Something that has been bothering me the whole time...

[crohnie]

Forgive me if it has been asked before.

Every time I see the movie, this issue just totally takes me out of the movie and it's right near the end too. In the final battle, Spock warps to avoid Nero's weapons. Then the Enterprise warps to their location...

And then to escape the black hole Scotty ejects the core(s?)

My question is how did they get back to Earth if they didn't have warp speed anymore? Did Spock just warp a short distance with in the Sol Sector?

Or is it possible to travel in warp speed with out the core(s?)
(ex like in INS...)

I know I'm probably over thinking this alot, but it has been bothering me since May and I figured just air my grievances here.

 

[Daneel]

I just assumed they didn't travel very far out of the solar system and got back to Earth on impulse power a few days later.

 

[treleth]

I just assumed the Enterprise sent out a distress signal and got a tow.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

I just assumed the Enterprise sent out a distress signal and got a tow.

Sounds Plausible. It was simply never addressed on screen. One of those details that really didn't need to be for the story.

 

[Kpnuts]

Yup, no need for it to be explained in the movie. It's a small point really.

 

[cooleddie74]

I always got the impression that the Enterprise was close enough to Earth that it didn't take her that long under impulse power to get back to Spacedock and undergo repairs. So it's a minor nit at worst.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Or is it possible to travel in warp speed with out the core(s?)
(ex like in INS...)

Come again?

 

[SilentP]

Or is it possible to travel in warp speed with out the core(s?)
(ex like in INS...)

Come again?

I think he's referring to when the Enterprise ejected it's core in Insurrection, but then it's not an issue, since they were already in the Briar Patch, so it wouldn't have been possible to use the warp drive in the first place when flying around it, so it was already using impulse drive.

 

[Phily B]

They were probably relatively close to the Solar System, but not close enough that the black hole will not do any damage to Earth or any of the star systems near Earth. It isn't hard to think that they would set it to impulse power, and send out a call to Starfleet to tow them back to spacedock for repairs.

I'm also fairly certain Starfleet would've sent out a few ships to give chase after the Enterprise/Narada since they had just had the river in San Fran butt fucked.

 

[Greg Cox]

I just assumed that they got a tow once all the fighting was over.

 

[Cyke101]

The trip from Earth to Jupiter takes only a few hours on full impulse. If they were fighting in the solar system, i don't imagine any trip back to Earth on impulse taking too long.

 

[JarodRussell]

A black hole in the solar system (one powerful enough to almost suck in the Enterprise at full speed). Now that's going to shake things up a bit.

 

[nx1701g]

A black hole in the solar system (one powerful enough to almost suck in the Enterprise at full speed). Now that's going to shake things up a bit.

They seemed to close seconds after being opened.

 

[urbandk]

A black hole in the solar system (one powerful enough to almost suck in the Enterprise at full speed). Now that's going to shake things up a bit.

They seemed to close seconds after being opened.

Yeah, otherwise couldn't they travel backwards and forwards through the singularity?

 

[JarodRussell]

A black hole in the solar system (one powerful enough to almost suck in the Enterprise at full speed). Now that's going to shake things up a bit.

They seemed to close seconds after being opened.

Didn't see that. Took several minutes to suck in Vulcan, and the Narada and Enterprise were also for several minutes trapped in it. And we certainly didn't see any of those holes closing. The White Holes, where the Narada and Spock's ship entered the 23rd century, probably closed, otherwise the lighting storm would have lasted.

 

[urbandk]

A black hole in the solar system (one powerful enough to almost suck in the Enterprise at full speed). Now that's going to shake things up a bit.

They seemed to close seconds after being opened.

Didn't see that. Took several minutes to suck in Vulcan, and the Narada and Enterprise were also for several minutes trapped in it. And we certainly didn't see any of those holes closing. The White Holes, where the Narada and Spock's ship entered the 23rd century, probably closed, otherwise the lighting storm would have lasted.

If we're operating under the assumption that black holes have openings called white holes to which the former connect, then it stands to reason that if one end closes then the other end would too.

 

[JarodRussell]

There's also the theory that the white end jumps while the black end is stationary. Nobody knows because nobody's seen a white hole yet, only black holes (or rather the discs of plasma surrounding them, or light being bended, so only indications).

Even more brain-hurting is the "fact" (more current theory) that a supernova is accompanied by a black hole. A star explodes, and what is left collapses to either a neutron star, or a black hole, if the mass of the neutron star is large enough. So Spock's whole mission of creating a black hole to suck on a supernova is... is... not... very good... science. And the screenwriter who brought you this magic super-science wants to talk about how Quantum Mechanics scientifically back up his alternate universe stuff.

 

[urbandk]

There's also the theory that the white end jumps while the black end is stationary.

Counting the number of "spatial anomalies" in Star Trek episodes, you might be on to something...

But remember the Kelvin's reaction to first encountering the Narada. The lighting storm in space event seemed to be something no one had ever seen before. Considering that black holes are probably fairly numerous, if so-called "white holes" really jumped around in space on a daily basis, over millions of years probably everywhere would be badly effected.

I am more inclined to think that if one end of a spatial anomaly closes, so does the other. In any event, that's probably what will have happened in the ST universe. I doubt the black hole will ever appear again.

 

[urbandk]

There's also the theory that the white end jumps while the black end is stationary. Nobody knows because nobody's seen a white hole yet, only black holes (or rather the discs of plasma surrounding them, or light being bended, so only indications).

Even more brain-hurting is the "fact" (more current theory) that a supernova is accompanied by a black hole. A star explodes, and what is left collapses to either a neutron star, or a black hole, if the mass of the neutron star is large enough. So Spock's whole mission of creating a black hole to suck on a supernova is... is... not... very good... science. And the screenwriter who brought you this magic super-science wants to talk about how Quantum Mechanics scientifically back up his alternate universe stuff.

Yeah, all Star Trek "science" is magic. What else is new?

 

[JarodRussell]

The whole talk about lighting storms was nonsense, in my opinion. Those are scientists aboard a starship. If they see a white hole, they will talk about a white hole. If they see a black hole, they will talk about a black hole. If they read some technobabble anomaly, they will definately talk technobabble. Only if they talk to stupid news reporters, then they will probably talk about lighting storms in space. But the writers decided they would rather have something really stupid instead of some technobabble (although that would have been realistic), or simply the line "Starfleet, do you read that? Looks like a White Hole!", and Vulcan's distress signal would have been much more urgent had they said: "There's a white hole opening up close to Vulcan!"

Yeah, all Star Trek "science" is magic. What else is new?

Not if the writer goes along saying that his script is following the most scientific, most current, most awesome theories, which he did say. Then it's time to criticize him for saying so but writing bullshit at the same time.


And the fact (well, almost a fact) that had they really indeed followed the current theories, ALL of their effects related to those phenomenons would have been ten times more awesome than in the actual movie.