Romulus' Star / Supernova

[CuttingEdge100]

How did Romulus' star end up getting up to the point of supernova without anything being done?

I mean, if the star was about to go supernova it would be a red-supergiant that would be about to run out of fuel and collapse in (then go supernova). There would be ample warning before this would happen.

Additionally, why would the Romulans have settled a planet orbiting a red-supergiant star? They'd have to know this thing was going to go up in a gigantic fireball eventually.

Additionally, I don't know if a class M planet's even possible if you have a red-giant/supergiant about to go super-nova. The stars that go supernova are bigger than stars like our sun and burn hotter and live less, some don't even make it to a billion years. The first life appeared on earth about 3.8 billion years ago, and the planet has been around about 4.6 billion years. So life appeared within 800 million years, but the atmosphere of earth was very very different from what it is now, it wasn't until about 500-600 billion years ago when you had enough atmosphere for multi-cellular aerobic life to take off (Cambrian era). Do the math, it wouldn't live long enough for the atmosphere to become sufficient to be considered M-class.


Another thing I should mention is, why would the Romulans need help creating a device that would produce a black-hole to collapse a star? The Romulans have for some time had the ability to create and contain artificial quantum-singularities to power their D'Deridex-Class warbirds. So they can create black-holes. So why didn't they just create one and shoot it into the star?


CuttingEdge100

 

[SonicRanger]

It wasn't the Romulan star apparently. It was another star -- "Countdown" calls it Hobus or something like that -- which went nova. Then something... subspacey or wibbly wobbly happened so that it was a threat across a very great distance in a short amount of time. Think Praxis but much bigger.

 

[M'Sharak]

How did Romulus' star end up getting up to the point of supernova without anything being done?

Romulus' star didn't. The star of the Hobus system, a number of light-years away, went superdupernova.

 

[SonicRanger]

I tend to think that it was some sort of subspace gamma-ray burst...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst

Most gamma-ray bursts are thought to be a narrow beam of extremely intense radiation released during a supernova. That would allow the supernova to be sufficiently directional that it could happen to be pointed at Romulus and destroy that system and a swath of the galaxy, but not wipe-out everything all at once.

 

[propita]

Wasn't Earth and Vulcan also in the "supernova's" cross-hairs? And that's why Nero went after them--because they were willing/able to do stuff to save themselves but let Romulus get burnt?

 

[nx1701g]

Wasn't Earth and Vulcan also in the "supernova's" cross-hairs? And that's why Nero went after them--because they were willing/able to do stuff to save themselves but let Romulus get burnt?

According to the film Nero was going after them because he wanted Romulus in the new timeline to exist in a reality free of the Federation's influence.

 

[Darth Picardous]

Plus a star doesn't have to be a red giant to go supernova. Used to be the current thought until supernova 1987A went kaboom, which photographic records showed to be a blue star.

 

[TrekGuide.com]

Maybe some alien force (like the Gorn, Breen, or Sheliak) blew up the star near the Romulan system in some kind of war. The Romulans weren't known for getting along with their neighbors.

If the Breen or Tholians blew up Alpha Centauri, the explosion might reach Earth in five or 10 years. The star that destroyed Romulus could have been much closer, or some kind of Subspace shockwave traveled faster than light.

We know Soran used Romulan technology to build the bomb to blow up stars in "Star Trek Generations," so maybe the Romulans blew it up themselves in some kind of weapons test.

Also in "Star Trek Generations," the exploding sun seemed to reach the planet faster than the speed of light. (The sun would be about eight light-minutes away from a Class-M planet, but the explosion was observed just seconds after the bomb was launched from the planet.)

 

[Dac]

The Gamma Ray burst theory makes far more sense - If it were a shockwave as depicted in the film, how the hell could Nero watch his planet blow up without being caught in the same shockwave? Surely his shields wouldn't have been strong enough to withstand that kind of force - same with the Federation relief fleet from countdown, they should all have been obliterated at the same time.

Same thing with the visualisation of Spock and the Jellyfish destroying the shockwave. It was seen as a sublight event, when it should have been at maximum warp trying to outrun the shockwave while being close enough to detonate the device - which in itself managed to suck in an exponentially explanding wave which by that point should have been 100's of light years across but was seen to do it within a second...

Like I said before - there are many many MANY more things wrong with this film than what is obviously seen....but I still enjoy it none the less.

 

[Omega_Glory]

Like I said before - there are many many MANY more things wrong with this film than what is obviously seen....but I still enjoy it none the less.

It's the Coyote/Roadrunner cartoon version of Star Trek...just watch Wiley E. get creamed and don't ask questions. It makes perfect sense then.

 

[TrekGuide.com]

It's the Coyote/Roadrunner cartoon version of Star Trek...

Are you implying that there was ever another version of "Star Trek"?

 

[All Seeing Eye]

I like to think that the Hobus star was connected to the Romulan star in a sort of Binary or Trinary star system which is why so soon after it goes nova Romulus is destroyed.

Also I like to think of the Hobus star as a special case, it's composition made it exist partially in subspace. When it went Nova it's existance half in and out of subspace allowed it to travel faster than light.

On another note however who is to say how long it would take for the Hobus nova to destroy the galaxy? we know it was a threat to most of the galaxy but nobody ever says that it would wipe it out quickly. Perhaps it would take years, decades of centuries for the Hobus shockwave to destroy or at least damage a huge chunk of the Milky Way.
As it expanded perhaps it would become too large and too wide spread to stop it with Red matter which is why Spock needed to stop the shockwave in its infancy.

On ANOTHER note, when we see Romulus destroyed who is to say that that is the Hobus shockwave? the hobus shockwave could have been subspace based and that subspace shockwave when it hit the star of other systems causes those other stars to go Nova so Romulus was destroyed by the Nova of its own star.

