Was the distress call specifically about seismic disturbances? AFAIK, there was nothing specific about the distress call, so it could have been anything.
That's the thing - when Chekov is allowed to divulge the mission specs to the crew, he has but two items:
1) At 2200 hours, a "lightning storm in space" was observed at the Neutral Zone.
2) "Soon after", Vulcan High Command sent a distress call specifically stating that "their planet vas experiencing seismic actiwity".
And that's it. No mention of other information from Vulcan, no speculation that there would be a threat to starships there. Only a concluding remark that the mission is to evaluate the local situation, and "assist in the ewacuations if necessarrry". It seems that Chekov still believes in the natural disaster theory, and I see no reason to think he's being lied at by his superiors, or that the other ships operate on different assumptions.
Now, it's curious that Starfleet jumps to the conclusion that the NZ phenomenon is related to the Vulcan disturbances. I can't help but think that Vulcan must be sitting right next to this Neutral Zone (be it with Klingons or Romulans, although the latter would be in line with things like TNG "Unification" while the former is not indicated anywhere)...
Nero wasn't even aware that those 8 ships existed until they got to Vulcan, because they answered Vulcan's distress call.
Or then the call was made by Nero, who knew everything he needed to know because he was a habitual kidnapper and torturer of Starfleet personnel.
None of the dialogue suggests the ships were a surprise to Nero at all. The late arrival of the
Enterprise was, if not a surprise, then at least an annoyance, but that's it.
So if Nero wants to destroy the Federation, why the pretense to lure ships to the Laurentian Sector? Why not just destroy them outright as easily as he did the cadet ships?
Surely there must be a difference between destroying eight ships crewed by third-rate personnel and hundreds of ships crewed by regulars and veterans?
The planet could very well have been under attack, which is what the movie implies with all the, you know, destroyed ships.
Starfleet had no information about any attacks, or of any destroyed ships - or at least never relayed such information to the cadet fleet. (It does seem Nero had done some fighting at Vulcan prior to the cadet fleet massacre, though, as there was the wreckage of one
USS Mayflower there but no such ship was among those stated launched from Earth.)
Why would Vulcan be sending out a distress call to Starfleet about a natural seismic disaster? When California has an earthquake, do they call the U.S. Navy?
Well, basically, yes. The USN is the party with all those helicopters and at-hand supplies, after all.
The explicit mission of the cadet fleet was to assist in evacuations. Apparently, starships are great for this sort of work, and Vulcan has few if any in orbit at the time, so Earth needs to lend those.
Destroying 100 year old ships is a piece of cake for him, as long as one of those ships doesn't make a suicide run at him, which none of the 8 ships apparently did
That "apparent" is pretty difficult to swallow: why wouldn't one ship out of a hundred make that decision to save tens of thousands, when we know one ship out of one did it to save mere 800?
And there was no need for the
Enterprise to do anything suicidal. Nero: "Fire EVERYTHING!!!!".
Enterprise: "Pew, pew, we saw your everything and it amounted to nothing".
Onscreen, Nero is flying a civilian vessel that cannot stand against warships. That the same ship succeeds against a small force of warships offscreen just begs for an explanation. One readily offers itself: Nero has recently obtained red matter, which will later destroy his own ship, not to mention an entire planet. Nero is a miner. So, red matter mine warfare is the one type of warfare that this civilian probably can successfully practice against actual soldiers!
If he hadn't looked at the viewscreen and saw "NCC-1701," that ship would have been toast along with the others.
Pike certainly seemed to think otherwise. He was confident to fight back until presented with another option. Since we later saw how easy it was for the starship to stop Nero's missiles, it's quite possible Pike could have won that first fight, just like Sulu won the second one.
What would be the point of broadcasting that 47 Klingon ships were destroyed if it didn't actually happen?
Umm, the very topic of this discussion, of course. If there's something so scary out there that it can kill 47 Klingon ships, then Starfleet needs to launch everything (except a weak and undercrewed rear guard) to counter that threat.
All Nero needs to do is choose the location of the threat so that it's close enough to be scary, but distant enough to strand Starfleet away from Vulcan and Earth. And apparently, Laurentius fit the bill perfectly - so perfectly in fact that the mathematically talented Spock thought it would be a great idea to fly there, rather than to Earth, for repairs and regrouping, thus playing right into Nero's pocket.
Timo Saloniemi
