The Romulan Supernova: The final, canon word

[Yistaan]

That's how I was interpreting it anyway. I'm okay with Hobus being retconned as Romulus's sun, or the star in question being Romulus's and doing away with Hobus all together...if it would simplify some of this.

It doesn't simplify it, it makes things far more complicated. It means that Spock was going to use the red matter to consume Romulus' sun, somehow thinking it would save Romulus despite it consequently not having any sun at the end of Spock's operation.

Ironically the magical faster than light supernova in another star system called Hobus makes more sense here.

 

[rahullak]

Maybe Occam's Razor?

"Romulan" sun not implying the sun around which the Romulan homeworld orbits, but rather some other star in Romulan space?

 

[The Old Mixer]

The way Picard described the supernova is logical and consistent for Picard's purposes. What they didn't attempt to do was try to make any sense out of what Spock was doing in the film. That was irrelevant to this story, and trying to make sense out JJ science is like putting lipstick on a pig.

 

[Longinus]

It doesn't simplify it, it makes things far more complicated. It means that Spock was going to use the red matter to consume Romulus' sun, somehow thinking it would save Romulus despite it consequently not having any sun at the end of Spock's operation.

Ironically the magical faster than light supernova in another star system called Hobus makes more sense here.

Being able to stop supernova light years from the origin of blast makes zero sense. Furthermore, I already explained earlier why a black hole is immensely preferable to a supernova.

 

[Noname Given]

The way Picard described the supernova is logical and consistent for Picard's purposes. What they didn't attempt to do was try to make any sense out of what Spock was doing in the film. That was irrelevant to this story, and trying to make sense out JJ science is like putting lipstick on a pig.

Oh please, to call Star Trek hard science fiction is laughable. Star Trek science has always served the needs of the plot first and actual science second.

This goes all the way back to The TOS days. The one I love is TOS season 1 "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" were they beam not one but two people into themselves; which somehow it doesn't double their mass and erases their memories of the past couple of days.

Yep Star Trek science on display.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Jar Jar Abrams

And that's when everyone stops reading.

 

[ITDUDE]

The way Picard described the supernova is logical and consistent for Picard's purposes. What they didn't attempt to do was try to make any sense out of what Spock was doing in the film. That was irrelevant to this story, and trying to make sense out JJ science is like putting lipstick on a pig.

Basically in ST09 there was some supernova that destroyed Romulus. That’s as much as they are taking from that movie. Rest is so convoluted that I bet they will just ignore it rather than trying to explain it. Discovery made such a mess of retconning, it took them a full season to “sync-up” canon. Picard writers would be smart not to repeat Discovery’s mistakes.

 

[fireproof78]

Picard writers would be smart not to repeat Discovery’s mistakes.

Nah. They'll make their own mistakes.

 

[F. King Daniel]

So if the supernova was the Romulan sun... how would sucking it into a black hole save Romulus? No light, no heat, no gravity. Spock's last-ditch plan makes zero sense. Let's try and make SOME sense of this.

 

[Longinus]

So if the supernova was the Romulan sun... how would sucking it into a black hole save Romulus? No light, no heat, no gravity. Spock's last-ditch plan makes zero sense. Let's try and make SOME sense of this.

First of, trying to make sense of events in any J.J. Abrams film is an exercise in futility.

But as for why a black hole would be preferably to a supernova, I already explained it earlier. But I'll repeat it: The resulting black hole would have the same mass than the star it replaced. The Romulus (had it survived) can continue to orbit that black hole. Now, without the light of the star, it will be a dead planet anyway, but not immediately, especially given Trek's tech level. It would give more time to evacuate the planet safely and of course prevent the blast reaching other colonies. So instead of an instant destruction of Romulus and destruction of all nearby colonies withing couple of years, we would be looking at abandoning Romulus and nearby colonies surviving so the people from Romulus can relocate to those.

 

[fireproof78]

First of, trying to make sense of events in any J.J. Abrams film is an exercise in futility.

It really isn't any worse that any other Trek.

 

[Longinus]

It really isn't any worse that any other Trek.

