain's chair, and here we have folks complaining that Trek '09 didn't use the reset button