Romulan mining vessels.

[Timo]

In fact the Kelvin should have been shredded long before it got under-way, with the damage it was taking.

Nero's initial goal appeared to be capturing this mystery vessel and getting intel on where Spock might have been gone. So he'd aim at those parts that neutralized the obvious Starfleet vessel's threat potential (the weapons are in the saucer traditionally) but aim away from any part that might blow up the ship.

Nero's second goal was to destroy the ship. But this quickly changed as he saw a massive evacuation underway. Thereafter, his missiles were exclusively aimed at the shuttles, doing no further damage to the ship. And after that, Kirk had steered the ship so close to the mining rig that no further missiles were fired, and apparently could not be fired - an obvious problem with "multi-warhead" or "shrapnel" weapons that require some space to be properly deployed. So it's not that big a surprise that Kirk did get the acceleration started and thus made the impact inevitable.

It never seemed to me that the Laurentian excuse was connected with Nero.

The reason I think it must be is that it would be an incredibly favorable coincidence otherwise. Nero defeated eight starships by taking them by surprise (and appears to have destroyed a further one at Vulcan, as the Mayflower wreckage doesn't correspond to any of the ships deployed from Earth), but everybody seems to think this is a fraction of the forces Starfleet would otherwise have sent.

At one point you say he is just a miner. Here you give him too much credit in my view. How is a miner supposed to convince Starfleet that 47 Klingon ships have been destroyed without actually destroying them?

That's the one way a miner can pretend to be a soldier: by sending a fake message that he is.

We later learn Nero can jam signals at will. We also learn Vulcan reported seismic troubles long before Nero actually created them - another fake message? That's the sort of thing Nero could easily preplan in the 25 years allotted, and execute with the hardware available to him.

Is the Laurentian system a Klingon prison colony by the way?

I doubt it; the Feds probably wouldn't want to move in on Klingon territory after the slaughter of a Klingon fleet...

I rather think the system where Nero first emerged might be the same where Spock later emerged (Trek time travel often works that way), and Klingons were present at that location in the teaser (mere 75,000 km away) for some reason. If this is Klingon territory, or became Klingon territory after the teaser and before the main events, then Nero might indeed have to fight Klingon ships there. But if he got red matter from Spock, this might allow him to defeat Klingons with it one hour later as indicated. Perhaps he'd just exaggerate the figures in a fake message?

Why would Starfleet send most of its fleet there without finding out a few more details?

Because there wouldn't be time to do any confirming? Laurentius is somewhat distant from Vulcan and Earth, but might still be a "last stand" location for any nastiness coming out of Klingon space (much like we see in ST:TMP where nastiness coming out of Klingon space is only intercepted by one half-finished starship scrambled from Earth).

As you indicate, this would be a somewhat unlikely situation - and thus all the likelier to be the result of careful preplanning and timing by Nero.

No reason to think Nero could tow a rock? A mining ship that couldn’t move a relatively small asteroid, a mining ship that has no tractor beams?

We have never seen ships capable of moving asteroids particularly fast, which would be the whole point of the exercise. Bombardment with little rocks would not make sense, when even ENT-level technology can deflect comets ("Demons"/"Terra Prime"); moving of large ones has always been slow and ponderous work ("Paradise Syndrome", "Rise") that could still be undone with conventional starships.

Only massive coincidences and rabbits out of hats prevented

...And only massive coincidences and rabbits out of hats allowed. Very soon, Nero would run out of those. Unless he had new tricks up his sleeve - but since he invented nothing new between Vulcan and Earth, I really doubt this would be the case.

The damage to his drill was miner, ops, I mean minor.

Or, in other words, a total loss (the second time around).

Of course, he might have had sixteen drills available in his huge ship. But this was never indicated, and frankly, 200 kilometers of thick cabling would already take up a lot of volume, even in a ship nine kilometers long. And Nero never thought about finishing the work started on Earth - he went after Spock in rage, and no Joachim stood up and declared this an unwise course of action.

If Nero went after Spock for tactically sound reasons, that is, because Spock had the means to destroy drills two through sixteen as soon as these were deployed, this indicates Nero had no other way to defend against small craft. Which makes his continuing success all the less likely.

The initial success at Earth (or even at Vulcan) is inexplicable anyway. Why is Spock the first to try and shoot at the drill? Nero may have codes to Earth's defense network (another example of him fighting a virtual war when he can't use physical weapons), and he might shut down anti-starship cannon automation and misdirect interceptor craft for a while. All this he could do with a mining rig, information obtained through capture and torture, jammers, and some 24th century computers - and the first three are established assets and procedures for him while the fourth is a given.

But he never demonstrates a means of stopping a single spacecraft from flying in all on its own and destroying the drill... Except for waiting for this to happen and then flying after the craft in revenge!

as soon as he did reload, the Enterprise would have been dead meat

How so? Twenty missiles were no threat when the starship was prepared to fire phasers at them. The next twenty should not be any greater a threat. And while Nero was shooting with his only weapon, Sulu could be shooting back with torpedoes while phasers kept Nero's projectiles harmless.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It seems obvious that the Narada was upgraded somehow. There's no way a behemoth like that would be a simple mining vessel right from the get-go. It's massively overpowered. Not even the Romulans would make mining vessels like that. It'd be like showing a picture of a US Navy nuclear aircraft carrier and calling it a fishing boat.

Whether you buy the explanation that it's Borg tech, doesn't matter. Believe what you like, but it is extremely unlikely that this is what a stock Romulan mining ship looks like. It's so unlikely as to be effectively impossible. Occam's razor, you know.

I mean, if Romulan mining vessels have that kind of power as a 'standard' package, then why doesn't Romulus dominate the galaxy in Nero's time? That ship blew away an entire Federation fleet, for fuck's sake!

 

[UFO]

Nero's initial goal appeared to be capturing this mystery vessel and getting intel on where Spock might have been gone. So he'd aim at those parts that neutralized the obvious Starfleet vessel's threat potential (the weapons are in the saucer traditionally) but aim away from any part that might blow up the ship.

Irrespective, it is standard procedure to immobilise you opponent. He had Nero on board by then and knew he was of no help and still when he resumed his attach we saw missiles hit the saucer section.
　