No. Star Trek sometimes makes no sense, Abrams films never do.

 

[F. King Daniel]

First of, trying to make sense of events in any J.J. Abrams film is an exercise in futility.

True, but it's fun to try anyway.

But as for why a black hole would be preferably to a supernova, I already explained it earlier. But I'll repeat it: The resulting black hole would have the same mass than the star it replaced. The Romulus (had it survived) can continue to orbit that black hole. Now, without the light of the star, it will be a dead planet anyway, but not immediately, especially given Trek's tech level. It would give more time to evacuate the planet safely and of course prevent the blast reaching other colonies. So instead of an instant destruction of Romulus and destruction of all nearby colonies withing couple of years, we would be looking at abandoning Romulus and nearby colonies surviving so the people from Romulus can relocate to those.

That's a decent explanation, thank you.

 

[Paul Weaver]

So if the supernova was the Romulan sun... how would sucking it into a black hole save Romulus? No light, no heat, no gravity. Spock's last-ditch plan makes zero sense. Let's try and make SOME sense of this.

If the black hole was formed before the explosion, and was the same solar mass, Romulus would still have gravity, and still be in orbit of the black hole.

No heat or light, but that's nothing unsurmountable with artificial replacements available - the habitable part of Remus was dark all the time in any case.

If you take Spock's tale linearly, then perhaps the red matter managed to save some outer planets in the Romulan system

 

[The Old Mixer]

Oh please, to call Star Trek hard science fiction is laughable.

Good thing I never did that, then.

 

[Timo]

Basically, the "current" facts cover most of the bases nicely enough.

1) "A star", that is, the Romulan sun, explodes. Spock doesn't say when in relation to his mission, but gives a year that may be 2387 or thereabouts. PIC gives a year that may be 2389 or thereabouts. Both are fine and compatible, because both only give the year in relative terms, not absolute.

2) The explosion threatens the galaxy. Well, everything relating to Romulus does. Plus, if something close to Romulus blows, it's likely to be bad news to everybody, including at least Klingons and Feds, because all these major players seem to reside close to each other.

3) There is time to react to the explosion: Spock builds a ship, Picard builds a fleet. The time comes before the actual explosion, and is of unknown length because supernovae aren't clockworks.

4) Multiple plans to help are in motion. At least two fail. Many more may succeed. In the end, plenty of Romulans are saved, but not a miner's wife.

5) Spock has made a promise to save Romulus, and intends to keep it. His controversial scheme involves red matter. It fails in saving Romulus, at least in part because Spock guessed the timetable wrong. It succeeds in another goal, though, even though Spock has "little time" to pull off that part.

6) Spock's red matter vial nips the supernova in the bud, well within the Romulan system, by consuming the expanding wave of destruction in an effect that propagates from the vial along the surface of the wave. Given the small distances involved, this is plausible, and moreover saves all other star systems (possibly including the nearby Vulcan and Earth) from destruction further down the road.

7) The mighty Romulan Star Empire is no more, without its capital system. However, not all Romulans are gone, nor are all Romulan worlds stated to be gone.

That's plenty of boxes checked there. What remains unknown gives a much shorter list:

1) Spock's plan for saving Romulus is not known in detail, or even in basic principle. Chiefly because it fails. But it involves red matter, which behaves differently in every single deployment seen in the movie. A behavior that would save Romulus may well exist, too.

2) We never learn why Spock needed a fast ship, or indeed a special ship at all. But perhaps he only needed a ship compatible with housing red matter, and chose the fastest one available because there were no other criteria that would take precedence.

3) We don't know the name of the star that blew. Was it perhaps Hobus? Nor do we get a complete rundown of planets lost or Romulans killed. But there's time for that yet.

