The Romulan Supernova: The final, canon word

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Picard' started by F. King Daniel, Jan 24, 2020.

  1. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Well, Chabon isn't returning for season 2 (because he'll be running a show based on one of his own novels, which naturally took priority), so maybe Terry Matalas, the new showrunner, will be more open to acknowledging the Remans.
     
  2. Tuskin38

    Tuskin38 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    He's still writing episodes for season 2, and will be an EP.
     
  3. Admiral Jean-Luc Picard

    Admiral Jean-Luc Picard Commander Red Shirt

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    One thing has really bothered me about this show. The Romulan Star Empire is how old; 2,000 years? They've got those massive Romulan Warbirds we saw on TNG and DS9 plus those slick Warbirds seen in Nemesis and possibly Reman Warbirds similar to the Schimitar, even if less powerful. The Romulan Star Empire encompasses many planets, moons, and planetoids, yes? If it's just Romulans and Remus in jeopardy... can they not relocate the Romulan people from the one homeworld to one, single planet? Yeah, they'd have to start over from scratch in regards to buildings, cities, and things of that nature. They can still evacuate supplies to help start over, plus they have those massive Warbirds which I'd imagine would be an asset for whichever planet becomes their new homeworld. They're not even native to Romulus, didn't the Romulans originally come from Vulcan?
     
  4. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    A supernova would endanger far more than a single star system. A typical supernova could lethally irradiate the surfaces of planets up to several dozen light-years away.
     
  5. Admiral Jean-Luc Picard

    Admiral Jean-Luc Picard Commander Red Shirt

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    Perhaps, but so far, we're only lead to believe that it was Romulus and Remus that had to be evacuated.
     
  6. Dukhat

    Dukhat Admiral Admiral

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    When I saw Oh wearing those sunglasses, the first thing I thought was that she was a Reman in disguise. That would have made so much more sense as to why she was behind the attack at Utopia Planitia. The Remans seemed to be relatively small in number; the retcon that they all knew about the supernova years ahead of the star's explosion would have given them plenty of time to get themselves away from the danger and reorganize. And, you know, actually have them do something more interesting than being stock evil-looking villains with Tim-Burtonesque Batman costumes and no personality of their own.
     
  7. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    I don't recall anything of the kind being asserted. (Remus was certainly not mentioned; Chabon has made it clear he prefers to ignore the existence of the Remans altogether.) And in the tie-in novel The Last Best Hope -- written in close consultation with series co-creator Kirsten Beyer and thus presumably reflecting the intended backstory accurately -- it's explained that Picard's evacuation fleet was given permission to evacuate only some of the outlying worlds in the supernova zone; the Romulans insisted on handling the homeworld's evacuation themselves rather than allow the Federation anywhere near it. And the reason so many died is because the authoritarian, corrupt, reflexively secretive nature of the Romulan regime meant that they basically just saved the powerful and the wealthy and screwed over the masses -- pretty much analogous to the Trump administration's botching of the COVID-19 crisis, which I'd say was prophetic if it didn't have abundant precedent in its botching of previous natural disasters, its climate change denial, etc.
     
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  8. thribs

    thribs Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Still don’t know anything about it. Must be for later seasons.
     
  9. Charles Phipps

    Charles Phipps Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    So your argument is the use of a plot element from a movie renders that movie element non-canon?

    Also, why would spock stop the Supernova Wave if all of the people it would kill are already dead?
     
  10. thribs

    thribs Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah the Spock stuff doesn’t work in this new Picard timeline. I was hoping they would go into it but they didn’t.
     
  11. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Spock went with the best information he had at the time.
     
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  12. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Huh? I don't see KDB saying anything remotely like that. He's saying the "destroy the galaxy" line doesn't make sense, but there's a ton of stuff in Trek canon that doesn't make sense.


    Again, a supernova would endanger far more than just one star system. Even if we ignore Spock's "destroy the galaxy" line, many planetary populations for dozens of light-years around Romulus would be in danger of destruction.
     
  13. valkyrie013

    valkyrie013 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    There are 109 stars in a 20 light year radius around us, so say if Our star blinks off, thats 109 star systems that will be affected.. granted a system 20 ly away may just get its ozone layer fragged but within 10 ly, you get a crispy KFC planet..
    So it being 14 years latter, there would be like 70 systems affected, with other systems being affected soon. so it is on ongoing crisis..
    So you would have a LARGE chunk of the empire toasted or rendered largely inhabbitable.. So no doubt the empire would fragment.
     
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  14. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

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    No need to go there here.
     
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  15. DEWLine

    DEWLine Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Assuming that GJ 3788 was the Romulan/Reman homestar, anything with habitation directly connected via the "travel lines" of 15 lightyears or less would be dead.

    In this case: 66 Virginis (F3V - almost certain to have been settled if it had Class-M worlds, and it might even have been among the first Romulan colonies, post-Journey), HD 117860 (G2V C), HD 119932 (K1V C) and HD 115755 (G5V C). Other systems further out would have been affected to "lesser" degrees...
     
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  16. Yistaan

    Yistaan Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    For now I'm just going with the old 'Star Trek Maps' and 'Worlds of the Federation' guidebooks that said that the Romulan system was a binary system. Only one of the stars was going to go supernova, thus Spock had to turn it into a black hole and the other star was enough to provide life support to Romulus. There, problem all solved. We should send this simple explanation to the Picard team.
     
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  17. valkyrie013

    valkyrie013 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I remember an Anime Stelvia of the Universe, in the future a local star goes nova, and we get hit by the Gamma ray burst, and it frags the Earth, but we survive ( not everyone.. but as a species) and the show is about them preparing for the slower than light physical wave of debris and stuff. but latter in the series, they discover that a cosmic string caused the nearby supernova and is headed to the sun.
    So.. as an explanation of Romulus' star maybe that, it is a regular yellow/orange dwarf star, but they discover a cosmic string or some other cosmic thingy that will impact with the romulan star in X amount of years, and they can't stop it from colliding. so they need to flee and evacuate a 15 light year radius.
    Just putting it out there, maybe the supernova was caused, but by something "natural" not an iconian or super synth way..
     
  18. Smiley

    Smiley Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The Last Best Hope planted the seed that maybe the supernova was artificially induced or accelerated. Neither the book nor the first season of Picard really follow up on that idea. Is there any indication that a future season or book will address this?
     
  19. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The first novel for Discovery featured Michael Burnham and the USS Shenzhou teaming up with Spock, Pike and the Enterprise. Season 2 of Disco blew that story out of the water with a very different Burnham/Spock reunion. AS much as I'm enjoying Last Best Hope (I'm halfway through), I won't be too surprised if the show takes a different direction if they revisit the supernova in the future.
     
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  20. Gonzo

    Gonzo Guest

    Not so far no, it was strongly indicated in the Kelvin films that the Star death was unnatural but they could change that if they want to.

    If it was unnatural then I do expect it to be dealt with at some point.

    Plus there is also the matter of the 8 Star System as well, that is most definitely not natural.

    They could follow up in S2 or go in a completely different direction.
     
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