Nero's second goal was to destroy the ship. But this quickly changed as he saw a massive evacuation underway. Thereafter, his missiles were exclusively aimed at the shuttles, doing no further damage to the ship. And after that, Kirk had steered the ship so close to the mining rig that no further missiles were fired, and apparently could not be fired - an obvious problem with "multi-warhead" or "shrapnel" weapons that require some space to be properly deployed. So it's not that big a surprise that Kirk did get the acceleration started and thus made the impact inevitable.

My point is Kirk shouldn’t have been able to manoeuvrer at all. Remember that Nero shredded seven starships at Vulcan before any of them could target his missiles apparently. But even if he was silly enough to leave the engines intact, it is better to suffer a bit of shrapnel damage than get rammed! The Jellyfish was probably closer and Nero was correctly only worried about the red matter. As I say, the Kelvin was a minute out, so can’t have been that close anyway.

The reason I think it [that Nero caused Laurentian excuse] must be is that it would be an incredibly favorable coincidence otherwise.

Compared to some of the coincidences that one seemed almost inevitable.

That's the one way a miner can pretend to be a soldier: by sending a fake message that he is.

We later learn Nero can jam signals at will. We also learn Vulcan reported seismic troubles long before Nero actually created them - another fake message? That's the sort of thing Nero could easily preplan in the 25 years allotted, and execute with the hardware available to him.

I strongly suspect Starfleet had ways of checking these things and it is still seems unbelievable they would act on them when there was no threat to themselves by sending almost every ship they have.
　

I doubt it; the Feds probably wouldn't want to move in on Klingon territory after the slaughter of a Klingon fleet... I rather think the system where Nero first emerged might be the same where Spock later emerged (Trek time travel often works that way), and Klingons were present at that location in the teaser (mere 75,000 km away) for some reason. If this is Klingon territory, or became Klingon territory after the teaser and before the main events, then Nero might indeed have to fight Klingon ships there. But if he got red matter from Spock, this might allow him to defeat Klingons with it one hour later as indicated. Perhaps he'd just exaggerate the figures in a fake message?

But the Klingon ships were destroyed near one of their prison colonies I believe. You can of course doubt or fabricate anything you like to support your conjectures but I am just going by what we know (as much as possible).
　

Because there wouldn't be time to do any confirming? Laurentius is somewhat distant from Vulcan and Earth, but might still be a "last stand" location for any nastiness coming out of Klingon space (much like we see in ST:TMP where nastiness coming out of Klingon space is only intercepted by one half-finished starship scrambled from Earth).

As you indicate, this would be a somewhat unlikely situation - and thus all the likelier to be the result of careful preplanning and timing by Nero.

The is no reason to believe some unsupported situation in Klingon territory is an immediate threat to the Federation. Sounds more like an ally! No, it would be silly for SF to react so provocatively to that.
　

We have never seen ships capable of moving asteroids particularly fast, which would be the whole point of the exercise. Bombardment with little rocks would not make sense, when even ENT-level technology can deflect comets ("Demons"/"Terra Prime"); moving of large ones has always been slow and ponderous work ("Paradise Syndrome", "Rise") that could still be undone with conventional starships.

We have never seen a ship like the Narada and compared to previous asteroids you wouldn’t need a very big one. Nuclear winter is caused by the "dust" kicked up from the impact.
　

Only massive coincidences and rabbits out of hats prevented

...And only massive coincidences and rabbits out of hats allowed. Very soon, Nero would run out of those. Unless he had new tricks up his sleeve - but since he invented nothing new between Vulcan and Earth, I really doubt this would be the case.

I wasn’t actually referring to the Laurentius excuse but the to the events that lead to Kirk's victory.
　
We have no reason to believe that if some of SF was stationed at Earth the results would have been different except for more ships being destroyed and we do have information from Klingon space that it wouldn’t, however much you may prefer to question that. NuSpock thought they would need the rest of the fleet just to even the odds! It is unlikely Nero would have to face the rest of SF in any one place unless he was careless. To be fair the variable capability of the Narada as presented by the plot has probably lead you to your conclusion but that’s just a plotting problem.
　
I could come up with excuses as to why the Jellyfish succeed where other small crate had clearly failed, but what’s the point? Twice he managed to set up the drill (which he didn’t need anyway I believe). There’s no reason to suppose that would not be possible again. If your complaint is that the film often makes little sense, I am "reluctantly" willing to agree with you.

... as soon as he did reload, the Enterprise would have been dead meat

How so? Twenty missiles were no threat when the starship was prepared to fire phasers at them. The next twenty should not be any greater a threat. And while Nero was shooting with his only weapon, Sulu could be shooting back with torpedoes while phasers kept Nero's projectiles harmless.

Automated targeting systems weren’t "prepared" at Vulcan to defend the Enterprise yet got their act together (100%!) at Earth? And Kirk and Co are so sure of their ability to destroy the Narada that they have to skulk about in the rings of Saturn? If the film contradicts its own assumptions, I believe I am justified in sticking to the original presentations. Elsewhere lies madness!

 

[Timo]

Irrespective, it is standard procedure to immobilise you opponent. He had Nero on board by then and knew he was of no help and still when he resumed his attach we saw missiles hit the saucer section.

Look what happened to Kruge when he tried to disable an opponent's engines.

And then think what would have happened if Kruge had tried that when the opponent was fifteen meters off his bow...

Also, the only weapons Nero had available were the missiles. Those made holes, but they couldn't even keep the weapons of the Kelvin down - "weapons offline!" was reversed twice, the first time during the initial fight and the second time during Robau's interrogation. Apparently, it simply wasn't possible to hurt the Starfleet ship any faster or more efficiently than that.

Worth considering is also that the missiles may not even have been weapons to start with, and for that reason perhaps couldn't target the engine without firing through the saucer. Nero shot to disable the first time around - but he failed, as the Kelvin weapons kept coming back online. Quite possibly he couldn't target worth anything, not without spending a few years turning his mining tools into proper weapons. (Assuming he ever achieved that much: the missiles fired against the hero ship at Vulcan didn't seem to serve Nero too well, either, as the first shot failed to kill or to hit anything absolutely crucial.)

All this makes me even more convinced that the Narada had very little combat value initially, and gained very little during the next 25 years. Apart from the red matter, that is.