The Hobus star could have sent out a small shockwave that hit the Romulan star as it became more and more unstable, so Spock got there in time to stop the ultimate shockwave but was too late to stop the smaller shockwaves that came just before the Hobus star blew up.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Tachyon Shield,

Well, if they knew it was going to go supernova and create some kind of subspace shockwave in a sufficient time to create a vessel (Vulcans) to deliberately create a black-hole to implode the star...

Why didn't Romulus evacuate? I mean their military vessels even...

Also, why didn't they just create their own quantum-singularity -- they knew how to do this, and just shoot it into the Hobus star...


CuttingEdge100

 

[Peter the Younger]

Tachyon Shield,

Well, if they knew it was going to go supernova and create some kind of subspace shockwave in a sufficient time to create a vessel (Vulcans) to deliberately create a black-hole to implode the star...

Why didn't Romulus evacuate? I mean their military vessels even...

Also, why didn't they just create their own quantum-singularity -- they knew how to do this, and just shoot it into the Hobus star...


CuttingEdge100

I had an idea along those lines, totally unsupported by anything but it helps me accept the bad science: What if they did try something, and it backfired?

Let's say the Hoban star was a regular old garden variety supernova, and Spock thought he had ample time to create his black hole. But unbeknown to him, reactionary elements in the Romulan military had decided "we don't need no stinkin' Vulcans, we can do this ourselves!" So they launched a bunch of subspace warheads at the star. Of course, they didn't heed La Forge's sage advice, "Subspace weapons are unpredictable," and the detonations ended up accelerating the supernova to warp speeds. Ooops.

This would explain why Spock, genius unparalleled in the Trek universe, could have been surprised by the "unthinkable" destruction of Romulus. Also, this way we don't have to invent more whacky Trek pseudo science, we can use the stuff that already exists (I mean, it would be nice if something good came from Insurrection.)

None of this belongs in the movie mind you, it would be deadly boring technobabble, but I think the Countdown comic could have included some of this. I can easily picture the panels where the arrogant Romulan commander's warbird gets obliterated by the Hoban star.

 

[SonicRanger]

Tachyon Shield,

Well, if they knew it was going to go supernova and create some kind of subspace shockwave in a sufficient time to create a vessel (Vulcans) to deliberately create a black-hole to implode the star...

Why didn't Romulus evacuate? I mean their military vessels even...

Also, why didn't they just create their own quantum-singularity -- they knew how to do this, and just shoot it into the Hobus star...


CuttingEdge100

I had an idea along those lines, totally unsupported by anything but it helps me accept the bad science: What if they did try something, and it backfired?

Let's say the Hoban star was a regular old garden variety supernova, and Spock thought he had ample time to create his black hole. But unbeknown to him, reactionary elements in the Romulan military had decided "we don't need no stinkin' Vulcans, we can do this ourselves!" So they launched a bunch of subspace warheads at the star. Of course, they didn't heed La Forge's sage advice, "Subspace weapons are unpredictable," and the detonations ended up accelerating the supernova to warp speeds. Ooops.

This would explain why Spock, genius unparalleled in the Trek universe, could have been surprised by the "unthinkable" destruction of Romulus. Also, this way we don't have to invent more whacky Trek pseudo science, we can use the stuff that already exists (I mean, it would be nice if something good came from Insurrection.)

None of this belongs in the movie mind you, it would be deadly boring technobabble, but I think the Countdown comic could have included some of this. I can easily picture the panels where the arrogant Romulan commander's warbird gets obliterated by the Hoban star.

Nice. I like this too.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Tachyon Shield,

Well, if they knew it was going to go supernova and create some kind of subspace shockwave in a sufficient time to create a vessel (Vulcans) to deliberately create a black-hole to implode the star...

Why didn't Romulus evacuate? I mean their military vessels even...

Also, why didn't they just create their own quantum-singularity -- they knew how to do this, and just shoot it into the Hobus star...


CuttingEdge100

I like the way the countdown comics dealt with this. The idea that the Romulans did not believe the star would go Nova is good enough for me. Afterall there's no reason to believe Romulan scientists have the same level of expertise as a Vulcan or Federation one.

 

[Peter the Younger]

Tachyon Shield,

Well, if they knew it was going to go supernova and create some kind of subspace shockwave in a sufficient time to create a vessel (Vulcans) to deliberately create a black-hole to implode the star...

Why didn't Romulus evacuate? I mean their military vessels even...

Also, why didn't they just create their own quantum-singularity -- they knew how to do this, and just shoot it into the Hobus star...


CuttingEdge100

I like the way the countdown comics dealt with this. The idea that the Romulans did not believe the star would go Nova is good enough for me. Afterall there's no reason to believe Romulan scientists have the same level of expertise as a Vulcan or Federation one.

Eh, I suppose... except it seems to me like the sort of thing any scientist of that era should be able to figure out. I mean yes, in the present day, we can't tell exactly when stars will go nova, but with all the scanning technology available to them, I find it harder to buy.

Plus then we have to go back to the "this is some weird sort of subspace star," which was never mentioned - i.e., the people who were writing the movie and the comic don't know squat about supernovas.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

I would think Romulan's would have similar technological capabilities to the Federation. After all they both have warp-drive, they can produce and control artificial quantum-singularities, during the Dominion war they probably both made some advances.

 

[RobertoRoss]

If I was to try and make something up to explain I would say that...

The Roms couldnt shoot their own quantum-singularity into the star as it would create a PERMANENT black hole...which is no good for anybody.
THUS, the red matter plot device stuff only creates a TEMPORARY TINY black hole, hence why it was needed..

 

[CuttingEdge100]

RobertoRoss,

That doesn't make any sense...