Personally, I think PIC has swept all the problems under the rug competently enough. Nothing about Spock's story remains contradictory, merely mysterious. And it's solid canon that Vulcan mysticism is poorly comprehended.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Paul Weaver]

Here's a potential timeline of a Supernova

t-4 years Star starts burning neon for some reason
Federation finds out, and starts constructing a fleet, nobody knows if they have 3 years of 5 years
t-4 months Star starts burning oxygen, there's little time
Mars attacked, evacuation called off, other powers also stop helping and turn inwards, spock tries to get red matter
t-1 week, silicon starts burning, Spock finally gets red matter goes in a fast ship to romulus
Spock turns up and fires the red matter into the star
Before the red matter does its thing, the Chandrasekhar limit is reached, and the shockwave blows
Spock tries to escape, but Nero stops him



This requires only a tiny reinterpretation of the order of Spock's memories that we saw:

A star went supernova --- OK that's fine, once a star starts burning carbon you could argue it's gone supernova, I suspect something artificial pushed the star along to the neon phase though.

Consuming everything in its path -- well it would do
I promised the Romulans that I will save their planet. -- The Federation promised they would save 900 million romulans, Spock made a personal promise and worked with Picard, then he made a further promise after Mars
We outfitted our fastest ship -- little time between Mars and the supernova, by now it's burning silicon
Using red matter I would create a black hole which would absorb the exploding star --- yup, as long as the core collapses into a black hole (somehow) before the shockwave, you'd set

This is when you need to jumble the next two lines up, to put Spock firing the red matter *before* the core collapses (it would be illogical to collapse the core afterwards, as the gravitational effects wouldn't save outer planets and wouldn't stop gamma rays)

I had little time. I had to extract the red matter and shoot it into the supernova -- we can agree that a star in a silicon burning phase is going supernova. You can't reverse that with 50ccs of helium.
I was on route when the unthinkable happened the supernova destroyed Romulus -- i.e core collapse

The rest is fine, having fired and failed, by a matter of minutes, Spock left (FTL, outpacing the shockwave), got into an altercation with Nero

As I began my return trip I was intercepted. / In my attempt to escape, both of us were pulled into the black hole.

That can be put down as a weird subspace anomaly

 

[Longinus]

Good summaries, Timo and Paul!

 

[Paul Weaver]

6) Spock's red matter vial nips the supernova in the bud, well within the Romulan system, by consuming the expanding wave of destruction in an effect that propagates from the vial along the surface of the wave

How? The only danger from a supernova outside of the local system is the light speed gamma rays, any blackhole would not effect these.

Unless there was an another reason for Spock black-holing the star after the core collapse -- perhaps to hide the evidence that it was Spock who triggered the supernova in the first place to force reunification of Romulans with Vulcans....

 

[Timo]

Here's a potential timeline of a Supernova

...And just one total showstopper wrt what was said and shown.

I had little time. I had to extract the red matter and shoot it into the supernova -- we can agree that a star in a silicon burning phase is going supernova. You can't reverse that with 50ccs of helium.

But we see Spock drop the vial into the wall of flame, rather than into the supernova, and achieve an effect. Furthermore, we know Spock succeeded in stopping the wall of flame, because we next learn he is lingering there and thus meets Nero - at the exact spot where he dropped his vial, because that's where the resulting timehole resides.

So trying to interpret this as a pre-kaboom intervention that went sour doesn't work - both because we see this did not happen, and (far more damningly) because the plot requires both a post-kaboom event (the loss of Romulus) and mission success (loss of Romulus notwithstanding).

How? The only danger from a supernova outside of the local system is the light speed gamma rays, any blackhole would not effect these.

It's quite possible that the deadliness of a realistic supernova boom would cover at least a few dozen ly in every direction, which in this neighborhood is a galactic disaster all right. And Spock did not fight the supernova with (just) a black hole: the all-important red matter effect was shown to propagate, rather than just suck in a single spot. The black hole (and moreover the timehole) may have been incidental side effects, just like the enormous kaboom of a nuclear detonation would be an incidental side effect in a plan that involved defeating alien invaders or runaway sentient-malevolent computer programs with an EMP.

Or then the timehole was the key element here, and would reverse the supernova somehow... Not quite by rewinding time so that Romulus would re-integrate and Nero's wife would undie, but nevertheless by doing fancy things to causality and entropy. Which is where us never learning about Spock's plan in detail helps us a lot.

Timo Saloniemi