But even if he was silly enough to leave the engines intact, it is better to suffer a bit of shrapnel damage than get rammed!

Would Nero understand that much? He had just recovered from the shock of his life, and from a fantastic transition through time and perhaps space. He was an extremely disoriented miner, not a veteran of tight tactical spots.

Also, at the stage ramming became a threat, Nero had expended a great many missiles. It would only be consistent that he could not fire any more without stopping to reload.

The Jellyfish was probably closer

We got visuals on the distances involved. No, it wasn't.

the Kelvin was a minute out, so can’t have been that close anyway.

We got visuals on the distances involved. Yes, it was.

I strongly suspect Starfleet had ways of checking these things

Starfleet in the TV shows and previous movies never did. The only way to check out anything (such as "hello, hello, is that star system still there?") is to send a starship.

and it is still seems unbelievable they would act on them when there was no threat to themselves by sending almost every ship they have.

They did that with V'Ger and apparently with the Whale Probe as well.

But the Klingon ships were destroyed near one of their prison colonies I believe.

A prison colony was supposed to have sent the message about the losses:

Uhura: "I was tracking solar systems and I picked up an emergency transmission.
Gaila: "Really?"
Uhura: "Yeah, from a Klingon prison planet."
Gaila: "Nooo?"
Uhura: "Yeah. A Klingon armada was destroyed. Forty-seven ships."

We don't know how the armada and the planet were related, but since references to Nero having been jailed by Klingons were (wisely) omitted from the movie, the relationship might be about as close as that between the Epsilon Nine station and the Klingon flotilla that fought V'Ger.

The is no reason to believe some unsupported situation in Klingon territory is an immediate threat to the Federation. Sounds more like an ally! No, it would be silly for SF to react so provocatively to that.

Yet they did the very thing in ST:TMP. Somebody kills Klingons, fine. Somebody slaughters Klingons with impunity, suddenly that's a big threat to everybody.

We have never seen a ship like the Narada and compared to previous asteroids you wouldn’t need a very big one. Nuclear winter is caused by the "dust" kicked up from the impact.

But see "Rise" for how this works in the Star Trek universe. An asteroid threat emerges, Starfleet negates it by pulverizing the asteroid.

We have no reason to believe that if some of SF was stationed at Earth the results would have been different except for more ships being destroyed

Yet like you also point out, Starfleet had a ship there: the Jellyfish. It changed everything. And in a manner consistent with the capabilities of the Narada in other encounters: ability to destroy those ships it surprises, inability to detect small threats near the drill, inability to do anything about such threats.

The only thing that might appear inconsistent is the ability to destroy the surprised ships at Vulcan. But for all we know, the miner mined them, laying an orbital trap to create the extremely tight cloud of wreckage right where the entire fleet emerged. Every other combat engagement showed highly penetrating but poorly targeting missiles poking holes that created truly disproportionate shock and awe in the victims.

NuSpock thought they would need the rest of the fleet just to even the odds!

Clearly, he was wrong. Which is no wonder since he had no data. How could he know Nero could shoot no more than twenty missiles before having to take a break? What possible idea could he have on the level of shielding over the enemy vessel, when the drill had jammed the initial attempts at analyzing the threat?

Which reminds me, Nero apparently had shields up during most of the fights. Chekov specifically points out that the shields went down as the result of Spock ramming the mining rig with red matter; prior to that, we had seen our heroes transport in and out with impunity, shoot the drill to bits, etc. suggesting the mining rig was principally protected by her great bulk and benefited virtually nothing from the feeble civilian shielding.

Twice he managed to set up the drill (which he didn’t need anyway I believe).

So what did he use it for? Fun?

Red matter didn't do much when deployed in free space: a millionfold overdose of it applied on the surface of the Narada barely twisted the ship, as opposed to a tiny droplet devouring a planet when applied below the surface. The drilling appeared to be an absolutely crucial step in killing a planet with red matter. And considering how insanely vulnerable a step it was, it seems Nero had no other means of hurting planets or anything else, or he would certainly have used those.

The fairly consistent picture we get is that of a really big and really thin paper tiger, and of Spock and Starfleet being completely fooled by the success Nero achieved under the cover of jamming and subterfuge, apparently with dirty tricks rather than with actual combat strength.

Automated targeting systems weren’t "prepared" at Vulcan to defend the Enterprise yet got their act together (100%!) at Earth?

That's one possibility. The other is that the system can shoot down missiles only when those aren't flying toward the starship herself, perhaps due to hardware or software shortcomings, perhaps because the wetware wets itself and runs screaming from battle stations when seeing the incoming projectiles...

And Kirk and Co are so sure of their ability to destroy the Narada that they have to skulk about in the rings of Saturn?

At that point, neither Kirk nor Spock should be aware that the Narada is a joke. But that is evident to the audience...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[UFO]

All this makes me even more convinced that the Narada had very little combat value initially, and gained very little during the next 25 years. Apart from the red matter, that is.

All what? (The following sentence was EDITED due to an incorrect claim on my part) You aren't making any points of substance that aren't contradicted by other parts of the movie in my view, even by your own previous arguments. For example, a while back you were claiming the Narada’s abilities were worse after twenty five years due to being rammed and that instead of trying to stop the Kelvin, Nero was only targeting shuttles (which does have some film evidence to support it and would explain how he seemed to run out of missiles at the worst moment). Neither of those claims are exactly proven either of course but its no wonder he couldn't hurt the Kelvin any faster if he wasn't actually trying. And we are talking about stopping the Kelvin’s engines, not it's weapons or controls which are bound to have some redundancy built in it the designers did there job right.
　
Moreover the Kelvin was not 15 meters off Nero’s bow. As mentioned, he was one minute out at best available impulse (a number of kilometres certainly).

We know that it only took Nero a couple of minutes (less than the lead the rest of the fleet had over the Enterprise) to shred seven Federation ships when he wanted to. Once again, I suggest it was this over confidence in dealing with the Enterprise and the Kelvin that prevent more serious damage in each case. Later with the Kelvin he did seem to get sidetracked by the shuttles.

