• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

The Romulan Supernova: The final, canon word

But as soon as the sun goes nova, they would only have minutes before it hits Romulus. It would also be mute since with no star, the planet is as good as dead anyway.

Not immediately though -- you'd have time to continue to evacuate
 
Once upon a time, people that wrote science fiction used to actually know something about science, or consulted with others that did.
But Star Trek has never been 'Hard' science fiction of that type. It's always been more of a "Space Fantasy" with some grounding in actual science IF the story being told at the moment isn't affected.
 
The supernova had already happened. He was just trying to stop the planet from being hit.
A supernova is an event. It continues to expand. Yes, it had begun, but he may have been trying to find some way to stop it and reverse it with whatever the heck "red matter" was
 
The whole supernova thing from 2009 was one of the stupidest, most nonsensical things Star Trek has ever done.

And that's saying a lot.

That said, it gets a pass from me because 2009 is a wildly entertaining movie and, 11 years later, the idea of the supernova pretty much "just is," so I don't care and I won't ding PIC for using it as a key plot point.

But make no mistake....it was a hokey idea from the get-go.
 
I hope they bring out a updated stellar cartography book. I want to see how the nova affected Romulan space.
 
The supernova had already happened. He was just trying to stop the planet from being hit.
OR he was trying to stop whatever effect (started by the one Supernova) that unchecked would cause OTHER Supernovas in other Stars including the Star of the Romulan Homeworld. he failed, and yes, as a result the Star on the Romulan Homeworld's system went Supernova too as a result.
 
Nothing suggests the Romulans didn't try and save themselves, now does it? The Feds promised to take care of 0.9 billion. The Romulans themselves might have evacuated 1.2 billion. The Ferengi would still be haggling over the price of moving 0.04 billion (but that would be exclusive, executive evacuation!), and the Klingons would be grudgingly sending ships for moving 0.2 billion (but the Romulans would refuse to board, and the Klingons would be counting on that).

But moving billions is unlikely to be easy even in Star Trek. Unless you somehow put them into stasis for transport, that is. And preferably also put them into stasis on the planet, so that they don't breed, or riot and pillage, or commit mass suicide. But imagine Romulans agreeing to be put into ice by foreign powers...

Timo Saloniemi
Absolutely. They could have known for decades this was coming, and spent years dispersing the bulk of their population to other systems.

It's a shame there isn't a convenient, decades-long period of Romulan isolationism that could possibly account for this...

Romulus may only be left with hundreds of millions rather than billions of people, but it still wouldn't be an easy task.
 
Romulus could have been researching their own attempt at a genesis device and had it go awry. Why hasn't anyone else tried to replicate Genesis since then? Have to assume at least a few tried, even if only as a weapons program, and found various reasons that it was better left alone.
 
OR he was trying to stop whatever effect (started by the one Supernova) that unchecked would cause OTHER Supernovas in other Stars including the Star of the Romulan Homeworld. he failed, and yes, as a result the Star on the Romulan Homeworld's system went Supernova too as a result.
The side canon was that it was the Hobus star went nova. It was so massive that it breached subspace and traveled through that. Hence why it was able to reach Romulus in a shorter time. It was also said to be a threat to the whole galaxy.
 
The side canon was that it was the Hobus star went nova. It was so massive that it breached subspace and traveled through that. Hence why it was able to reach Romulus in a shorter time. It was also said to be a threat to the whole galaxy.
And that was never canon and has now been explicitly overruled by Picard, so we can thankfully forget all that nonsense.
 
Can't agree with this.

It just didn't make sense to me. I'm no astrophysicist, but the idea of another star in the galaxy going supernova and being an immediate threat to destroy a nearby starsystem is ridiculous, which is how it is portrayed. The idea that the supernova could threaten all life in the galaxy is also crazy.

Now, is it as crazy as lamp entities having love with Dr. Crusher or Warp 10 salamanders? Perhaps....perhaps not. But it's definitely wonky.

Now...again....to be clear- I don't care. Star Trek is my favorite franchise, and as such, I am tolerant of a lot of stupid stuff that makes no sense. The use of the supernova doesn't detract from my enjoyment at all. But I do roll my eyes at it.
 
Romulus could have been researching their own attempt at a genesis device and had it go awry. Why hasn't anyone else tried to replicate Genesis since then? Have to assume at least a few tried, even if only as a weapons program, and found various reasons that it was better left alone.

Planet-killing weapons are a dime a dozen.
 
I think what was mentioned in the first Episode of 'Picard' does not eliminate the possibility of the supernova being another star than the one Romulus circled around. Of course they say 'the Romulan Star' in the Interview but that can mean any star within the Romulan Empire. Yes, they said 'the Romulan Star' instead of 'a Romulan Star' but in the Interview they already mentioned the Supernova twice. So it is already clear which star they mean.

As creating a Black Hole near Romulus as a replacement for a sun makes no sense I still would prefer the variant with another star. (As a Supernova is just any 'star explosion' and we do not know all possible types of stars and their live cycles nothing speaks against some kind of warp fast 'subspace nova' - especially as we know that subspace energy can resemble a star as seen in VOY 'One small step'.)

But just implying it was Romulus' star that went nova makes sense for the new series. It simplifies the story as the event was 10 years ago the series is not about the details, not about Spock or Red Matter or Black Holes. These things are not essential for 'Picard' so no need top mention them.

One area of interest, that you touched on, is types of star. For it to be a full, powerful, type II supernova, the star's initial mass would have to be nine times that of the sun, or higher, and the resulting star would have been pumping out staggering levels of radiation and energy for its entire life. Such a star would destroy itself before any planets could properly form, let alone develop into life-supporting worlds. It either wasn't a supernova in the conventional sense, or it wasn't Romulus' star.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top