Re the Enterprise at Vulcan, Sulu says after what looks like only one hit (others may have hit of course) out of three observed launches: "Their weapons are powerful, we can’t take another hit like that". Again Nero was over confident and the Enterprise was probably a bit harder to damage with its shields up but even so, two missiles would apparently have done the trick. So I have no idea what you mean when you say they "didn’t seem to serve Nero too well". No other starship could have done better I suggest. The Narada's power is confirmed by Kirk’s comment a little earlier regarding the it's first appearance that it had "formidable and advance weaponry" (assuming he's not wrong as well).
　

We got visuals on the distances involved.

Which can be misleading given the relative sizes of the various ships. What we definitely know is it took the Kelvin almost a minute to impact the Narada and without timing, it the Jellyfish was probably similar. OK I just did time it and it was also about a minute though I’ll grant you the Jellyfish was probably moving faster on average. It seemed a lot closer the first time nuSpock approached the Narada and Nero still said he wanted him destroyed (even with red matter on board) so Nero had not qualms about shooting at close-ish range.
　

Starfleet in the TV shows and previous movies never did [have ways of checking messages]. The only way to check out anything (such as "hello, hello, is that star system still there?") is to send a starship.

Then you would only send one or a two, not most of Starfleet. Not without knowing what they were up against.
　

They did that with V'Ger and apparently with the Whale Probe as well.

And　

Yet they did the very thing in ST:TMP. Somebody kills Klingons, fine. Somebody slaughters Klingons with impunity, suddenly that's a big threat to everybody.

No, both of those were heading toward Earth (ie a threat) if I recall correctly and they still didn’t send most of SF. And of course in both cases they already had intel on the threat from their own stations/ships so a response was clearly called for.
　

But see "Rise" for how this works in the Star Trek universe. An asteroid threat emerges, Starfleet negates it by pulverizing the asteroid.

Not if they can’t get near it (or were destroyed trying). Isn't that part fairly clear?
　　

Yet like you also point out, Starfleet had a ship there: the Jellyfish. It changed everything. And in a manner consistent with the capabilities of the Narada in other encounters: ability to destroy those ships it surprises, inability to detect small threats near the drill, inability to do anything about such threats.

Oh, I don’t think there is any doubt those missiles would have destroyed the Jellyfish if the Enterprise hadn’t been given an incredible power-up since Vulcan (apparently). Besides my whole point is Nero doesn’t need the drill. It’s just a hindrance.
　

The only thing that might appear inconsistent is the ability to destroy the surprised ships at Vulcan. But for all we know, the miner mined them, laying an orbital trap to create the extremely tight cloud of wreckage right where the entire fleet emerged. Every other combat engagement showed highly penetrating but poorly targeting missiles poking holes that created truly disproportionate shock and awe in the victims.

Only with the Kelvin and then he wasn’t seriously trying to damage it. Later on, as you point out he was more interested in the shuttles (over confidence again). The attack on the Enterprise was so good however that one more would have finished them despite being prepared with shields up. But if you are going to keep coming up with "for all we knows" and "maybe this and maybe thats", then I guess nothing is impossible but its still very unlikely (Do you remember how may of those you have had to use by the way? I lost count at "392" or thereabouts. ). And you have to ignore what the writers were actually trying to tell us, albeit in an inconsistent and ultimately contradictory manner.
　

Clearly, he was wrong. Which is no wonder since he had no data. How could he know Nero could shoot no more than twenty missiles before having to take a break? What possible idea could he have on the level of shielding over the enemy vessel, when the drill had jammed the initial attempts at analyzing the threat?

As you point out later, it had the best kind of shielding: It’s big! But of course nuSpook had lots of data, some of it gained personally. You just want to ignore it all. Of course if you mean hard data, I don’t believe we know that the drill can block sensors. Communications and transporters are mentioned however.
　

So what did he use it [the drill] for? Fun?

Sorry, I mean that there had to be better (or at least safer) methods of "killing" a planet and I suggested one.
　

That's one possibility. The other is that the system can shoot down missiles only when those aren't flying toward the starship herself, perhaps due to hardware or software shortcomings, perhaps because the wetware wets itself and runs screaming from battle stations when seeing the incoming projectiles...

Clearly you have decide not to be serious. And I congratulate you on seeing sense.
　

At that point, neither Kirk nor Spock should be aware that the Narada is a joke. But that is evident to the audience...

Only to those members of the audience whose imagination’s are not restricted in any significant way by what they are watching, I suggest. I do admire your alternative ways of looking at things however, even where, as in this case, you appear to be just playing Devil's advocate.

But to answer my own question, the Enterprise might have chosen to hide if they wanted to try to get Pike out before the fighting stated. Its a shame therefore they gave such a convincing impression they were expecting to die. What was that percentage again?

 

[Set Harth]

the wetware wets itself

 

[Silversmok3]

Ok, I can see why they would be massive, something akin to our bulk-carrier cargo vessels of today. But why would anyone (Romulan or otherwise) feel the need to put that much weaponry on the thing that it can easily take out the entire Federation fleet?

I mean, it is described within the movie "Star Trek" as "a simple mining vessel".

Note, that one we don't know what the average 24th century Romulan mining ship is armed with. It could be on the level of a Soverign class' armament. It could be next to nothing at all. Canon offers no definitive answers on this topic.

Second, the Narada is enjoying 100 years of technological advantage over the other vessels of that time.Thus we cannot judge the effectiveness of its weapons or design from its damage to Starfleet-which I credit to luck, BTW. More on this later.

I am of the thought that the Narada was never upgraded in the tactical department before being sent back in time. Why? What military man in their right mind would put all their upgraded weapons only FACING FORWARD? It makes sense for a commercial mining ship to have forward facing launch tubes for detonating charges. As far as combat goes, the Narada's screwed if their enemy attacks from the back, sides, top, or bottom. Considering space is 3 dimensional, this is a serious tactical weakness for a ship intended for combat operations.

Remember what I said about luck? Nero won against Starfleet because of the luck of the draw. The Kelvin was overwhelmed in the first engagment, but only because it was dead in front of the Narada upon exiting the anomaly. Had Robau and Co. showed up later astern of the Romulan ship, the situation would be much different.

This happens again at Vulcan.Starfleet sends its ships with shields down to render evacuation assistance for a natural disaster. The first warning these ships have of hostile activity after exiting warp is Nero's munitions slamming into their unshielded hulls. The Enterprise is an exception, thanks to Kirk's deductions. I daresay a fleet of ships employed with tactical strategy would have defeated the Narada, advanced tech or no.

This brings me to the Red Matter. Nero needed it to exact the kind of "eye for an eye" revenge he wanted. Sure, perhaps he could have ruined Vulcan from orbit with his armament....and then spent the next two weeks in deep space rebuilding his aresenal. Replicators take time to make things, after all. With 14 days warning, by the time Nero showed up to Earth Starfleet would be cocked, locked and ready for a fight. Remember, without the advantage of surprise his ship would be a sitting duck to trained tactical opposition.

With Red Matter he can zoom in, annihilate the defensive batteries before anyone can pick up a phone to sound an alarm, drill and deposit the WMD, and be gone in time to catch the 23rd century broadcast of Leno. Once HQ gets delayed and fragmentary word there's debris where Planet X was, Nero's taking down the next world.

 

[GulGoneCrazy]

The ugliest ship i ever saw looks like stretched sea urchin ... It is totally unreal...i don't see how that ship is able to hold it's Warp field around it's random placed antennas and all those spikes ...Romulans have one of the most impressive looking ships like Valdore seen in ST nemesis or D'Deridex warbird from DS9,TNG.But Narada is a disappointment,probably made in lack of imagination ,well thats my opinion.

 

[Hugh Mann]

I'm enjoying all the posters in this thread who are determined to try and make sense of an utterly senseless movie.

A "mining ship" having weapons in any time period makes no sense at all; as the OP says, let us consider modern day bulk carriers as an equivalent. In a time of declared war it *might* make some sense to give them extremely light armament, something akin to a Phalanx CIWS or a Bofors gun. But nothing that could sink any vessel larger than a dinghy. Consider our modern day bulk carrier, even with such an armament, sent back in time to World War 1, and consider it going up against a fleet of Royal Navy battleships from that time period. That's basically the scenario proposed in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek.

Nero's "mining ship" should be completely unarmed, the Romulans being a "paranoid, militaristic race" is insufficient to explain the Narada's highly advanced armaments, as even the most "paranoid, militaristic" societies wouldn't do such a thing. Consider Nazi Germany or the DPRK as parallels; they didn't and do not (respectively) arm their civilian vessels to the teeth, certainly not to the level that would be required to comfortably defeat an entire fleet of warships from any era. If it were a warship of some kind, we might consider the Narada capable of taking on a number of Starfleet's ships, but it's not.

Just accept that the movie's plot and mechanics make no sense, and move on. To try and make sense of it is to completely miss the point of it, which is simply to entertain with, as Roger Ebert put it, loud and colorful action.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Completely unarmed? How is it supposed to break up asteroids, then?

 

[Hugh Mann]

Some kind of mining apparatus; a drill or something to that effect (e.g. the one depicted burrowing into Vulcan and Earth). Such a device would not be considered armaments.

Not with heavy-duty guided missiles capable of engaging and destroying masses of advanced warships.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The drill would be useful if they wanted to carefully drill a hole in it, or slice a portion off, but not if they wanted to blast in into smaller chunks. Explosives are everywhere in our mining on Earth today - they're certainly believable for alien mining ships 400 years hence. What will crack open a huge asteroid will do a LOT of damage to a comparitively tiny starship.

 

[UFO]

... the Narada is enjoying 100 years of technological advantage over the other vessels of that time.Thus we cannot judge the effectiveness of its weapons or design from its damage to Starfleet-which I credit to luck, BTW. More on this later.

Just luck that not one of the Federation ships managed to raise their shields or get onto a combat footing? Why isn’t that automatic when someone starts shooting at you, by the way? Sure, it was "lucky" the Federation ships weren’t front line vessels, but missiles take a while to arrive and at least alarms should have gone off in time. Further it’s a bit hard to call destroying 47 Klingon ships "luck" and a bit easier to assess the effectiveness of the Narada’s weapons based on that sucess (or so you'd think). On top of that we have first hand evidence from both the Kelvin and the Enterprise about how powerful it’s weapons are.
　
Of course anyoe trying to undermine the Narada’s apparent effectiveness has to cast doubt on the Klingon engagement. Perhaps the message was faked, but the communication Starfleet intercepted stated the wrong information for it to come from Nero. Not only did it mention that the attacker was in one massive ship but that it was a Romulan vessel. This gives too many clues to the opposition (better to leave them in ignorance and therefore greater fear) and Nero later states that he stands apart from the Empire so why would he tell Starfleet (or anyone picking up his "fake" message) that he is Romulan? Nor of course could Nero believe that the Federation would rush to help the Klingons given their poor relationship at that point in history. No, the message is a real Klingon transmission (of which SF has probably picked up many) and they have no obvious reason to fabricate or exaggerate it.
　
Moreover since it takes some time to get Starfleet together from various parts of the Federation, this adds to the likelihood that its location at the Laurentian system is not a knee-jerk reaction to something Nero did, but possibly only an exercise or a show of strength for unrelated reasons. That's the impression that's given anyway.
　
You seem to think the Narada’s forward facing weapon system is a major issue. Even suggesting a stern attack by the Kelvin would have changed the outcome of their engagement. However when the Narada launched against the Enterprise its missiles did a ninety degree turn but still had no difficulty finding their target. I doubt a 180 degree turn would prove much more onerous. I agree it doesn’t seem ideal from a military standpoint but perhaps that’s why they chose missiles rather than beam weapons? Anyway, I wouldn’t call the Narada "screwed" if an attack came from other directions and the Klingons didn’t seem to find it a weakness either.
　

The first warning these ships have of hostile activity after exiting warp is Nero's munitions slamming into their unshielded hulls.

　
You might except that with beam weapons but from what we saw in the movie, not missiles, which take time to reach their targets.
　

I daresay a fleet of ships employed with tactical strategy would have defeated the Narada, advanced tech or no.

Tell it to the Klingons! Of course some argue that was largely to do with Red Matter. I'm not sure how Red Matter could be deployed tactically in a space battle? If you can just put some in a missile and detonate it in front of a formation of ships, why did Nero need to drill to the centre of a planet again? On the other hand it was used in free space to destroy the Narada so who knows? But since it takes quite some time to create a decent size blackhole, ship sensors should detect its formation and allow evasive action. In short it’s a problematic weapon at best. Anyway, when you combine the missiles with Red Matter, the Narada should be invincible, of course it wasn't.
　

With Red Matter he can zoom in, annihilate the defensive batteries before anyone can pick up a phone to sound an alarm, drill and deposit the WMD, and be gone in time to catch the 23rd century broadcast of Leno. Once HQ gets delayed and fragmentary word there's debris where Planet X was, Nero's taking down the next world.

　
Hmmm, the Narada doesn’t seem designed to "zoom". But apart from the fact he is a sitting duck while doing the drilling I have previously pointed out that other methods should have been available. What made them problematic was the fact they could be intercepted or are otherwise difficult to implement. But the same invulnerability that allows Nero to sit above a planet while deploring the red matter would also allow him to use other methods that don’t deplete his munition stocks.
　
　

I'm enjoying all the posters in this thread who are determined to try and make sense of an utterly senseless movie.

I think essentially you are correct, though the question of arming Romulan civil ships might be debatable. But in general terms what I think we can say is that the bulk of the movie is spent building up the reputation of the Narada as all powerful (quibbles about Red Matter aside), right up to the point where the script needs to turn it into a pussy-cat. I can understand some people being irked at that and wanting to come up with a rationalisation as to why that’s not really what happened.

Just accept that the movie's plot and mechanics make no sense, and move on. To try and make sense of it is to completely miss the point of it, which is simply to entertain with, as Roger Ebert put it, loud and colorful action.

Ah but there’s the rub. At least for anyone who has a need to scratch irrational itches or dislikes Star Trek being treated in quite such a cavalier fashion. Why can a movie not have loud and colourful action and still make sense?

The drill would be useful if they wanted to carefully drill a hole in it, or slice a portion off, but not if they wanted to blast in into smaller chunks. Explosives are everywhere in our mining on Earth today - they're certainly believable for alien mining ships 400 years hence. What will crack open a huge asteroid will do a LOT of damage to a comparitively tiny starship.

Yes, explosives are used on Earth but they are placed very precisely to do a calculated and controlled job. Firing missiles at asteroids sounds like fun, but the biggest problem is chunks of rock going in all directions. You'd then have to spend time chasing them down and you would never get everything. But if you ever bring out a video game, count me in.

 

[Hugh Mann]

The drill would be useful if they wanted to carefully drill a hole in it, or slice a portion off, but not if they wanted to blast in into smaller chunks. Explosives are everywhere in our mining on Earth today - they're certainly believable for alien mining ships 400 years hence. What will crack open a huge asteroid will do a LOT of damage to a comparitively tiny starship.

Sure, explosives of some kind are used in a wide variety of mining operations.

But they don't come in the form of guided missiles capable of causing immense damage to advanced warships (remember, the Enterprise, the most advanced vessel at the time of the attack on Vulcan, had raised its shields, and a single hit from such a missile took out more than half its shields). I believe the dialogue explicitly calls them "torpedoes" and/or "missiles," not "explosive charges" or some such. That is absolutely not credible in the slightest.

Imagine, to keep the analogy going, an offshore oil platform (even one with demolition explosives, though AFAIK oil drilling platforms do not use explosives in that fashion) in the year 2012 being able to (somehow) defeat a fleet of battleships from the year 1912 with a series of demolition charges. Not credible.

Ah but there’s the rub. At least for anyone who has a need to scratch irrational itches or dislikes Star Trek being treated in quite such a cavalier fashion. Why can a movie not have loud and colourful action and still make sense?

It can, but this one doesn't.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The ugliest ship i ever saw looks like stretched sea urchin ... It is totally unreal...i don't see how that ship is able to hold it's Warp field around it's random placed antennas and all those spikes ...Romulans have one of the most impressive looking ships like Valdore seen in ST nemesis or D'Deridex warbird from DS9,TNG.But Narada is a disappointment,probably made in lack of imagination ,well thats my opinion.

Seriously???

 

[GulGoneCrazy]

Every thing from star trek is unreal for now, but i mean narada is too much

 

[Crazy Eddie]

A "mining ship" having weapons in any time period makes no sense at all; as the OP says, let us consider modern day bulk carriers as an equivalent. In a time of declared war it *might* make some sense to give them extremely light armament, something akin to a Phalanx CIWS or a Bofors gun. But nothing that could sink any vessel larger than a dinghy. Consider our modern day bulk carrier, even with such an armament, sent back in time to World War 1, and consider it going up against a fleet of Royal Navy battleships from that time period. That's basically the scenario proposed in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek.

Let's consider that.

Let's consider a modern day bulk carrier being sent back in time about 125 years. Let's consider that bulk carrier was commissioned by, say, Iran -- a rogue state that is engaged in an ongoing Cold War with just about everyone and expects to get invaded any moment. It's captain is already a couple of cards short of a full deck and spent a couple thousand dollars stocking up on old TOW missiles (20+ years obsolete, but better than nothing) which he has now lashed to the forecastle of his ship in case the Great Satan tries to start something.

Now take that bulk carrier and transport it to the year 1885 where it suddenly clashes with HMS Shannon. Shannon has some heavy (if primitive) gun armament and some torpedoes. The bulk carrier has about fifty TOW missiles stacked on the deck and some RPGs in his cargo hold.

Even then, it'll be close. Shannon's armor is thick enough to deflect those missiles, but they're going to do some serious damage if they hit near the deck or an un-armored component. The cargo ship has size going for it, but it has virtually no armor, so if the Shannon can get close enough or if it can get into firing position it can do some serious damage with a full barrage.

OTOH, Shannon's wooden/lightly armored predecessors from the 1860s will get blown to smithereens unless they take the time to coordinate an attack strategy specific to the freighter's huge bulk and superior (if simplistic) weaponry. If our Iranian pirate decides to maximize his sucker-punch advantage by blasting his enemies before they know what's happening, he can probably sink a whole mess of ships in very short order... except for the ONE that knows its sailing into a combat zone and happens to be at battlestations when it gets there.

This is, more or less, exactly what happens with the Narada. It also should be pointed out that despite the initial "WTF?!" reaction of Narada's torpedoes, Kelvin actually took the Narada head-to-head for several minutes before her shields and weapons went offline.

Nero's "mining ship" should be completely unarmed, the Romulans being a "paranoid, militaristic race" is insufficient to explain the Narada's highly advanced armaments

Nero's being from 125 years in the future DOES. With the kinds of weapons commercially available now, a bunch of Somali pirates on motorboats could easily take on the U.S. navy of 125 years ago.

Consider Nazi Germany or the DPRK as parallels; they didn't and do not (respectively) arm their civilian vessels to the teeth

Sometimes they did. It's hardly unprecedented for governments, and as I pointed out above, not even unheard of for pirates and terrorists.

certainly not to the level that would be required to comfortably defeat an entire fleet of warships from any era.

Again, it HAS happened before. There's plenty of precedent for it.

The only reason it doesn't happen in modern times is because ships AND ship-mounted weapons are very expensive and access to them is tightly controlled. This wasn't always the case, and considering the prominence of people like the Ferengi -- who will sell anything to anyone if the money is right -- it is almost CERTAINLY not the case in the Trekiverse.

There was a time in the 19th century when fishing vessels were armed with light cannons. You expect anything less from the Romulans?

 

[Hugh Mann]

A "mining ship" having weapons in any time period makes no sense at all; as the OP says, let us consider modern day bulk carriers as an equivalent. In a time of declared war it *might* make some sense to give them extremely light armament, something akin to a Phalanx CIWS or a Bofors gun. But nothing that could sink any vessel larger than a dinghy. Consider our modern day bulk carrier, even with such an armament, sent back in time to World War 1, and consider it going up against a fleet of Royal Navy battleships from that time period. That's basically the scenario proposed in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek.

Let's consider that.

Let's consider a modern day bulk carrier being sent back in time about 125 years. Let's consider that bulk carrier was commissioned by, say, Iran -- a rogue state that is engaged in an ongoing Cold War with just about everyone and expects to get invaded any moment. It's captain is already a couple of cards short of a full deck and spent a couple thousand dollars stocking up on old TOW missiles (20+ years obsolete, but better than nothing) which he has now lashed to the forecastle of his ship in case the Great Satan tries to start something.

Now take that bulk carrier and transport it to the year 1885 where it suddenly clashes with HMS Shannon. Shannon has some heavy (if primitive) gun armament and some torpedoes. The bulk carrier has about fifty TOW missiles stacked on the deck and some RPGs in his cargo hold.

Even then, it'll be close. Shannon's armor is thick enough to deflect those missiles, but they're going to do some serious damage if they hit near the deck or an un-armored component. The cargo ship has size going for it, but it has virtually no armor, so if the Shannon can get close enough or if it can get into firing position it can do some serious damage with a full barrage.

OTOH, Shannon's wooden/lightly armored predecessors from the 1860s will get blown to smithereens unless they take the time to coordinate an attack strategy specific to the freighter's huge bulk and superior (if simplistic) weaponry. If our Iranian pirate decides to maximize his sucker-punch advantage by blasting his enemies before they know what's happening, he can probably sink a whole mess of ships in very short order... except for the ONE that knows its sailing into a combat zone and happens to be at battlestations when it gets there.

This is, more or less, exactly what happens with the Narada. It also should be pointed out that despite the initial "WTF?!" reaction of Narada's torpedoes, Kelvin actually took the Narada head-to-head for several minutes before her shields and weapons went offline.

Nero's "mining ship" should be completely unarmed, the Romulans being a "paranoid, militaristic race" is insufficient to explain the Narada's highly advanced armaments

Nero's being from 125 years in the future DOES. With the kinds of weapons commercially available now, a bunch of Somali pirates on motorboats could easily take on the U.S. navy of 125 years ago.

Consider Nazi Germany or the DPRK as parallels; they didn't and do not (respectively) arm their civilian vessels to the teeth

Sometimes they did. It's hardly unprecedented for governments, and as I pointed out above, not even unheard of for pirates and terrorists.

certainly not to the level that would be required to comfortably defeat an entire fleet of warships from any era.

Again, it HAS happened before. There's plenty of precedent for it.

The only reason it doesn't happen in modern times is because ships AND ship-mounted weapons are very expensive and access to them is tightly controlled. This wasn't always the case, and considering the prominence of people like the Ferengi -- who will sell anything to anyone if the money is right -- it is almost CERTAINLY not the case in the Trekiverse.

There was a time in the 19th century when fishing vessels were armed with light cannons. You expect anything less from the Romulans?

Well this is a long post to take apart. Let's start from the top.

I was talking mostly about the engagement over Vulcan, where the Narada easily defeated a small armada of Starfleet vessels. We can consider the engagement with the Kelvin too, if you prefer.

If you'd like to dream up some kind of fantasy scenario (not supported by on-screen evidence, as it were) to explain why the Narada was able to defeat the Kelvin, then you're probably determined to, at all costs, make sense out of the senseless. Still, I'll be a good sport and play along.

We know that the Narada emerged from the time vortex and immediately encountered the Kelvin and then began firing on it, with apparently the same weapons it later used to destroy the Federation fleet over Vulcan. This means that the Narada was likely already armed with these advanced weapons before Romulus was destroyed and before Nero lost the plot and decided to exact revenge. This means that the Romulans are in the habit of arming mining vessels to the degree that the Narada is. You can't invoke some kind of nonsense like "the Romulans are paranoid and militaristic" to justify this, because paranoia and militarism would not manifest themselves in the form of arming a mining vessel to that extent. Again, let us look back at real-world examples of highly militarized societies (I've cited Nazi Germany and the DPRK, but we can use the USA as well), and we can see that they don't do anything of the sort. It's just not practical or economical to give ships that have no need for armaments such armaments. It's nonsensical.

It makes absolutely no sense for such a mining vessel to have such armaments needed to destroy an enemy fleet of warships, and no amount of hypothetical scenarios you attempt to concoct can make it make sense. I could buy that the HMS Shannon you referred to might not be able to, with its primitive armaments, engage and sink a large bulk carrier with ease, though only because it might not possess the raw firepower needed to sink a vessel with such massive bulk; I cannot, however, buy that such a vessel would be destroyed by said bulk carrier.

The rest of your analogies are equally inappropriate.

You proceed to cite the existence of armed merchantment as proof that the Narada's seriously heavy armaments make sense. Now, I have already admitted that it does make sense, in certain circumstances, to equip civilian vessels with defensive armaments during a time of formally declared war (merchant vessels operating off the Somali coast these days are not armed, despite the threat, and no, a group of illiterate Somali pirates armed with Kalashnikovs could not sink a battleship from 100 years ago). I see that you are essentially agreeing with me, at least in part. Where your analogy falls apart is that these armed merchantmen did not possess the firepower needed to engage and destroy an entire fleet of warships, whereas in the film the Narada was depicted wiping out Starfleet's task force and nearly destroying the Enterprise without taking any (apparent) damage. No, an armed merchantman would not be capable of this, and your attempt to draw a real-world analogy is therefore spurious. If I'm not mistaken, the DPRK does not and Nazi Germany did not engage in the practice of arming their merchant vessels with weapons capable of wiping out an entire hostile battlegroup.

Then you cite the Battle of Pulo Aura as evidence that a merchantman can defeat a fleet of warships, when in fact according to the very page you cite there were no ships lost on either side in the engagement. In fact, only a single vessel suffered even light damage, and the engagement was resolved largely on the part of strategic maneuvering on the part of the inferior combatant. (mainly through taking advantage of the fog of war) It's hardly an appropriate analogy to the situation in Star Trek where a single vessel was able to wipe out an entire fleet of modern ships without much effort, and destroy more than half of the Enterprise's shields with a single blow. I therefore reject your attempts to draw a parallel, because no such parallel is possible here.

Like I've said earlier in this thread, stop trying to justify the unjustifiable. The movie's "plot" makes no sense, and it's not supposed to make sense. It's supposed to be loud, sexy, and filled with explosions. In my view, people who believe it makes sense, and bend over backwards trying to get it to make sense miss the point of the entire movie.

 

[Set Harth]

The point of the movie was to not make sense?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

We know that the Narada emerged from the time vortex and immediately encountered the Kelvin and then began firing on it, with apparently the same weapons it later used to destroy the Federation fleet over Vulcan. This means that the Narada was likely already armed with these advanced weapons before Romulus was destroyed and before Nero lost the plot and decided to exact revenge. This means that the Romulans are in the habit of arming mining vessels to the degree that the Narada is...

Does it? I said pretty clearly that it's possible that NERO is the one who purchased those armaments, probably because he was ALREADY a half-mad terrorist prone to homicidal rages. His missiles did a good amount of damage to the Kelvin, but they probably wouldn't have done much against their 24th century equivalents.

You can't invoke some kind of nonsense like "the Romulans are paranoid and militaristic" to justify this

I can, and I did, because they are. You are maybe underestimating the significance of what it means to have a militaristic society, as opposed to a militaristic government.

Again, let us look back at real-world examples of highly militarized societies (I've cited Nazi Germany and the DPRK, but we can use the USA as well)

None of which are militarized societies. The USA isn't either, even though it comes closest, and -- surprise, surprise! -- we not only have a history of arming merchant vessels in the past, we have an ongoing debate in this country whether or not civilians should continue to have free access to assault weapons.

The limit to the kinds of weapons civilians can now purchase is their market availability; the only reason we aren't discussing civilian ownership of antiaircraft missiles is because it's harder to buy them on the internet (pesky things like arms control laws and such). Those restrictions are notoriously lax in Star Trek, where even people like Quark know a guy who knows a guy who can get you some photon torpedoes within a week's notice.

I could buy that the HMS Shannon you referred to might not be able to, with its primitive armaments, engage and sink a large bulk carrier with ease, though only because it might not possess the raw firepower needed to sink a vessel with such massive bulk; I cannot, however, buy that such a vessel would be destroyed by said bulk carrier.

The USS Cole was nearly destroyed by a SINGLE fiberglass boat equipped with an improvised bomb. Add five more boats to that single attack and there wouldn't have been enough left of the Cole to fill a suitcase.

Multiply that by seven -- both the ships and the weapons -- and you have the attack over Vulcan.

Again, hardly without precedent, and the attack in Yemen wasn't even a legitimate weapon, but an improvised explosive device, which Nero's weapons very likely are.

a group of illiterate Somali pirates armed with Kalashnikovs could not sink a battleship from 100 years ago.

A PAIR of terrorists in Yemen nearly sank the Cole. What did they know that the Somalians don't?

More to the point: the Somalians do not attack with the intention of SINKING their targets. They are fully capable of doing so if so motivated; it's not as hard as you'd like to think. They would, however, manage to CAPTURE a 19th century warship with the combination of automatic weapons and RPGs. Not claiming it as a sure thing, but the technological disparity -- not to mention the "oh shit" factor as those 19th century sailors struggle to understand who or what is attacking them -- would more than make up for the difference in overall firepower. That advantage, however, would not last forever; as soon as those sailors got their shit together, the tables would turn quickly.

You DO know that Nero dies at the end of STXI, right?

I see that you are essentially agreeing with me, at least in part. Where your analogy falls apart is that these armed merchantmen did not possess the firepower needed to engage and destroy an entire fleet of warships

They did, IF those warships were line vessels from a century and a half earlier. An armed merchant ship from, say, World War-II would have both greater armor and greater armament than a line vessel from 1805.

More importantly, there's the fact that Nero's weapons clearly ARE NOT standard starship weapons. The Narada has neither disruptors nor plasma torpedoes and the suspicious absence of a cloaking device. By Romulan fleet standards, the Narada isn't heavily armed.

Then you cite the Battle of Pulo Aura as evidence that a merchantman can defeat a fleet of warships, when in fact according to the very page you cite there were no ships lost on either side in the engagement. In fact, only a single vessel suffered even light damage, and the engagement was resolved largely on the part of strategic maneuvering on the part of the inferior combatant.

That's how inferior combatants win battles, you know: strategic maneuvering and/or surprise attacks.

How was it that the Narada got the drop on seven Federation starships again?

It's hardly an appropriate analogy to the situation in Star Trek where a single vessel was able to wipe out an entire fleet of modern ships

They weren't modern by Nero's standards.